Over Darien by a ship canal : reports of the mismanaged Darien expedition of 1854, with suggestions for a survey by competent engineers, and an exploration by parties with compasses.

  • Cullen, Dr.
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Over Darien by a ship canal : reports of the mismanaged Darien expedition of 1854, with suggestions for a survey by competent engineers, and an exploration by parties with compasses. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    r refused, I requested a ])ai'ty of three seamen, with whom I V volunteered to cross over to the Pacific and return. Commander I Hancock, in reply, most decidedly refused to let me take a man i ashore, stating that his instructions were to protect a survey, a and not to send out exploring parties. In conclusion, he desired n me to go alone. I was, consequently, about to start the following ! morning, when I was prevailed upon by the officers of the i Espiegle to decline the service ; they represented to me that '.; my going alone was quite unnecessary, as there were then 800 1 men in harbour doing nothing, and that it could only result in t the sacrifice of my life, as the Indians had spies out along the I line; a fact proved by the murder, a month previously, of 1 Prevost's four men. On the 7th of February, Mr. Gisborne, Lieutenant St. John, J Serjeant Bell, and a Venezuelan servant of Colonel Codazzi > stai-ted for the Sucubti and Savana, with a guide and Robinson i the Indian, who, for the sum of six hundred dollars, went as 4 secm-ity for their lives. This Robinson, who acted for the chief i of San Bias, had just returned from the United States, where he hhad lived for some years. His father, who died in 1853, is [.mentioned in page 71 of my book. This party, which I was ii not allowed to accompany, arrived at Mr. Bennett's station on I the Savana on the morning of the 11th February, having been li detained a whole day at Sucubti village, waiting for a guide to- : conduct them thence to the path cut, six weeks before, by [ Commander Prevpst, from the Savana to the Cliuquanaqua, at a * point opposite the mouth of Morti, the next river westward of the SucubtL Thus they crossed the Isthmus in three days' ! walk. ■ In crossing the Cordillera to Sucubti, tliis party followed the i Indian trail, which passes over the highest ground, and traversed the only portion of the country which presents any engineering difficulties, in a few hours. From these circumstances, and from their very cursory and fugitive inspection of a country, which is one unbroken forest of lioavy timber and tall brushwood, where the explorer can scarcely oe ten yards ahead of him, it was manifestly impossible for the gineers to make any search for the valley which transversely •avides the Cordillera; consequently, they were unable to collect ly data upon which to form an opinion as to the practicability of lie canal. This is the view taken by Baron Humboldt, who, in a letter to 1^ M. Kelley, Esq., of New York, dated Berlin, Jan. 27, 1856, nd published in Kelley's pamphlet on the Junction of the Atlan- and Pacific Oceans, edited by Ch. Manby, Sec. Inst. C. E., ■ys, It was on account of his not having made so tliorough an '^xammation of the mountainous countiy between the Gulf of San iiguel and Caledonia Bay that Mr. Lionel Gisbome's plan of ^oz could not be carried out. The ignorance he was in as to the