THE CHAGRES, SHOWING OBSERVER’S CAR
From the swinging car the observer measures the crest of the flood and rapidity of the current
For the creation of this lake our engineers found the Chagres River available. It had dug the valley in which would be stored the vast volume of water needed, and the unfailing flow from its broad watershed could be relied upon at all seasons—though indeed in the rainy season its contribution is sometimes embarrassingly lavish.
FLUVIOGRAPH AT BOHIO, NOW SUBMERGED
AUTOMATIC FLUVIOGRAPH ON GATUN LAKE
Every land comes to be judged largely by its rivers. Speak of Egypt and you think of the Nile; India suggests the Ganges; England the Thames; and France the Seine. The Chagres is as truly Panamanian as the Rhine is German and there have been watches on the Chagres, too, when buccaneers and revolutionists urged their cayucas along its tortuous highway. It was the highway by which the despoilers of Peru carried their loot to the Atlantic on the way to Spain, and along its tide drifted the later argonauts who sought the golden fleece in California in the days of ’49. The poet too has sung it, but not in words of praise. Listen to its most famous lyric from the pen of James Henry Gilbert, Panama’s most famous bard and most cruel critic.
“Beyond the Chagres River
Are the paths that lead to death—
To the fever’s deadly breezes,
To malaria’s poisonous breath!
Beyond the tropic foliage,
Where the alligator waits,
Are the mansions of the Devil—
His original estates.
“Beyond the Chagres River
Are the paths fore’er unknown,
With a spider ’neath each pebble
A scorpion ’neath each stone.
’Tis here the boa-constrictor
His fatal banquet holds,
And to his slimy bosom
His hapless guest enfolds!
“Beyond the Chagres River
’Tis said—the story’s old—
Are paths that lead to mountains
Of purest virgin gold;
But ’tis my firm conviction,
Whatever tales they tell,
That beyond the Chagres River
All paths lead straight to Hell”!