A MEMORABLE PANORAMA 387 and then at last, we were returning, with reluctance to leave the Fortunate Isles and the Sea of Peace, though with gladness to regain the gardens and the palm groves that lay in the shadow of Ancon Hill. Then, as we neared the city, as the sun was setting, and the rich colouring of sea and sky and land gave to the scene an air of unreal and unearthly beauty, a strange thing appeared. Upon the crest of Ancon, and upon the summits and shoulders and ledges of the more distant amphitheatre of hills that girt the fair city round, from beyond the ruined tower of Old Panama in the darkening east to Chorrera in the still glowing west, we saw what seemed like drifts of snow, pure, glittering white amid the dark green of the hillside forests. I marvelled, for I knew that in that tropic latitude snow never fell. Yet there the drifts lay, white, spectral, motionless, precisely as I had seen them upon the peaks and ledges of our own White Hills. But as we drew nearer and nearer, I saw they were not snow, nor any solid thing, but only masses of mist and floating cloud, which presently faded from our view and vanished. Then, as from the full golden glow of day we rushed through the brief tropic twilight into the purple solemnities of night, and the Southern Cross and all the luminous constellations of the Equatorial heavens shone out in splendour, I fell to likening those seeming snowdrifts and glaciers to the difficulties and dangers which the fainthearted and the hostile have conjured up as besetting our way in our great enterprise at Panama, and it seemed to me that the worst of them, the most chilling and oppressive and ominous, might in the end prove to be as tenuous and as evanescent as those fugitive cloud-wraiths, so that we might cry to it in confident defiance, "Thou art a phantom, A shape of the sea-mist, Day dawns, and thou art not!" We have only to be true to our opportunities, true to our principles, true to our destiny, true to ourselves, to make the obstacles before us flee as the clouds from the mountains; to fulfil the great designs of Columbus and Cortez; to make, to our own honour and the inestimable profit of the whole world, the Panama canal an accomplished fact; to open up a highway of peaceful commerce between the two great oceans; and, after four centuries have their full cycles turned, to achieve at last the triumphant fulfilment of the world's agelong desire. APPENDICES APPENDIX I THE UNITED STATES-NEW GRANADA (COLOMBIA) TREATY OF 1846 (In part). Ratified June 10, 1846 THE United States of America and the Republic of New Granada, desiring to make as durable as possible the relations which are to be established between the two parties by virtue of this treaty, have declared solemnly and do agree to the following points: . . For the better understanding of the preceding articles, it is and has been stipulated between the high contracting parties that the citizens, vessels, and merchandise of the United States shall enjoy in the ports of New Granada, including those of the part of the Granadian territory generally denominated Isthmus of Panama, from its southernmost extremity until the boundary of Costa Rica, all the exemp tions, privileges, and immunities concerning commerce and navigation which are now or may hereafter be enjoyed by Granadian citizens, their vessels, and merchandise; and that this equality of favours shall be made to extend to the passengers, correspondence, and merchandise of the United States in their transit across the said territory from one sea to the other. The government of New Granada guarantees to the government of the United States that the right of way or transit across the Isthmus of Panama, upon any modes of communication that now exist or that may be here. after constructed, shall be open and free to the government and citizens of the United States, and for the transportation of any articles of produce, manufactures or merchandise, of lawful commerce, belonging to the citizens of the United States; that no other tolls or charges shall be levied or collected upon the citizens of the United States, or their said merchandise thus passing over any road or canal that may be made by the government of New Granada, or by the |