ISTHMUS OF CUI»ICA, 



253 



I hope that the time is not far distant when 

 some one if not several of these projects will 

 be accomplished ; a monument to the nation^ or 

 to the individaals who shall undertake it, 



" ^re perennius regalique situ 

 Pyramidum altius.'* 



I may be excused for taking, perhaps, a 

 personal interest in its success, as many years 

 ago. Sir James Campbell, an ancestor of mine, 

 with a view to this object of cutting a canal 

 through the isthmus, attempted to establish a 

 colony there by means of a company formed 

 under the auspices of King James I., but he 



which proves the natural facility of crossing the interven- 

 ng space ; besides which, it is well known that Captain 

 lUingsworth, of the Chilean frigate, " The Rose," having 

 once occasion to send despatches to the governor of Choco 

 at Quibdo, from the bay of Cupica, caused a boat capable 

 of containing fifteen men to be drawn across this interval, 

 and launched into the Naipi. He further stated that 

 Senor Contin, the owner of the estate on the Naipi, de- 

 scribed to him the bay of Cupica to be large, deep, and 

 sheltered. The Pacific, from the confluence of the Naipi 

 with the Atrato, is forty miles. The Naipi has twelve 

 feet of water, and would therefore be as navigable as the 

 Atrato for steam-boats, and the bay of Choco in the At- 

 lantic is also deep and sheltered. 



