hospitals that in order to keep things moving with anything like satisfactory expedition it was necessary to employ a force three times as great as that actually engaged on the work. The mortality during five years was slightly more than 6,000. On the first day of October, 1851, the single track was opened to Gatun, a distance of seven miles from the starting point. A few weeks later it happened that two steamers carrying passengers bound for California by the Isthmian route, were caught in one of the northers that frequently strike the Atlantic coast of Panama at that time of the year, and were obliged to take shelter in Navy Bay. This occurrence gave the new railroad its first business and a valuable advertisement. The passengers, who should have been landed at the mouth of the Chagres, were brought ashore at Manzanillo, and the railroad company undertook their transportation to Gatun. There was not such a thing as a passenger coach on the Isthmus, but the voyagers and their baggage were carried on flat-cars and construction trucks and transferred to boats which took them up the river to Las Cruces. The traffic over the finished portion of the line increased steadily, encouraging the Company and furnishing it with funds for the construction. In a few months, the rails had reached Barbacaos, the half-way point. Here the Chagres had to be crossed. A contract had been made for a bridge, but after about a year's work the contractor abandoned the undertaking and the Company was obliged to assume it. When this vexatious delay had been overcome, the work went forward briskly and without any further serious mishaps. On the 27th of January, 1855, the last rail was laid and the railroad, which has had a remarkable history, was opened throughout its length. It had cost $140,000 per mile, or a total of $7,000,000. The next question was, would it pay? At the moment that well-deserved success attended the efforts of the Company, its coffers were empty and its prospects appeared to be dark. Its funds had been exhausted in the task of completing the road, and the greatest difficulty was experienced in securing an adequate equipment of motive power and rolling stock. But the directors were full of hope and courage, and good fortune rewarded them from the outset. With poor and limited facilities for / handling traffic it was shrewdly determined to put the tariff rates at what were believed to be prohibitive figures for all but the most urgent business. The first rate sheet issued was as follows: The Company was fully prepared to make considerable reductions in these rates as soon as it should be on its feet and in a position to handle all the business offering. To its surprise, however,, the extraordinarily high charges did not prove to be in any degree prohibitive. The traffic demand was so great and insistent that the schedule was adopted as permanent and it remained in force for more than twenty years. Money began to pour into the Company's treasury in a steady stream. Improvements were made all along the line, terminal wharves and other needful structures were erected, and the road was furnished with ample cars and engines. |