The Isthmus Line to the Pacific [pp. 259-266]

262 Tile Isthmu8 Line to the Pacjfic. [MAY,
These in my mind are the principal of the
physical difficulties in the way of a communication across Tehuantepec-and until some practical plan be suggested for removing or overcoming them, it is useless to look further, for there is
no doubt that with money enough the continent
may be cut in twain here both by Rail Road and
Ship Canal.
But the great difficulty does not consist in cutting the continent in two: it consists in gaining
access from the sea to and from the high-way
across. At Darien there is safe anchorage with
sufficient water on both sides. On this side we
have "Navy Bay," or by the old Spanish name,
the Bay for 74s; also Puerto Bello, or the "beautiful harbor." On the other, there is the safe roadstead of Panama. The distance across in a direct line from the head of Navy, or "Limon Bay"
to Panama is rather less than 45 miles, which is
about one-third the distance across Tehuantepec.
The distance there in a direct line from sea to
sea being 139 miles.
From New York and the Atlantic ports, Navy
Bay is a little further in point of distance-say
100 miles-than the mouth of the Coatzacoalcos, and it is proportionably further in time also.
But suppose, for the sake of running out the
parallel, that the harbors of Tehuantepec were as
good as those of Darien; that we had the right of
way across Tehuantepec as well as Darien; and
that it were left to the government and people of
the United States to select either one of the two
routes for a commercial highway, which one of
the two would be most conducive of the general
interests-taking general interest to mean the
welfare of the whole country?
This is the point which I now prefer to consider. But in the consideration and discussion
of it, I wish it to be borne in mind that I do not
for a moment lose sight of a rail road through
our own country, from the Mississippi valley to
the Pacific ocean. This is a work which the public will have sooner or later, and any other route
across the country I hold subordinate to this.
Therefore, in running the parallel between Tehuantepec and Darien, I shall take it for granted
that the Mississippi and California rail road will
be in process of construction at no very distant
day. It must be built. I take it therefore as a
postulate.
Bearing this postulate and these facts in mind,
the question may be asked, what, since we are to
have a rail road through our own country, do
we want with a portage across the neck of land
between the Oceans? Ans.rWe want it for
the transportation of those articles of merchandise which cannot pay freight over a rail road
1500 miles long, but which would find it cheap
to incur the freight and time of a passage around
Cape Horn. This merchandise would consist
of the products of the whale fishery in the
Pacific, which in boneand oil, amount to five
millions and a half of dollars. per annum. It
would consist of cotton and woolen goods and
the coarser manufactures of all descriptions for
which the merchant can find markets in any of
the ports of Pacific America. It would consist
also of butter and cheese, rice, bread, and such
like perishable articles for the Pacific squadron,
that I have seen condemned and thrown into
the sea at Callao and Valparaiso, by the ship
load, owing to the damages incurred in the long
and boisterous voyage around Cape Horn. These
are some of the principal articles only, for if I
were to go into details I might make out a list
of them as long as the manifest on board some
of the ships for California, which we are told
are many fathoms long.
Navy Bay and Coatzacoalcos are about the
same distance in point of time from the Atlantic
States. But to the Gulf States, to California
and Oregon, Tehuantepec is much nearer. This
fact, if it were the only one upon which the choice
of routes hinges, would be decisive. But unfortunately Tehuantepec affords no harbors and no
right of way; and if it did, there are other points
upon which a right decision of the question would
turn.
Communication is wanted, I apprehend, to
other markets besides those of California. There
are the South American Republics which border
on the Pacific with their eight millions of people,
all of whom want things that we have to sell.
Panama is to them nearer by many days sail
under canvass than Tehuantepec.
A sailing vessel from New Orleans might deliver her cargo at Navy Bay and return with
another before one could be sent under canvass
via. Tehuantepec to Panama, so uncertain are
the winds in the Pacific side between Tehuantepec and Panama.
Panama is so nearly in a straight line from the
coasts of Chili, Peru and Ecuador to New Orleans that the detour is not more than 100 miles.
The freight across the Tehuantepec road
would be nearly treble, for the distance across is
three times as great as it is over that of Panama.
Five cents per ton per mile is about the average charge for freight over the rail roads in the
United States; competition has brought it down
perhaps within this estimate. But I suppose
neither a rail road across Tehuantepec or Darien
could afford transportation at any such rates.
Perhaps ten cents would be nearer than five to
the mark; let us therefore take ten cents per ton
er to pay the portage across the Isthmus than per mile as the average rate of freight to be ex
IThe Isthmus Line to the Pacific.
[MAY,
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