I30 



NATURE 



[June i i, 1896 



level requiring a large number of locks, for which an 

 adequate water-supply is not obtainable ; or (3) torrential 

 -streams whose control within economical limits defies the 

 skill of the engineer." 



" Nicaragua is free from all these obstacles." 

 It would naturally be supposed that Mr. Colquhoun 

 was summing up the views he had arrived at after due 

 deliberation ; but in reality he is only acting as the mouth- 

 piece of Mr. Menocal, for the statement is taken verbatim 

 from this engineer's paper on "The Nicaragua Canal," 

 r^ad before the Water Commerce Congress of Chicago in 

 1893. Summing up the results of his visit to the Panama 

 Canal, the author says : 



" The general impression I gained from my visit was 

 that a large amount of useful work remained accom- 

 plished. Still the Chagres river and the Culebra cut 

 appeared to me to be obstacles which may be considered 

 insurmountable" ; whereas, in reference to the Nicaragua 

 Canal, he says : " The only serious difficulties are {a) the 

 Ochoa dam, {b) the Great Divide, (c) the Greytown 

 Harbour, none of them, however, insurmountable." 



In fact, Mr. Colquhoun exhibits a disposition to mini- 

 mise the obstacles to the construction of the Nicaragua 

 Canal, and to exaggerate those of the Panama Canal, 

 •which occasionally leads him to make contradictory state- 

 ments in different parts of the book. Thus on p. 1 16, he 

 says : 



"While the lake region and Pacific slope are healthy 

 and superior to Panama, the country embraced between 

 Ochoa and Greytown, in my opinion, presents much the 

 same climatic difficulties. Here occurs the dredging of 

 the channel through the stagnant swamps of the San 

 Juan delta, as well as the cut in the ' Great Divide ' and 

 the Deseado and San Francisco basins through dense 

 tropical jungle with a rich (but rotten) surface soil. The 

 past history of the Panama Canal and Panama Railway, 

 with their enormous expenditures of life, makes it im- 

 perative to treat very seriously this question, and to take 

 every possible precaution. The climates of both Colon 

 and Panama have greatly improved since the canal days." 

 Later on, however, in contrasting the two schemes on 

 page 142, he remarks : 



"The advantages over Panama are these: — It is a 

 fresh-water canal, with an admirable natural reservoir — 

 the lake ; it passes through a region offering prospects 

 of great development, free from the marshy soil, the 

 overpowering heat, and the unhealthy climate of Panama; 

 there is no Chagres River problem, and the 'Divide' 

 stands in a different category to that of the Culebra at 

 Panama." 



Again on page 317, he states : 



"The Panama isthmus, in addition to being very un- 

 healthy, is a region of floods with \ery poor local 

 resources ; the Suez Canal runs through a sandy desert. 

 Nicaragua stands in marked contrast to both these 

 projects. It has a climate immensely superior to that ■ 

 of Panama, a fertile soil, and internal intercommunica- 

 tion, with great resources both vegetable and mineral." 



It may be observed, with regard to these last two 

 extracts, that the Panama Canal with locks would be a 

 fresh-water canal, amply supplied by the Chagn-es, Obispo, 

 and other rivers ; it is curious to call the Suez Canal a 

 project ; and the desert traversed by the Suez Canal has 

 proved no bar to its unprecedented financial success. 



In justice to English engineers, we must draw attention 

 to a misstatement made by the author on page 138, 

 where he says, with regard to the Suez Canal : " The 

 report of other engineers was equally unfavourable." If 

 Mr. Colquhoun had referred to the report he alludes to, 

 he would have found that the Commission which reported 

 was an international one, that the report was eminently 

 favourable and formed the basis of the subsequent canal 

 works, and that, in addition to the foreign members, 

 three English engineers signed the report. 



NO. 1389. VOL. 54] 



The Nicaragua Canal has naturally been preferred by 

 the United .States, as being nearer, and therefore more 

 convenient for the trade of North .America ; and we 

 agree with Mr. Colquhoun in considering that the 

 simplest solution of the difficulty of connecting the 

 Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, would be for the Govern- 

 ment of the Lhiitcd States to construct the canal, which 

 would be of incalculable benefit to the trade of that country. 

 If, howexer, the United States is deterred from embarking 

 upon this work by the very unfavourable report of the 

 Government Commission, there appear to be no in- 

 superable obstacles to the completion of the Panama 

 Canal with locks, provided the necessary capital can be 

 raised in France and elsewhere. 



IN THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. > 



THE small size of this record of ten years' travel is in 

 keeping with the character of the author, as revealed 

 in his pages. It is rare to meet a man so simple, brave, 

 and kind-hearted as Captain Younghusband, and rarer 

 still to find a book of travel so straightforward, con- 

 cise, and modest as this. Many volumes have been 

 written by travellers who have spent fewer months than 

 Captain Younghusband has spent years in Central .Asia, 

 and without them it would perhaps have been difficult for 

 us to estimate the magnitude of the difficulties, the over- 

 coming of which the author so quietly relates. But this 

 book differs from those by an entire absence of " pad- 

 ding," of hearsay statements, and of rash speculation. 

 There are chapters indeed which are not purely descrip- 

 tive, dealing in fact with the opinions formed and the 

 thoughts suggested by ten years largely spent in the 

 most remote and desolate regions of the earth. These 

 thoughts and opinions are perhaps the most striking part 

 of the book, showing in a remarkable manner the power 

 of travel and the contemplation (rather than the study) of 

 nature in educating an appreciative mind. To read the 

 following extract from the five chapters of" Impressions 

 of Travel," one would hardly suspect the author of being 

 a young soldier : — 



" No one, indeed, who has been alone with nature 

 in her purest aspects, and seen her in so many different 

 forms, can help pondering over her meanings, and though, 

 in the strain and stress of travel, her deepest messages 

 may not have reached my ear, now, in the after-calm, 

 when I have all the varied 'scenes as vividly before me as 

 on the day I saw them, and have, moreover, leisure to 

 appreciate' them and feel their fullest influence, I can 

 realise something of her grandeur, the mighty scale on 

 which she works, and the infinite beauty of all she does. 

 These impressions, as I stand now at the close of my 

 narrative, \\ ith the many scenes which the writing of it 

 has brought Ijack to my mind full before my eyes, crowd 

 upon me, and I long to be able to record them as clearly 

 as I feel them, for the benefit of those who have not had 

 the leisure or the opportunity to visit the jealously- 

 guarded regions of the earth, where nature reveals herself 

 most clearly." 



It is rare now-a-days to have the magnitude of the 

 earth, the vastness of distances intervening between 

 places, the month-long silence of desert and mountain 

 forcibly brought before one, and it is startling to reflect 

 how little the resources of modern applied science have 

 done to facilitate journeys in really remote regions. Ex- 

 cept for some articles of food and the means of defence, 

 men must travel in Central Asia now just as they 

 travelled in the davs of Marco Polo, or even of Alexander. 

 \ sketch of those joumevs which have won for Captain 

 Younghusband the gold medal of the Royal Geographical 



1 " The Heart of a Conlinent." \ ncirrative of travels in Manchuri.-i, 

 across the llobi Desert through the Himalayas, the Pamirs, and Chitral, 

 1884-1891. ByCapt.ain Frank E. Younghusband, CLE. (London : John 

 Murray, 1S96.) 



