# National Geographic Magazine/Volume 1/Number 4/A Trip to Panama and Darien

A TRIP TO PANAMA AND DARIEN.
By Richard U. Goode.
The Government of the United States of Colombia in its act of Concession to the Panama Canal Company provided that it should give to the latter "gratuitement et avec toutes les mines qu'ils pourront contenir" 500,000 hectares of land.
Some of the conditions attached to this grant were, that the land should be selected within certain limits and surveyed by the Canal Company; that a topographical map should be made of the areas surveyed and that an amount equal to that surveyed for the canal should also be surveyed for the benefit of the Colombian Government. It was also further agreed that it would not be necessary to complete the canal before any of the land should be granted, but that it would be given at different times in amounts proportional to the amount of work accomplished.
Thus in 1887, the Government agreed to consider that one-half of the work on the canal had been finished and that the canal was consequently entitled to 250,000 hectares of land, upon the completion of the necessary surveys, etc.
The land was eventually chosen partly in Darien and partly in Chiriqui as follows:
In Darien three lots, one between the Paya and Mangle rivers, one between the Maria and Pirri rivers, the two amounting to 100,000 hectares, and one lot of 25,000 hectares between the Yape and Pucro rivers.
In Chiriqui, which is a Province of Panama just east of Costa Rica, two lots were chosen amounting to 125,000 hectares, one between the Sigsola and Rabalo rivers, and the other between the Catabella and San Pedro rivers.
The Canal Company wanted the title to the land in order that it might be used as collateral security in bolstering up the finances of the corporation, and the Colombian Government was doubtless very willing to let the Canal Company have this amount or as much more as was wanted, both parties being equally aware of the valueless character of the land for any practical purposes.
My services were engaged in 1888 in connection with the astro​nomical work incident to the survey of these grants and it was intended that I should visit both Darien and Chiriqui, but the contract term expired about the time of the completion of the work in Darien, which was taken up first, and it was deemed prudent for various reasons, the chief of them being the unhealthiness of the locality at that season of the year, about the middle of April, not to remain longer on the Isthmus. If it had been possible to work as expeditiously as in this country there would have been ample time to have completed the necessary astronomical work for both surveys, and without understanding men and methods peculiar to a tropical country I started out with this expectation, but soon found out that any efforts looking towards expediting any particular matter were not only useless but were detrimentally reactive upon the person putting forward such efforts. Thus it was nearly the first of March before I reached Darien, having sailed from New York a month previously. Passage was had from Panama to Darien in a steamer chartered for the purpose. Sailing across the Bay of Panama and entering the Tuyra River at Boca Chica, we ascended the river as far as the village Real de St. Marie. At this point the steamer was abandoned and further transportation was had in canoes.
Darien is a province of the State of Panama and its boundaries as given by Lieut. Sullivan in his comprehensive work on "Problem of Interoceanic Communication," are as follows: "The Atlantic coast line is included between Point San Blas and Cape Tiburon; that of the Pacific extends from the mouth of the Bayano to Point Ardita. The eastern boundary is determined by the main Cordillera in its sweep across the Isthmus from a position of close proximity to the Pacific, near Point Ardita, to a similar position near Tiburon, on the Atlantic. The valleys of the Mandinga and Mamoni-Bayano determine its western limit."
The Darien hills as seen from the Atlantic side present to the view an apparently solid ridge of mountains, although there are in reality many low passes which are concealed by projecting spurs.
The dividing ridge hugs close to the Atlantic, and the rivers, of which there are a great many on this side, plunge abruptly to the sea. On the Pacific side the rivers have a much longer distance to flow before reaching the sea, and the territory bordering on the ocean is low and swampy. The tidal limit of the Tuyra River is nearly fifty miles from its mouth, and on this river and ​many of its tributaries one can travel many miles inland before ground sufficiently solid to land upon can be found. The vegetation within this low lying area is thick and closely matted together, and this fact taken in connection with the swampy character of the ground, makes travel on foot through any portion of it exceedingly difficult. Therefore the various rivers, which form a very complex system and penetrate everywhere are the natural highways of the country. The chief rivers on the Pacific side are the Tuyra and Boyano with their numerous tributaries and on the Atlantic watershed is the Atrato.
A peculiarity noticed at Real de St. Marie, which is at the junction of the Pyrrhi and Tuyra rivers and at which point the tide has a rise and fall of twelve or fifteen feet, was that at low tide it was impossible to enter the mouth of the Pyrrhi with a boat, while five or six miles up the stream there was always a good supply of flowing water and at double that distance it became a mountain torrent.
Outside of the swampy area the character of the country is rough and mountainous. The valleys are narrow and the ridges exceedingly sharp, the natural result of a great rain fall. The hills are able to resist the continued wasting effect of the vast volumes of descending water only by their thick mantle of accumulated vegetation, and were it not for this protection the many months of continuous annual rain would long ago have produced a leveling effect that would have made unnecessary the various attempts of man to pierce the Isthmian mountains and form an artificial strait.
The ridges are sometimes level for a short distance, but are generally broken and are made up of a succession of well rounded peaks. These peaks are always completely covered with trees and from the top of the sharpest of them it is impossible to get a view of the surrounding country. The highest point climbed was about 2,000 feet above sea level and the highest peak in Darien is Mt. Pyrrhi which is between three and four thousand.
Darien has been the scene of a great deal of surveying and exploration from the time that Columbus, in 1503, coasted along its shores, hoping to find a strait connecting the two oceans, up to the present time. Balboa, in 1510, discovered the Pacific by crossing the Darien mountains from Caledonia Bay. This discovery taken in connection with the broad indentations of the land noted by Columbus, led the old world to believe in the exist​ence of a strait, and the entire coast on each side of the new world was diligently searched. The Cabots, Ponce de Leon and Cortez interested themselves in this search and it was not until about 1532 that all expectations of finding the strait were abandoned. The idea of a direct natural communication between the oceans being thus dispelled, the question of an artificial junction arose, and in 1551 a Spanish historian recommended to Philip II. of Spain the desirability of an attempt to join the oceans by identically the same routes to which the attention of the whole civilized portion of the world is now being drawn, that is, Tehauntepec, Nicaragua and Panama. From this time up to the commencement of the work of the Isthmian expeditions sent out by the United States, and which lasted from 1870 to 1875, but little geographical knowledge relative to Darien was obtained. The United States expeditions undoubtedly did a great amount of valuable exploration and surveying, and while the names of Strain, Truxton, Selfridge and Lull will always be held in high esteem for what they accomplished in this direction, still it is to be regretted that with all the resources at their command they did not make a complete map of the country. And just here I want to bring forward the suggestion that all that has been accomplished and more, could have been accomplished if the various explorers had known, or practically utilized, a fact that my own experience and that of other topographers, in this country and Darien, has impressed upon me; and that is, that it is easier in a rough and mountainous country to travel on the ridge than in the valley. In Darien they were looking for a low pass in the Cordillera and this was what should have first been sought, directly. Having found the low passes the valleys of the streams draining therefrom could have then been examined, and thus all necessary information could have been obtained and the subject exhausted. The plan followed by the Isthmian expeditions was to ascend a stream with the hope of finding a suitable pass. The pass might be found or it might not, and if not, so much labor as far as the direct solution of the problem was concerned was lost. A pass of low altitude was of primary importance and should have been sought for in an exhaustive way.
Humboldt said in substance, "Do not waste your time in running experimental lines across. Send out a party fully equipped, which keeping down the dividing ridge the whole length of the Isthmus, by this means can obtain a complete knowledge of the ​hypsometrical and geological conditions of the dam that obstructs the travel and commerce of the world." But strange to say this plan suggested by such an eminent authority as Humboldt and so strongly recommended by common sense, has never been followed, and to-day after all the money that has been spent and the lives lost in explorations in Darien, there is not sufficient data collected to prove conclusively that there does not now exist some route for an interoceanic canal that possesses merits superior to any at present known. It is true the dividing ridge would be difficult to follow on account of the great number of confusing spurs, but I think I am safe in saying that starting from the summit of the main ridge at Culebra pass on the Isthmus of Panama, the dividing ridge extending to the pass at the head waters of the Atrato could be exhaustively followed and studied with as much facility as could either the Tuyra or Atrato rivers, embracing with each their respective tributaries.
I traveled on some of the high dividing ridges in Darien, and did not find that progress was at all difficult, and especially noted the fact of the absence of tangled undergrowth and matted vines which is so characteristic of the Darien forests generally.
Now a few words about the inhabitants of Panama and Darien, and in referring to these I mean the native inhabitants and not the indiscriminate gathering of all nationalities that were attracted by the Panama Canal.
In Central and South America, as in North America, the aboriginal inhabitant was the Indian. When the Spaniards first attempted to colonize Darien they were met and resisted by the native Indian just as our forefathers were in Virginia and Massachusetts, and as with us so in Panama and Darien the Indians have been driven back by degrees from the shores of both oceans until now they are found only in the far interior.
They resemble our Indians in appearance, but are smaller. They are averse to manual labor and live almost entirely by hunting and fishing, although they sometimes have small plantations of plantains, bananas, oranges and lemons. The Spaniards in settling in the new country brought very few women with them and the Colombian of to-day is the result of the admixture of the Indian and Spanish blood, and has many of the characteristics of each race.
In addition to the Indian and Colombian there are in Panama and Darien a comparatively large number of negroes, who were originally imported as slaves by the early Spaniards, ​and who now constitute by far the larger portion of the inhabitants of Darien, being found usually in villages along the valleys of the larger streams. In contrast to the Colombian and Indian they are large in stature and make excellent laborers.
The principal villages in Darien, as Yovisa, Pinagana and Real de St. Marie, are inhabited exclusively by the negroes, with the exception of a Spanish judge in each, who exercises great authority. Besides being a judge in civil and criminal cases, he practically controls everything in his particular village, as all contracts for labor are negotiated with him and settlement for services made through him.
Upon reaching Darien the first work assigned me was the survey and exploration of the Pyrrhi river. This survey was made for two purposes: primarily, to determine if any of the country bordering upon it was of a sufficiently desirable character to include it within the grant, and secondly, to secure data for the general topographical map. My instructions were to proceed as far south as latitude 7° 30'. The ascent of the river was made in canoes until the frequency of rapids made it necessary to abandon them, and then the journey was continued on foot, generally wading in the middle of the stream, as the undergrowth was too thick to admit of progress along the banks. Sometimes the water was very shallow; at other times, where it had been backed up by dams of porphyritic rock, it reached above the waist, and near the end of the journey where the river ran between vertical walls of great height it was necessary to swim in order to get beyond this cañon.
The survey of this river was satisfactorily accomplished in about a week. The method adopted for the survey was to take compass bearings and to estimate distances. These courses and distances were plotted as they were taken and thus the topographical and other features could be readily sketched in connection with them. To check and control this work, observations were taken every day at noon with a sextant, on the sun, for latitude and time, and at night circum-meridian altitudes of stars were obtained when possible.
Thus a number of rivers were surveyed—the Maria, Tucuti, Yovisa and other tributaries of the Tuyra. When it was found that a sufficiently correct idea of the country for topographical purposes could not be obtained by simply meandering the water courses, lines or trochas were cut through the forest from stream ​to stream, and where two streams thus connected were tributaries of a common river, all of which had been previously surveyed, a closed figure was obtained, an adjustment for errors of closure made, and by putting together the topographical data obtained by the four lines, there was generally found to be sufficient information to give a satisfactory though of course a crude delineation of the included area.
After a number of rivers had been examined with more or less accuracy in this way, it was finally decided that the area for one portion of the grant best suited for the purposes of the Canal Company lay on the right bank of the Tuyra river, and that the portion of the river which lay between the mouths of two of its tributaries, the Rio Yape and the Rio Pucro, should be one of the boundaries of the grant. The Yape and Pucro have courses approximately parallel to each other and at right angles to the Rio Tuyra, and these streams were also chosen as boundary lines, so that the grant would have the three rivers as natural boundaries, and the fourth and closing boundary was to be a straight line from a certain point on the Yape to the Pucro, so located as to include within the four boundaries an area approximately equal to the amount of the grant, which in this particular case was 25,000 hectares. The problem then presented was given three rivers for three boundaries of a figure to establish a fourth and artificial line, completing the figure in such a way that it should contain a given area, and also to procure data for a topographical map of the country surveyed.
This survey was put under my direction and I was instructed to proceed to a point overlooking the Tuyra river, between the Rio Yape and the Rio Pucro, near the mouth of the Rio Capite, for the purpose of establishing a base camp. Leaving Real de St. Marie on the evening of March 15th, with a fleet of twelve canoes and about thirty native laborers, we reached the site for the camp in two days. After landing everything, the work of clearing away trees and underbrush over an area sufficiently large for the camp was commenced. The men worked willingly with axe and machéte, and soon the forest receded and left bare a semi-circular space facing the river.
Two houses were needed and without saw, nail or hammer the construction was commenced and prosecuted rapidly. Straight trees about six inches in diameter and twenty feet long were cut and planted vertically in holes dug out with the machéte, and ​horizontal pieces of a smaller diameter were securely fastened on with long tough strips of bark, and thus a square or oblong frame was fashioned. The horizontal pieces were placed at a distance of about three feet from the ground, on which a flooring was eventually laid, and at the top of the frame where the slope of the roof began. On the top pieces other poles were laid and fastened across and lengthwise, and on these the men stood while making the skeleton of the roof. The latter was made very steep for better protection against the rain. After the ridge pole was put in position other smaller poles were fastened on parallel and perpendicular to it so that the whole roof was divided up into squares, and it was finally completed by weaving in thick bunches of palm and other leaves in such a way as to make it thoroughly water-proof. For our purpose no protection on the sides of the structures other than the projecting eaves was considered necessary. A floor of poles laid very close together was put in one house, the one used for sleeping purposes, and in the other a table for eating, writing, draughting, etc., was made. Thus in two or three days the place was made thoroughly habitable, and men were detailed to see that the grounds, etc., were always kept thoroughly clean and in a good sanitary condition, a very necessary precaution in a tropical country. The forest afforded game, the river an abundance of fish; bananas, oranges, lemons and pineapples were easily procured from the natives, who also furnished material for a poultry yard, and thus while located at camp Capite, situated as it was on a picturesque spot overlooking two swiftly flowing rivers, with good drinking water, a commissary department well stocked, a French cook who would have done himself credit anywhere, I could not but think that heretofore pictures of life in Darien had been too somberly drawn, and that where so much suffering and sickness had prevailed among the early explorers it was because they had gone there not properly outfitted, and because carried away with ambitious enthusiasm their adventurous spirit had caused them often to undertake that which their calmer judgment would not have dictated; and that to these causes as much as to the unhealthy condition of the locality was due their many hardships. Several days were spent here getting time and latitude observations and in mapping out plans for the work. It was decided that the mouths of the Yape, Capite and Pucro and other points along these rivers, such as mouths of tributary streams, etc., should be astronomically lo​cated, that these points should be connected by compass lines, and also that cross lines should be run at various points from the Yape to the Capite and from the Capite to the Pucro. It was further decided that as time was limited it would be impracticable to run out the fourth side of the figure that would contain the grant, as the country around the headwaters of the streams was known to be exceedingly rough and mountainous, and to follow any straight line would necessarily involve a great amount of laborious cutting and climbing.
Furthermore, in order to know just what direction this line should follow it would be first necessary to make a connected preliminary survey of the three rivers; to plot this survey and then by inspection of the map and consideration of various starting points to decide on the most available location of the fourth side.
Instead of this it was considered best and sufficient to arbitrarily adopt a certain waterfall on the Rio Yape, the location of which was approximately known from a reconnoisance previously made, as the initial point of the line connecting the upper Yape with the Pucro and closing the figure. Thus it only became necessary, as far as the boundaries were concerned, to run a line along the Tuyra, joining the mouths of the Yape and Pucro; to run a line from the mouth of the Yape to the waterfall above referred to; and to run up the Pucro sufficiently far to be certain that when the work was completed and plotted, a line drawn from the position of the waterfall on the map in such a way as to include the desired area would intersect the Pucro at some point within the limit of what had been surveyed. I have not time to go into the details of the various trips by land and water necessary to carry out these plans.
Before starting it was known exactly what was necessary to be done; each assistant engineer had his work clearly mapped out before him, and each one faithfully performed the task allotted to him, so that the whole survey was brought to a successful completion. This brought to a close all the work in Darien, the other tracts having been surveyed before my arrival and consequently the whole expedition returned to Panama, and soon afterwards I returned to this country.
In going to and returning from Darien, I passed twice over the Panama railroad and along the line of the Panama canal, and I have thought that a few facts relative to the canal and railroad might prove of interest to the Geographical Society.
​Published herewith is a sketch showing the location of the railroad, canal and tributary drainage, and a profile along the axis of the canal.
The first surveys for the railroad were made in 1849, and it was probably the excitement of the California gold fever that brought about its construction at this particular time. Ground was broken in January, 1850, and the last rail was laid in January, 1855.
The length of the road is 47.6 miles and it crosses the dividing summit at an elevation of 263 feet above the mean level of the Atlantic ocean. The maximum grade is 60 feet to the mile. Soon after the road was built accurate levels were run to determine the difference, if any, between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and it was found that the mean levels were about the same, although there are of course variations owing to local causes, and considerable differences of height at times, owing to differences of tides in the Atlantic and Pacific. At Aspinwall the greatest rise is only 1.6 feet, while at Panama there is at times a difference of over 21 feet between high and low water. The cost of the railroad was $75,000,000.
The existence of the railroad was probably the deciding cause that led Lesseps to the adoption of this location of the proposed canal.
Now that the scheme has practically failed it is very easy to see and appreciate the difficulties that lay in the way of building a canal at this particular place; and it certainly seems that if sound engineering principles had been adopted at least some of these difficulties could have been understood and properly combatted. The whole scheme, however, from an engineering standpoint, seems to have been conducted in the most blundering manner.
Lesseps is a diplomat and financier, but in no sense a great engineer. In the construction of the Suez canal, the questions of diplomacy and finance were the most difficult to settle, while the engineering problems were comparatively simple. In Panama the opposite conditions prevailed. Concessions were freely given him by the Colombian government and money freely offered him by the French people, but he never grasped or comprehended the difficulties that nature had planted in his way, and these only seemed to occur to him when they blocked progress in a certain direction. The Paris Conference, controlled by Lesseps, decided ​on the 29th of May, 1879, that the construction of an interoceanic canal was possible and that it should be built from the Gulf of Limon to the Bay of Panama.
The tide-level scheme was adopted and the following dimensions decided upon, viz: Length, 45.5 miles; depth, 28 feet; width at water line 164 feet, and width at bottom 72 feet.
The route determined upon was about the same as that of the railroad, that is along the valleys of the Chagres and Obispo, crossing the divide at the Culebra pass and then descending to the Pacific along the course of the Rio Grande. The profile which is reproduced from "Science," shows the state of progress on January 1st, 1888, and the amount of excavation that has been done since that time would make but a slight difference in the appearance of the profile. The portion shown in black is what has been removed along the axis of the canal and represents an expenditure of over $385,000,000 and seven years' labor. The reasons that make the scheme impracticable are briefly these, some of which were known before the work was commenced, and all of which should have been understood.
The first great difficulty is in cutting through the ridge culminating at Culebra where the original surface was 354 feet above the bed of the proposed canal. It was never known what the geological formation of this ridge was until the different strata were laid bare by the workman's pick, and the slope adopted, 1½ to 1, was found to be insufficient in the less compact formations, even at the comparatively shallow depth that was reached, and many and serious landslides were of frequent occurrence.
Another serious difficulty was the disposition of the excavated material, for upon the completion of a sea-level course this channel would naturally drain all the country hitherto tributary to the Chagres and Rio Grande, and any substance not removed to a great distance would eventually be washed back again into the canal. But perhaps the greatest difficulty was in the control of the immense surface drainage. The Chagres river during the dry season is, where it crosses the line of the canal near Gamboa, only about two feet deep and 250 feet wide, but during a flood the depth becomes as much as forty feet, the width 1,500 feet, and the volume of water discharged 160,000 cubic feet per second. The bed of the river is here 42 feet above sea level, or 70 feet above what the bottom of canal would have been. Now add to ​this a 40-foot flood and we have a water surface one hundred and ten feet above the bed of the canal.
In order to keep this immense volume of water from the canal it was proposed to build a large dam at Gamboa, and to convey the water by an entirely different and artificial route to the Atlantic. It is impossible to show on the map the whole drainage area of the Chagres, but a rough calculation shows it to be about 500 square miles. This seems a small total drainage area, but when it is considered that the annual rainfall is about 12 feet, that this rainfall is confined to about one half the year, and that in six consecutive hours there has been a precipitation of over six inches of rain, some idea of the amount of water that finds its way through the Chagres river during the wet season may be formed.
As I said before it was proposed to protect the canal from the waters of the upper Chagres by an immense dam at Gamboa, and for the purpose of controlling the water tributary to the lower Chagres two additional canals or channels were to be constructed on either side of the main canal. Thus, as the river is very tortuous and the axis of the canal crossed it twenty-five or thirty times, many deviations of the former became necessary. In some places the canal was to occupy the bed of the river and in others it cut across bends leaving the river for its original natural purpose of drainage. The difficulty in retaining the floods in these constructed channels would of course be immense, especially in some of the cases where the water rushing along its natural channel is suddenly turned at right angles into an artificial one. Thus it is clear that aside from the enormous expense incident to the removal of the immense amount of earth and rock necessary to complete the canal, that granting all this accomplished, it would be practically impossible to maintain a sea-level canal by reason of the difficulty in controlling the Chagres and preventing the canal from filling up.
The canal company finally came to the conclusion that the sea-level scheme was impracticable and it was abandoned, and plans were prepared for a lock system. As seen on the profile there were ten locks proposed, five on each side of the summit level. The summit level was to be 150 feet above sea level and consequently each lock would have a lift of thirty feet. The profile was constructed especially to show the amount remaining to be executed to complete the lock system, and a mere inspection will ​show the relative amount of completed and uncompleted area along the axis of the canal. To complete the summit cut it is still necessary to excavate 111 feet, 93 feet having already been excavated, through a horizontal distance of 3300 feet. The width of cut at top surface for the required depth at a slope of 11/2 to 1 would be 750 feet, but as I said before, at this slope landslides were of frequent occurrence and the slope would probably have to be increased to at least 2 to 1.
Granting the necessary excavations made, there would be still the problem of the control of the Chagres river and the water supply for the summit level to provide for. At first it was thought that the water supply could be obtained from the storage of the waters of the Chagres and Obispo, but this idea was eventually abandoned, either from a belief in the insufficiency of the water supply during the dry season, or from difficulties in the way of conveying the water to the summit level.
Then it was that the advice of Mr. Eiffel, a noted French engineer, was sought, and after a visit to the Isthmus he proposed that the summit level should be supplied by pumping from the Pacific. A contract was immediately made with Eiffel, who was heralded all over the world as the man who would save the canal, and immediately a positive day, the seventh that had been announced, was fixed for the opening of the great canal.
I do not know just how much work was done towards perfecting the system for pumping, but probably very little was ever accomplished in this direction, as soon after this scheme was thought of the available funds of the canal company began to be very scarce, and there has been since then a general collapse of work all along the line until now it is entirely suspended. From what I have said and from what can be seen from the profile, it will be readily understood that as far as the sea-level project is concerned the amount done is not much more than a scraping of the surface, relatively speaking, and that what has been done is in places where the obstacles were fewest.
In regard to the lock canal about one third of the necessary excavation has been made along the axis of the canal, but taking into consideration other requirements necessary for the completion of the scheme, I should estimate, roughly, that probably only one sixth of the whole amount of work had been accomplished. The question now naturally arises as to what will be the probable future of this great enterprise.
​The French people have seen the scheme fail under Lesseps in whom they had the most unbounded confidence, and it is not likely that they will raise any more money to be put in it as a business enterprise under any other management. Saddled as it is with a debt of nearly four hundred millions of dollars, it would be difficult to convince any one that it could ever prove to be a paying investment. Nor do I think that any American or English corporation can be organized that could obtain such concessions from Lesseps as would make the scheme an inviting field for capitalists, and thus my opinion is that the "Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interocéanique de Panama has irretrievably collapsed, and that the canal will remain, as it is now, the most gigantic failure of the age.
PROFILE OF THE PANAMA CANAL.
Black indicates work executed; stipple, work to be executed to complete a lock-canal; white, additional work to be executed to complete a sea-level canal.