of passengers carried during the year was 2,999,500, and in 1912 a larger traffic was recorded.

The plans for the canal as adopted by the Americans in 1906 played havoc with the right of way of the railroad, so in June, 1907, the work of relocating it back among the hills out of reach of Gatun Lake was begun. After five years' work, or as long as it required to build the original line in 1850-1855, the new line was opened to traffic in 1912. The full line, however, was used only for freight trains, as the Canal Zone towns mostly are on the old line, along the Culebra cut.

This twentieth century Panama Railroad has cost $9,000,000, as compared with the cost of the nineteenth century road, $7,000,000, an increase of $2,000,ooo after a lapse of sixty years. On the face of things the performance in 1850-1855 seems more creditable than in 1907-1912, because then a pathless jungle had to be conquered when the Isthmus was a death trap; whereas now the Americans had a force of workers organized, they had the equipment on the ground with which to do the work and the entire resources of the canal organization as to quarters, subsistence, and medical attention were within easy reach. Not considering the cost, the relocated line is a beautiful piece of engineering work.

The dream of a Pan-American Railroad has been entertained ever since steam locomotion came into use. When several gaps are filled in, there will be railroad communication through Mexico, Guatemala, and Nicaragua to Costa Rica, which adjoins Panama.

The

Republic of Panama has been planning an interior railroad system that would be part of an all-rail route from the United States to the canal. Before many years it is likely that a bridge will span the canal in a railroad system that reaches from Canada through Panama to the mainland of South America, thence down the West Coast to Valparaiso.

In connection with the railroad, the government has operated a steamship line to New York, from Colon, the fleet at present consisting of six ships, the Ancon, Cristobal, Panama, Colon, Advance, and Allianca. These ships have transported the larger part of canal supplies from the Atlantic seaboard. Canal employees get passenger rates of $20 or $30 for one-way trips when taking vacations, and other steamship lines grant smaller reductions. The regular rate from New York is $75. It is the only line to Panama that flies our flag.

CHAPTER V

O

THE FRENCH IN PANAMA

PINIONS as to the advisability of an Isthmian canal ran all the way from the attitude of Philip II, of Spain, that it would be impious to tamper with natural land configurations as arranged by Providence, to the bold determination of the French to do at Panama what they had done at Suez.

Ferdinand de Lesseps and his Panama career vindicate strikingly the truth of the adage that nothing succeeds like success. The French Panama Canal Company was floated on the strength of his achievement in cutting a sea-level passage from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, thus making an island of Africa.

When he turned his attention to Panama as a new field for glory, the French people enthusiastically applauded his audacity and, what is more significant and substantial, invested, first and last, $265,000,000 in the enterprise. American capital entered practically not at all into the French project, and not a great deal of outside European capital, the French middle and peasant classes being the principal shareholders.

There had been talk and paper negotiations aplenty before M. de Lesseps became active. In 1838 a French syndicate sought to interest their government in the enterprise but the plan fell through, and the failure

later of the French companies to build the canal cannot be censured as a failure of the French government, which never financed it as a national enterprise as has been done in the successful American attempt.

President Simon Bolivar, of New Grenada, or Colombia, in 1827, had ordered a study made of the Isthmus to ascertain facts about a route for a canal or railroad. Any concession that might be granted must come from his government. The various American nibbles at the idea have been noted, and as a way of stirring us up to real action, Colombia paid assiduous court to France. Gen. Stephen Turr, a native of Hungary, in 1876 obtained a concession, in association with Lieut. Lucien N. B. Wyse, who figured prominently in all the later French operations. Count de Lesseps was interested by Wyse who, in 1878, revived the concession on the following terms: Its life was for ninety-nine years after the completion of the canal, allowing two years to organize the company and twelve years in which to dig the canal. Colombia was to receive $250,000 annually after the seventy-sixth year of the life of the concession and it expressly was stipulated that though the French company might sell to other private companies, it could not sell out to any government, a provision which played a vital part in the transactions leading up to the American control in 1904.

The French were theatrical in their plans for launching the enterprise. A world congress of engineers was invited to assemble in Paris in May, 1879, to decide upon the type and cost of the canal. M. de

Lesseps presided and guided the decision to a sealevel type, the same as at Suez. There were eleven Americans in the assembly but this was the extent of American interest. It was at this congress that the first suggestion of a dam at Gatun for a lock-type canal was made by Godin de Lepinay, a French engineer. The sea-level advocates advanced the plan of digging a great tunnel for ten miles through the Cordilleras and so divert the Chagres River into the Pacific Ocean away from the canal, as that river was useless in a sea-level type.

Under the stimulus of these proceedings, the new company's stock was over-subscribed by the admiring countrymen of the great de Lesseps, the first issue being for $60,000,000. M. de Lesseps then made a spectacular trip to Panama, arriving at Colon on December 30, 1879. The Panamans and foreign colony received him with wild acclaim as the forerunner of a golden stream of money about to enrich their country, and as the first concrete step toward realizing the dream of four centuries.

The first blast of an explosive in the construction of an Isthmian canal was set off by one of the young daughters of M. de Lesseps at Culebra on January 10, 1880. After several weeks of banqueting, Count de Lesseps left for the United States to stir the imagination of the Americans over the enterprise. About the only result was to attract the attention of some contractors to the work, notably in the case of the Slaven brothers who, previous to their Panama adventure, had seen no experience in construction work, but who