Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1921-03-11
THE lSTHM1Us OF PANAMA
Interesting Facts About a Most In.
tereSling Country.
where THE EAST SEEMS In The WEST
How Balboa Happened to Name the
Pacific the South Sea-A Land That

: b.
Pacific the South Sea-A Land That
ils'Riehi:In the Romance oe the Past.
|" The Republic of Panama, which was
described iii recent news dispatches as
experiencing strained relations with the
neighboring republic of Costa RIGA over
a disputed boundary. is the subject Of
| the following bulletin issued By the
National Geographic Society.
The Isthmus of Panama, which now
almost exactly corresponds to the Re-
public of Panama. has probably had as
many thrills to the square fcot as any
other section of the earth Of similar
size. They have ranged from the ig-
noble to the noble. from the drunken
debaucheries Of b!oodthirsty pirates as
they sacked the prosperous cities of the
country, to the feelings Of Balboa as he
stood, the first white man to view the
waters of the Pacific, and those of the
American engineers who saw the COM
pletion there of the worlds greatest en-
gineering feat. And through it all
large tracts of the little country haye
remained much as they were when Co
lumbus first set foot there in 1902, and
happy to find part Of a real continent
after seemingly intcrminab!c islands,
named it TERRA Firrne..' - -
Panama Springs Geographic Joke
.. Panama perpctratcs one of the great
est of geographic jokes on those who
visit it. It very convincingly makes
east west. From Panama City the sun
rises out Of the Pacific. which to- most
American minds is the proper place on
Fly for setting suns. And he who sails
through the canal from the Atlantic to
the Pacific travels not from cast to
+ west as he naturally expects to do, but
from west to east, or more accurately,
from northwest to southeast. One gets
the impression, as one writer has
phrased it, that there is something
crooked about this" The crodkedness
is found to be in the isthmus which
runs preGominantly east and west In
stead Of north and South, and in addi-
ton makes a double curve like the let
ter S, so that at one place The Atlantic
waters are actually west of those Of the
Pacific.
It may seem far cry from the lay Of
the land at Panama to the South sea,
but because Of the east and west trend
of the isthmus the popular name for
that huge, island-dotted ocean has
largely taken the place Of the more.
nearly correct, South Pacific" When
Balboa stood on the isthmian mountain
crest in 1913 and discovered the great
ocean stretching off to the southwark
he naturally named it "El Mar del Sur"
the South sea. A few days later when
he had won his way to the newly dis
covered ocean he waded into 1t and
made the singularly modest claims for
the king Of Spain to sovereignty over
the sea and all lands and islands bor-
dering it, from pole to pole, till judge
ment day"
Stream o. Gold From Peru.
Since few years after Balboa's dis
covery the Isthmus Of Panama-for o.
long time called Darien-has been the
gateway for commerce between the east
and the west and between Pacific South
America and Europe. The old city OF
Panama was founded as the entry port
on the Pacific side in 1918, more than Il
hundred years before the Pilgrims land
ed in Massachusetts. Portobello, known :
to all readers of pirate tales, was the
Atlantic port. and between them was
constructed Il paved trail. AT the
height of Spanish colonial power gold
and silver from Peru were cartca
across the old trail like cord wood.
Such great wealth was an irresisu-
bic attraction to the buccaneers who
infested the Caribbean. Time alter
time they, swooped down on the
isthmus from their strange island
commonwealth near Haiti. Old Pana-
ma was entirely destroyed in 1871 by
such an expedition under the leader
ship of the notorious Henry Morgan
later Sir Henry. On the occasions
Portobcllo spite Of it's formidable
Notifications, was taken. and even ,.!2c 2c7
cupied by the pirates as base Tor
months at a time. One of the old forts
Of Portobcllo, useless in the village to
which the onc-tmc opulcnt port has
shrunk, was demolished during the
building Of the Panama Canal and its
stones crushed TO make material Tor
concrete.
Panama Isolated Politically.
Politically the Republic OF Panama
is q thing apart. 1t was formerly
state of the Republic Of Columbia, in
South America. but gained its inde-
pendencc in 1908. geographically it IS
a part OF Central America, but it has
been left out of the recently formed
Union Of Central America. This iSo-
lation is no doubt due in large part
to the existence Of the canal under
~ "a YoH,ER