"Then please start at the beginning. You see, I probably know less about it than anybody living."
"Of course you know the general lay-out?"
"I tell you I don't know a thing. There's no use four-flushing."
Runnels smiled at this candor. "Well, the ditch will be about fifty miles long, and, roughly speaking, the work is in three parts—the dredging and harbor-building at sea-level on each end of the Canal, the lock-work, and the excavations on the upper levels. That dam you saw building at Gatun will form a lake about thirty miles long—quite a fish-pond, eh? When a west-bound ship arrives, for instance, it will be raised through the Gatun locks, three of them, and then sail along eighty-five feet above the ocean, across the lake and into a channel dug right through the hills, until it reaches the locks at Pedro Miguel. Then it will be lowered to a smaller lake five miles long, then down again to the level of the Pacific. An east-bound ship will reverse the process. Get the idea?"
"Sure. It sounds easy."
"Oh, it's simple enough. That's what makes it so big. We've been working at it five years, and it will take five years more to complete it. Before we began, the French had spent about twenty years on the job. Now a word, so you will have the general scheme of operation in your head. The whole thing is run by the Isthmian Canal Commission—six men, most of whom are at war with one another. There are really two railroad systems—the I. C. C., built to haul dirt and rock and to handle materials in and out of the workings, and the Panama Railroad, which was built years ago during the California gold rush and bought by our government at the time of that terrible revolution I told you about. The latter is a regular system, hauls passengers and freight, but the two work together. You will start in with the P. R. R., Mr. Anthony, under my despotic sway."
"I know a little about railroading."
"So much the better. There's a big railroad man by your name in the
States. Are you related?"
"I believe so," Kirk answered, quietly. "Go ahead with the lesson."
"The Canal Zone is a strip of land ten miles wide running across the Isthmus—really an American colony, you know, for we govern it, police it, and all that. As for the work itself, well, the fellows at the two ends of the Canal are dredging night and day to complete their part, the lock-builders are laying concrete like mad to get their share done first, the chaps in the big cut are boring through the hills like moles and breaking steam-shovel records every week, while we railroad men take care of the whole shooting-match. Of course, there are other departments—sanitary, engineering, commissary, and so forth—all doing their share; but that is the general scheme. Everybody is trying to break records. We don't think of anything except our own business. Each fellow believes the fate of the Canal depends upon him. We've lost interest in everything except this ditch, and while we realize that there is such a place as home, it has become merely a spot where we spend our vacations. They have wars and politics and theatres and divorces out there somewhere, but we don't care. We've lost step with the world, we've dropped out. When the newspapers come, the first thing we look for is the Panama news. We're obsessed by this job. Even the women and the children feel it—you'll feel it as soon as you become a cog in the machine. Polite conversation at dinner is limited to tons of rock and yards of concrete. Oh, but I'm tired of this concrete talk."