PANAMA RAILWAY. 
11 
Chap. I.—B. S.] 
The West Indians are glad to observe that at least 
a portion of the English press correctly appreciates 
the true hearing of the negro question, though they 
add despondingly it is too late ; the mischief has been 
done; ,our planters have been ruined; our merchants 
have gone away; capital will never flow hack in our 
time; we have been sacrificed to a sentiment; and 
we, our children, and grandchildren have been im¬ 
poverished to prop up the absurd anthropological 
theory that the white and the black races are equal, a 
theory which nobody can maintain for a moment in 
the face of the facts he sees around him. 
Panama, since I visited it in 1848, has much im¬ 
proved, owing principally to the railway from Colon, 
which connects the traffic of the Atlantic with that of 
the Pacific Ocean. A great part of this railway goes 
through swamps, and is a noble monument of Ame¬ 
rican enterprise. It is well known that but few of the 
natives could be induced to work on this great high¬ 
way of nations, and that labour had to be imported 
from other parts, principally China; and when the 
rank swamp vegetation came to be disturbed, fearful 
miasmas arose, and such was their pernicious effect 
upon the workmen that every foot of the road cost a 
human life. The Chinese coolies took a most despond¬ 
ing view of the task the Americans had set before 
them, and every morning dozens were found suspended 
on the trees, so that a guard had to be set over them 
to prevent their committing self-destruction during 
the night. But American energy finally triumphed 
over every obstacle, and they have now the best pay¬ 
ing railway in the world. 
