The Panama Canal : an illustrated historical narrative of Panama and the great waterway which divides the American continents / by Willis J. Abbot ; water colors by E.J. Read.

  • Willis J. Abbot
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The Panama Canal : an illustrated historical narrative of Panama and the great waterway which divides the American continents / by Willis J. Abbot ; water colors by E.J. Read. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    13/460 page 5
    INTRODUCTION PANAMA. They say the word means “a place of many fishes,” but there is some dissension about the exact derivation of the name of the now severed Isthmus. Indeed dissension, quar- rels, wars and massacres have been the prime char- acteristics of Panama for four hundred years. “A place of many battles” would be a more fitting significance for the name of this tiny spot where man has been do- ing ceaseless battle with man since history rose to record the conflicts. As deadly as the wars between men of hostile races, has been the unc e a s i n g struggle be- tween man and nature. You will get some faint idea of the toll of life taken in this conflict if from Cristobal you will drive out to the picturesque cemetery at Mount Hope and look upon the almost interminable vista of little white headstones. Each marks the last resting place of some poor fellow fallen in the war with fever, malaria and all of tropic nature’s fierce and fatal allies against all con- quering man. That war is never ended. The English and the Spaniards have laid down their arms. Cimmaroon and conquistadore, pirate and buccaneer no longer steal stealthily along the narrow jungle trails. But let man forget for a while his vigilance and the rank, lush growth of the jungle creeps over his clear- ings, his roads, his machinery, enveloping a 11 in morphic arms of vivid green, delicate and beautiful to look upon, but tough, stubborn and fiercely resistant when attacked. Poisoned spines guard the slender tendrils that cling so tenaciously to every vantage point. Insects innumerable are sheltered by the vegetable chevaux-de-frise and in turn protect it from the assaults of any human enemy. Given a few months to reestablish it- self and the jungle, once subdued, presents to man again a de- fiant and an almost impenetrable front. We boast that we have conquered nature on the Isthmus, but we have merely won a truce along a com- paratively nar- row strip be- tween the oceans. Eternal vigilance will be the price of safety even there. If that country alone is happy whose history is uninteresting, then sorrow, must have been the ordained lot of Panama. Visited first by Columbus in 1502, at which time the great navigator put forth every effort to find a strait leading through to the East Indies, it has figured largely in the pages of history ever since. Considerable cities of Spanish foundation rose there while our own Jamestown and Plymouth were still unimagined. The Spaniards were building massive walls, erecting mason- ry churches, and paving royal roads down there Photo by H. Piltier. Courtesy American Geographic Magazine, Washington. ^ the jungle the sentinel tree long before the
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