The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1888-12-16
The Celebrated Railway and
De LeSSeps' Canal.
PROSPERITY OF ASPINWALL.
The Chiriqui River and Lagoon-The
Scarcity of Money In Colon-A
Circulating Medium.

HERALD of course one of the frs
things we did on arriving at Panams
was to make trip over
THE CELEBRATED RAILWAY,
which since 1855 has been running be-
tween Panama City on the Pacific side
and Aspinwall on the Atlantic, and Oh
account of which the United States came
near having the war not long ago.
Notwithstanding all the fuss that was
made at i building, it would seem thai
the const-U Of this road could mo-
have been very serious undertaking
since its highest point is scarcely 25C
feet above sea level-not a circumstance
compared to that highest railway in
Mexico between Vera Cruz and the cap
ital, which rises more than s 900 fee
within few miles.
1t is officially stated that the average
value of the merchandise that passes
from ocean to ocean over the Panama
Railroad exceeds $4i 600, 900 every year.
M. DeLesseps' inter oceanic canal,
which runs between the Atlantic and
Pacific nearly parallel W tn this rail-
way, is without locks, and almost on a
dead level. But to this inchoate wonder
of the world which the knowing ones
hereabouts are won't to characterize as
"DeLesseps' folly" we will pay more
particular attention by and by.
Aspen vail Cor Colon, as 1t Is some
times called) is
CoLoMBIA's MOST FLoURIsHING SEAPORT
and is virtually colony of the United
States of the north. having been ceded
in perpetuity by the government of
"New Granada" in 1852 to the Ameri
can company who founded it for the
Atlantic terminus of the Panama Rail-
way. Architecturally, the pert little
city looks as if it had accidentally
strayed away from New England and
got lost down here in the tropics. In
reality it does not touch Colombia or
Panama at all, but occupies 8 tiny
island (Manzanillo) in the Gulf of
Mexico, or rather in Navy Bay, an arm
of the Gulf. The small Island, though
on y about mile in extent, isCn9 of
the most busy and prosperous places in
the New World, because of its COM
handing position as a place of transit,
both by reason of the railway and the
inter-oceauic canal. Indeed, Aspin-
wall pretty nearly monopolizes the
benefits of traffic in both directions,
over the route between the two great
oceans which has appropriately been
dubbed
THE HIGHWAY OF THE WORLD"
decaying Panama. For romance and
picturesqueness the latter will always
bear the palm; but AspinwalI, with its
more commonplace features and air of
smart Yankee newness, is bound to
run so far ahead of the sleepy old
Spanish town in substantial prosperity,
as northern thrift and enterprise dis
tances southern sloth and Incidence
and picturesque though the
latter may be.
The American town was named in
honor of Colonel Aspinwall, one of the
promoters of the railway and
the shreWdest Of merchants. It's popu-
latiOn has been variousIy estimated, and
probably changes greatly with time
and seasons-but about 600 will ap-
proximate a fair average. The town
contains number of good hotels, one
of which boasts of being aole to con-
tain 600 guests. 1t has also the only
Protestant Episcopal Church in Central
America; besides several missions
Baptist and Presbyterian,
and number of Catholic sanctuaries.
There are also american and Spanish
a commodlous and we'll
conducted hospital and very handsome
buildings belonging to the railros COM
psny. The great depot is exactly in the
centre of the town, connected by track
with the wharf, at which steamers land
"a change, indeed, from the old days,
when the only way of crossing the
sthmus was on donkeyback, goods and
all
Among Aspinwalls' other attractions
LOVELY DRIVE
Eli around the island, called the PaseO
Coral corral bOuIeUard) because the island
itself is supposed to be founded upon a
bed of coral rock. Everybody patron
ICES the Paseo at the sunset hour, on
loot or in cOche. On the fartherest point
Of the island stands a lofty lighthouse,
whose revolving eye throws a yellow
CLEAN far over the stormy waterSa
Though Navy Bay is the best hsrbor On
the eastern coast, with sufficient depth
Of water for the largest vessels, and an
room for half the commerce Oh
the world, yet it is woofully subject to
the "northers" that are such terror to
mariners on the Mexican Gulf.
No fewer than seven lines of mail
steamers make Aspinwall their port of
destination, via Panama, rendering it
the chief intrepot, not only between
California and the Atlantic States, but
between England and countries beyond
the Pacific. 1t should be remembered
that Aspinwall is only about 1000 miles
from New York City, forty-nine miles
from Panama City, and equi-distant
rs, 800 miles, from those two great trad
ing posts Val Pariso and San Francisco.
Formerly the climate here was very
but Yankee neatness
assisted by thorough and enlightened
system of drainage, has made the little
island about the most salubrious shore
town in all Spanish-America. Only
eight miles away is the
OLD SPANISH TOWN OF CHkGREs