FOUR CENTURIES OF THE

PANAMA CANAL

CHAPTER I

THE QUEST OF COLUMBUS

THE design of Spanish adventurers in the fifteenth century is being fulfilled by American engineers in the twentieth century. That, in epitome, is the story of the Panama Canal, as it came vividly to mind during a recent visit to the Isthmus. There were present on that historic ground the associates and agents of President Roosevelt, and there were also those whose family names were on the rolls of Columbus's and Balboa's companies, and some whose ancestors probably came to the American shores with those discoverers. Such meeting of the representatives of the new and the old was suggestive, and it recalled the fact that Columbus was the practical founder of the Panama Canal enterprise, which, after four centuries of delay, President Roosevelt has undertaken to complete. Columbus was the first to propose a water highway from Europe to Asia, westward, by way of the Atlantic. It was such a highway that he sought, and not the new world which he actually found. The preColumbian voyages and explorations of the Northmen had given Europe no knowledge of America, and down to the time of the illustrious Genoese, Europe stood, figuratively, with its face toward Asia, and with its back turned toward the "Sea of Darkness," as the Atlantic was often called. So Columbus had no thought of finding a new continent, and no notion that one existed; nor indeed did he ever fully realise that he had found one. The lands which he dis

covered he regarded to the end of his life as merely some outlying islands or fringes of the Asian continent, and as impediments or obstacles to be passed by in some way, in order to reach the mainland empire of Cathay. His theory was not that such a land as America existed, but that by crossing the Atlantic Ocean he would come directly to the shores of China and Japan; for he clung to the old fallacy that whatever was not Europe or Africa must be Asia. (Isidore of Seville had taught more than eight centuries before, concerning the globe: "Divisus est autem trifarie; e quibus una pars Asia, altera Europa, tertia Africa.")

It is true that his theory had been held by others, long before. Aristotle, Seneca, and Pliny had written the belief that one might reach the Indies of Asia in a few days by sailing westward from Spain. Strabo had put upon record the same theory, adding that Menelaus, after the fall of Troy, sailed past the Pillars of Hercules, around Africa, and so reached India. It is not impossible that some adventurous navigators in those early days had actually crossed the Atlantic, and, like Columbus, had mistaken America for Asia. Hanno of Carthage is, not incredibly, declared by Pliny to have sailed around Africa to Arabia, thus anticipating the plans of Henry the Navigator and the achievements of Vasco da Gama. Antonio Galvano, the Portuguese historian, citing Berosius, Gonsalvo Ferdinand de Oviedo, and Pliny, tells us that "in the six hundred and fiftieth year after the Flood there was a king in Spain named Hesperus, who in his time, as it is reported, went and discovered as far as Cape Verde, and the Island of St. Thomas, whereof he was Prince; and Gonsalvo Ferdinand de Oviedo affirmeth that in his time the Islands of the West Indies were discovered, and called somewhat after his name, Hesperides; and he allegeth many reasons to prove it, reporting particularly that in forty days they sailed from Cape Verde unto those Islands." Again, upon the authority of Aristotle ("Lib. de Mirandis in Natura Auditis"), Galvano relates:

SOME EARLIER VENTURES

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"In the year 590 before the incarnation of Christ, there went out of Spain a fleet of Carthaginian merchants, upon their own proper costs and charges, which sailed toward the west through the high seas, to see if they could find any land; and they sailed so far that they found at last the islands which we now call the Antilles and New Spain; which Gonsalvo Ferdinand de Oviedo saith were then discovered; although Christopher Columbus afterwards, by his travel, got more exact knowledge of them and hath left us an evident notice where they be. But all these historians which wrote of these Antilles before, as of doubtful and uncertain things, and of places undiscovered, do now plainly confess the same to be the country of New Spain."

Coming down to a much later date, the same scribe tells us that "in the year 1344, King Peter, the fourth of that name, reigning in Aragon, the chronicles of his time report that one Don Lewis, of Cerda, grandson of Don Juan of Cerda, craved aid of him to go and conquer the Canary Islands, standing in 28 degrees of latitude to the north, because they were given to him by Pope Clement the Sixth, who was a Frenchman; by which means, in those days, there grew a great knowledge of those islands in all Europe, and particularly in Spain; for such great Princes would not begin nor enterprise things of such moment, without great certainty. . . . About this time also," continues our author, "the Island of Madeira was discovered by an Englishman named Macham; who, falling out of England into Spain, with a woman of his, was driven out of his direct course by a tempest, and arrived in that island and cast anchor in that haven which is now called Machico, after the name of Macham. And because his lover was then seasick, he went on land with some of his company; but in the meantime his ship weighed, and put to sea, leaving him behind; which accident occasioned his lover to die of grief. Macham, who was passionately fond of her, erected a chapel, or hermitage, in the island, to deposit her remains, naming it Jesus Chapel, and engraved on the stone of her tomb both their names and the occasion that brought them there.

After this he made himself a boat out of a tree (trees being there of a great circumference), and went to sea in it, with those men of his company that were left with him, and fell in with the coast of Africa, without sail or oar. The Moors, among whom he came, took it for a miracle, and presented him to the King of the country, who, also admiring the accident, sent him and his company to the King of Castile. In the year 1395, King Henry III reigning in Castile, the information Macham gave of this island and also of the ship wherein he went thither, moved many of France and Castile to go and discover it and the Great Canary." Still later, in 1428, "it is written that Don Peter, the King of Portugal's eldest son, who was a great traveller, went into England, France, Germany, and from thence to the Holy Land and other places; and came home by Italy, taking Rome and Venice in his way; from whence he brought a map of the world which had all the parts of the world and the earth described. The Strait of Magellan was called in it The Dragon's Tail. . . ." Who was the author of this extraordinary map, and what became of it, are unknown. There are many other chronicles of early voyages to the Canary and Madeira Islands, and of voyages along the African Coast, even to and around the Cabo de Bona Speranza, or Cape of Good Hope.

One of the most important steps toward the enterprise of Columbus was taken in 1245 and 1253. In the former year Friar John, of Plano Carpini, was sent by Pope Innocent IV as a missionary to the Great Khan, and in the latter year William of Rubruquis, a monk, was sent by King Louis (St. Louis) of France on a similar errand. These pious and observant men learned much from the Chinese whom they met about their empire of Khitai, or Cathay, and especially that at the east it bordered upon a great sea. This was the first definite information to that effect which Europe had received since classical times, and it set philosophers and geographers to thinking. Since Europe fronted upon an ocean at the west, and Asia fronted upon an ocean at the

TOSCANELLI'S MAP AND LETTER

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east, it seemed probable-nay, it seemed certain-that those oceans were one and the same, and by sailing due west from Europe the eastern shore of Asia would be reached. But though this theory was thus revived and discussed in the thirteenth century, it was not for two hundred years adopted as a rule of action; and, with all these preliminaries, it seems to be pretty well established that in the latter part of the fifteenth century there was only one man who practically believed in a westward waterway from Europe to the Indies, or who was sufficiently earnest in his belief to put it to the test.

It was about 1474 that the great enterprise was definitely conceived. Columbus was then at Lisbon, upon the very brink of the unexplored Atlantic. For aid and encouragement in his scheme he is said to have entered into correspondence with his countryman, Paolo Toscanelli. Whether he really did so or not, whether the famous map and letter of Toscanelli were what they were said to be or were mere forgeries, and indeed whether Columbus had, in advance of his first voyage, any definite scientific theory, are questions immaterial to the present argument, which need not be considered here. The recent researches and writings of Mr. Harrisse, Mr. Vignaud, and their contemporaries have thrown much light upon the early career of Columbus, and have placed it in a somewhat different aspect from that familiar to readers of Irving and other early historians. It is sufficient for our purpose to note that grave doubt has been thrown upon the whole story of Toscanelli's aid and encouragement to Columbus, but to note, also, that whatever be the truth of that matter, the theory and the aim of Columbus's venture remain indisputable; and they are all with which this writing is concerned.

According to the old story, then, Toscanelli, a Florentine and one of the foremost geographers of his time, sent to Columbus two documents, priceless for information. One was a map which he had prepared, partly according to the theories of Ptolemy, but somewhat more according to the