PROGRESS AT PANAMA. 453 



Chinese recently brought over, have sho^vn themselves good work- 

 men. Time contracts are unknown ; Government officials in the islands 

 discourage negro emigration to the Isthmus ; and changes are arising 

 constantly from sickness, dissipation, return to homes, or fear of revo- 

 lution. Many leave through fear of climate, lack of guaranteed hos- 

 pital attendance, and the exorbitant rates of the Isthmus. 



On Saturday the laborers are paid. Sunday is spent in dissipation 

 or pleasure, Monday in recuperation, and it is not till Tuesday that a 

 full force is at work ; hence the number of working-days in a month 

 seldom exceeds twenty or twenty-two. Twenty thousand laborei's are 

 wanted ; and as the West Indies do not supply them, the company is 

 trying to solve the difficult question of labor in the populations of 

 Western Africa and Southern China. 



The main hospitals are at Colon and Panama, but physicians are 

 assigned also to each section of the works. There is, too, a sanitarium 

 on Taboga, an island fourteen miles from Panama. The entire medi- 

 cal staff consists of thirty physicians and fifty apothecaries. It must 

 be inci'eased and other hospitals provided, if additions be made to the 

 force of laborers. The hospital service has been much criticised, and 

 it has been asserted that contractors discharge the sick, who die for 

 lack of medical attendance. During my stay of six weeks on the 

 Isthmus I saw nothing to confirm such statement. The hospital rec- 

 oi'ds show a death-rate of seven per cent to January, 1887 ; but this 

 does not include those who, on account of illness or disease contracted 

 here, have left and died elsewhere. 



In the original act of concession, Colombia agreed to surrender to 

 the Canal Company a border 200 metres wide on each side of the 

 canal, and 500,000 hectares (1,235,571 acres) of public lands as the 

 work progresses. The first grant of 150,000 hectares, made when the 

 Colombian Government conceded that one third of the total work 

 necessary for the construction of the canal had been done, is situated 

 near the Chiriqui Lagoon and along the Tuira River. Besides this, 

 the company has bought 34,658 acres between Colon and Panama. 

 On the 9th of October, 1886, the first grant was increased to 250,000 

 hectares, the Government conceding that one half of the necessary 

 work had been finished. The company owns, therefore, 652,438 acres 

 of land, besides the border of 200 metres on each side of the canal. 



By this, however, neither the Government nor the company concede 

 that one half of the necessary excavation has been made ; but that the 

 present excavation, plus the quarters for officials and workmen, the 

 hospitals, and the plant of machinery, represents one half of the total 

 work required to finish the canal. Undoubtedly, quarters and ma- 

 chinery are important factors of the total work, but they do not rep- 

 resent twenty per cent of it ; the Government would be sufficiently 

 liberal in conceding to-day that one third of the total work has been 

 done. 



