The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1903-03-05

are all turned out of doors during the
day on account of the excessive heat.
noticed with amusement that some of
the drinking places bore no other adj
vertisement than a number of little
round tables set on the pavement out
side, each table appropriately painted
with flight Of swallows. Beggars, of
course, abound, and disease, deformity,
vice and filth in every form. Leprosy
walks abroad unhindered, and it is not
uncommon. to receive your change,
your mail, even your food, from scaly
hand that ought to be in a, leper's
asylum.
You must not miss drive all around
the island, via the Paseo Coral, or Cor
al Promenade, as the beach road is
called. Part of it borders the tropical
forest, whose exuberent vegetation
springs out of the dense, serpent-infest-
ed, pestilential swamp which surrounds
Colon on three sides. The drive is
worth taking, even at five dollars an
hour in a springless coach that threat
ems every minute to 60 to pieces, like
the deacon's one-horse chaise),-for the
occasional long stretches of beautiful
shell-strewn beach, with the ocean
dashing its spray upon it and glimpses
of the hills that form the back bone of
! the Isthmus, and the green swamps
that show a series OF small islands be-
| tween Mazanillo and the main land.
| You must also see the Atlantic en-
! trance to the celebrated French canal,
| upon which work was commenced just
! twenty-three years ago. You find it on
the main land, behind the island upon
which Colon is situated but the island
has been so built out in this direction
that if the great ditch is ever complet-
! ed Colon will be on its eastern termi-
nus, in the same way that Suez is the
| Red Sea terminus of that canal. There
are acres and acres of warehouses and
work shops and cottages for the labor
ers and houses for the officers, all made
of wood long deserted and mostly in
ruins unlike those of the Railway |
Company, which knew itself to be no
+ fraudulent bubble but permanent fix
ture and therefore built in the begin
ming substantial structures of brick
and iron. Oh the pity of it! The pro-
ceeds of three hundred and fifty mil
lions of dollars in bonds, the hard
earned savings of the thrifty poor of
France sunk in this great, useless mud
hole. The most astonishing stories are
yet told concerning the methods OF rob-
berry practiced by the canal company's
officials. Everybody seems to have
stolen prodigiously; except perhaps.
the father of the whole scheme, NJ.
Ferdinand de Lesseps, who must have
been blind as a bat-culpably blind
not to have had more intimate knoWl-
! edge of the methods of his managers.
His son. NJ. Herbert de Lesseps, is
known here as the prince of thieves,
| who must have gotten away with at
least twenty million francs of other
! people lllolley. MetI " lllo VIC oo"o'i
! rate along the narrow neck of land
among those employed in digging the
canal, was simply appaling-far worse,
as those who survive declare, than the
world was ever permitted to hear of.
! The company's hospitals containing
thousands beds, We're constantly filled;
and only those who were able to travel
/ were sent there-not fraction OF the
number that persisted miserably by the
wayside. OF the fifty Sisters of CHAIR
ty sent from France forservice in these
! hospitals, all but three died OF "Chagros
fever;" and in less than five years eighty
of the hospital doctors Joined them in
! the land of shadow In sober truth,
the whole Isthmus is one vast grave
yard. Besides the many consecrated
Gods acres,' innumerable trenches
are filled to the brim with moldering
bones, and thousands of isolated graves
scattered all over the beautiful wilder
ness. Most Of the victims were young
men, hundreds fresh from college, filled
with high hopes and eager aspirations.
Pray Heaven that the gruesome history
may not be repeated if America under
takes to finish the canal.
FANNIE B. WARD.