4
So far as I have been able to learn, the trans-Pacific steamship traffic of the
New World is at present carried:—
(1) From Vancouver by the ships of the Canadian Pacific Railway Com-
pany, which maintains one service viá Yokohama and Shanghai to Hong Kong,
and another vid Honolulu and the Fiji Islands to New Zealand and Australia.
As Vancouver is far above the zone in which yellow fever can occur, there
is no danger of the conveyance of yellow fever by those ships,
(2) From San Francisco by some eight or nine lines of steamships, the
details of which are given in the section of this report dealing with Honolulu.
Most of them trade as far as Honolulu only, but the ships of the Pacific Mail
Steamship Company run to Japan, China and Hong Kong; and the United
States army transports, and some freight steamers go to the Phillipines.
San Francisco is in regular shipping communication with the coast ports
down to Panama, the journey to that place taking from 26 to 30 days : but it lies
at latitude 37° north of the Equator, and although the possibility that it might
suffer from short outbreaks of yellow fever cannot be entirely dismissed; such an
event, in view of the thorough protective measures in force, is very unlikely, and
in any case it is most improbable that it would become a centre for the dissem-
ination of the disease.
(3) From Manzanillo and Mazatlan by the ships of the Toyo Kisen Kaisha
Company and the Eng Hook Fong Company, which run via Honolulu to
Japanese and Chinese ports and Hong Kong.
(4) From Salina Cruz by the ships of the American Hawaiian and the Toyo
Kisen Kaisha Companies to Honolulu and to Japan and China, and by one or
more lines to Tahiti and New Zealand.
The Mexican ports just named are, I think, of most importance from our
present point of view, for there are a number of reasons in favour of the opinion
that yellow fever may become seriously prevalent in them. Salina Cruz is es-
pecially important as being the Pacific terminus of the Mexican inter-Oceanic
railway across the Isthmus of Tehuontepec, the connecting ports on the Atlantic
being Puerto Mexico and Vera Cruz, which is the largest port in the country.
The railway was opened in January 1907 and has since carried an immense
amount of traffic. By this route the distance from San Francisco to New
York is shorter by about 1,000 miles, and from Honolulu to New York by nearly
2,000 miles, than by the route across the isthmus of Panama, and it has, there-
fore, been said that the railway may prove a formidable rival to the Panama
Canal. Already it connects on the Atlantic side with eight lines of steamships
and on the Pacific side with six, and is the route used for nearly all the freight
traffic between Hawaii and the Atlantic coast, the American-Hawaiian Steamship
Company alone carrying every year about 300,000 tons of sugar from Honolulu
to Salina Cruz en route to New York and Philadelphia. Another factor favour-
ing an increase of trade in Mexican Pacific coast ports is the extension of the
Southern Pacific section of the Pan-American railroad as far as Mazatlan, and it
must not be forgotten, also, that those ports will be principally affected by the
increased commercial activity that will follow the opening of the Panama Canal.
Salina Cruz is not reported as being indigenously affected with yellow fever at
present, but as recently as February 1912 seven imported cases occurred there
on a ship from Guayaquil, a severely infected Ecuadorian port of which a separate
account is given in Section III ; and in addition it must be noted that there is
much coasting trade between the port and suspected ports in Guatemala, Salvador,
Nicaragua, Columbia and Peru and that during recent years the national railways
of Mexico have brought it within easy reach of dangerous areas on the Gulf
coast. It should be added that the Mexican Pacific coast port of San Bias is
believed to be the port from which in 1826 mosquitoes were first introduced into
Hawaii, and that in October 1910 a case of yellow fever was discovered at
Honolulu on a ship from Manzanillo.
(5) From South American Pacific coast ports as far down as Valparaiso and
Coronel by the ships of the Toyo Kisen Kaisha Company. In this connexion it