Panama and the Canal (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1910 Excerpt: ...and then down this stream to the Atlantic. Here, surely, was an easy way from the Atlantic to the Pacific, --only one hundred and seventy miles and largely by water. It seemed as if a canal might be built at Nicaragua. Spanish surveyors also declared, at this time, that a canal could be built across Panama. So, for a time, the Spaniards had high hopes of building a canal. It was not long after this, however, that Spain came to feel that if easy ways across Central America could be found or built, other nations might steal away from her the rich possessions in the New World. So the Spanish king forbade any further surveys. And for two hundred and fifty years Spain did all in her power to prevent other nations from becoming interested in a canal at Nicaragua or at Panama. But no one feared the anger of Spain, as we know from the stories of English pirates. Only a few years after Henry no WILLIAM PATERSON Morgan destroyed Panama, a famous Scotchman named William Paterson planned to get possession of Panama by planting a large Scotch colony on the Gulf Fah?e of Darien (Map V). He thought, too, that if the colony was a success, Scotland might dig a canal across the Isthmus at that point (No. 2, Map V). What a pitiful failure it was In 1698 twelve hundred Scotchmen set out in five ships and planted a colony at Darien. Others followed and everything looked promising. But they had not counted on the climate. Fever came, as it had done so many times before. Soon more than two thousand were dead and vast sums of money had been spent. Suddenly a hostile Spanish fleet appeared. The few survivors ran away in defeat to Scotland. There was to be no Scotch canal. For more than one hundred years the failure of Paterson's plan discouraged any more such efforts. Fanure But in...