THE INTEROCEANIC CANAL PROBLEM 69 



across the Panama route to Peru, that he issued, in 1542, a 

 royal order, imposing the penalty of death upon any one 

 who should attempt to enter that river. A veil of profound 

 mystery long enveloped this region, and for upward of two 

 centuries tradition gilded the unknown with its usual 

 magnificence. This most alluring river of the Atrato is 

 separated from the Pacific Ocean, along its entire course, by 

 a mere strip of land. This land, however, is the Cordillera, 

 or summit of the Andes, and although it is furrowed on 

 the eastern side by numerous streams tributary to the 

 Atrato, the explorer has always been confronted, at the 

 sources of these tributaries, by towering walls and impass- 

 able heights. This, therefore, has been a region of brilliant 

 promise and of sad disappointment. 



Each of these routes possesses its own good and bad fea- 

 tures, its own peculiar advantages and disadvantages. Careful 

 surveys of them all, made in the light of modern scientific 

 methods, together with comparisons of their orographic, 

 hydrographic, and climatic conditions have resulted substan- 

 tially in the rejection of all except two from the list of practical 

 possibilities. These two are the Panama and Nicaragua routes. 



The beginning of the nineteenth century found Alexan- 

 der von Humboldt making a critical examination of the 

 various Central American routes. He discussed them at 

 length in his " Personal Narrative of Travels," giving par- 

 ticular emphasis to the superior advantages offered by the 

 Nicaragua route. Humboldt contributed to the world's 

 knowledge the first valuable information, from a scientific 

 point of view, concerning this route ; his conclusions so in- 

 spired the Spanish Cortez that it passed a decree for the 

 immediate construction of a canal through Central America. 

 Spain's power and influence in the Western Hemisphere, 

 however, had by this time become far too feeble to carry out 

 any such undertaking, and this last spasmodic effort to 

 awaken her spirit of achievement in the New World expired 

 almost with its conception. 



By the year 1824, all of the Spanish- American colonies 

 had secured their political freedom from Spain, and had 



