THE INTEROCEANIC CANAL. 199 



favour of the Nicaragua Canal. These included the 

 able constructor, who had been selected to make the 

 large lock of Nicaragua, and the president of the 

 association for cutting that canal, yet both of them 

 cheered the announcement of the vote. 



It is characteristic that among those who gave in 

 their adhesion to the scheme were the Dutch engineer, 

 who had constructed the Amsterdam locks, Commander 

 Selfridge, who explicitly declared that his countrymen 

 would accept the decision of the Congress without 

 any reserve or afterthought, the engineers of the 

 Suez Canal, and many others whose statements were 

 enthusiastically cheered by the public. 



The course which the Congress approved was that 

 which had been traced by Lloyd, Totten, Garella, 

 Wyse, and Keclus. It strikes the Isthmus at the 

 ninth parallel, between the Bay of Limon upon the 

 Atlantic and the Gulf of Panama on the Pacific. 

 It is not half as long as the Suez Canal, being only 

 45J miles long instead of 101 ; it has two excellent 

 ports at each end, is close to two good towns and to a 

 district thickly inhabited, and has a railway in full 

 working order. Such is the country which the canal 

 will traverse, transform, and enrich. 



Carrying my mind back a few years, I cannot but 

 remember how many people including several eminent 

 men, too formerly treated the Suez enterprise as 

 impracticable. They said that it was madness to try 

 and create a port in the Gulf of Pelusium, to traverse 



