The Panama Canal 



457 



Panama and protect its transit have had 

 many disagreeable experiences while an- 

 chored in the harbor of Colon or Aspin- 

 wall, as it used to be known. One event 

 in my own service there I can hardly re- 

 call even at the present day without a 

 shudder. It was in the winter of 1886 

 when we reached this port with some 

 of the Galena' s machinery needing re- 

 pairs. After coaling from a Norwegian 

 barque, which was lashed alongside the 

 ship with much difficulty, owing to the 

 heavy sea, we began to take the ma- 

 chinery apart. Realizing, however, that 

 if caught by a " norther, ' ' which might 

 come up at any time — without power to 

 move the ship out of the harbor — disaster 

 was likely to follow, I decided to pro- 

 ceed to the little closed harbor of Porto 

 Bello, which lay about 30 miles to the 

 eastward of Colon, and there make the 

 necessary repairs. At the end of two 

 days, when about to return to Colon, 

 word was received through the com- 

 manding officer of a French corvette that 

 during our absence a heavy norther had 

 occurred at Colon, and that the French 

 ship had escaped from the harbor almost 

 by a miracle. As that vessel was a much 

 higher powered steamer than the Galena , 

 I cannot bear to think of what might 

 have occurred had we remained in this 

 treacherous harbor. Returning to Colon 

 as soon as possible, the sight that met 

 our gaze I shall never forget. Nineteen 

 vessels had been totally destroyed by 

 the terrific storm, and wreckage and 

 dead bodies strewed the beach for miles 

 around. The barque from which we 

 had taken coal was driven ashore at 

 Christobal Colon, near which we had 

 been anchored, and there was not a ves- 

 tige of her in sight. A similar fate 

 would surely have been the Galena's had 

 she remained in the harbor with her 

 motive power inoperative. Over 50 lives 

 were lost in this storm and the destruc- 

 tion of property was enormous. No 

 doubt this loss of property took a large 

 share of the money which was unac- 



counted for belonging to the canal 

 company.* 



THE PROBLEM OF SANITATION 



Few persons who have not visited the 

 Isthmus can have any conception of the 

 magnitude of this problem, and only 

 those who witnessed the great waste of 

 life and money from the want of proper 

 sanitary measures during the closing 

 months of the old Panama Canal Com- 

 pany's existence can form a proper 

 estimate of the value of good sanitary 

 conditions in this trying country. 



It should be remembered that practi- 

 cally all of the labor used in the canal 

 section must be imported. At first, 

 under the influence of de Lesseps' great 

 name, large numbers flocked to the Isth- 

 mus from Jamaica, which island is said 

 to furnish a class of labor second to 

 none for tropical work. Impetus was 

 given to this emigration of the islanders 

 by the fact that the trade in sugar, which 

 was then the staple article of production 

 in Jamaica, was ruined by the bounty 

 paid for the cultivation of this important 

 commodity in our own southern states, 

 and the great fruit business which now 

 gives theislandconsiderable revenue was 

 then in its infancy. It was therefore not 

 a difficult matter for the company to 

 make contracts with the idlers to go the 

 short distance to the Isthmus, where 

 good prices for labor prevailed. But 

 when, after a comparatively short time, 

 a few decrepit negroes returned to their 

 homes in an endeavor to eradicate from 

 their systems the effects of diseases, with 

 reports that the thousands who did not 

 return had gone to their last resting 

 places, a reaction set in and the Jamaica 

 market became less available. Further, 

 theBri tish government, seeingtheir beau- 

 tiful island overrun by paupers who had 

 returned from the Isthmus without the 

 power of earning the food for their de- 

 pleted bodies, finally put a stop to this 

 emigration altogether. 



* See page 472. 



