Joseph Pennell

“ Yet the men who have done this great work will tell you that we owe much to the French, and that if the engineers and the Commission at Panama had not the Government, with unlimited men and money, behind them, and the discoveries in sanitary science of which the French were ignorant, we, too, would have failed. They tell you, and show you how, the French worked on the Canal right across the Isthmus, and we are carrying out the great project they were unable to complete. And we have won the admiration of the world. ”

“ Huge American cranes for raising this French material—which the American engineers have made use of—and discharging cargo from the ships in the French Canal—which is here finished and in use—loom over the swamp, the banks of which are lined with piers and workshops full of life—a curious contrast to the dead swamp in which not a mosquito lives, nor a smell breathes. ”

“ THESE huge arches, only made as arches to save concrete and to break the waves of the lake, are mightier than any Roman aqueduct, and more pictorial, yet soon they will be hidden almost to the top by the waters of the lake. Electric locomotives will run out to the farthest point, and from it, tow the ships into the lock. Beyond is Gatun Lake, and to the right the lines of the French Canal and Chagres River stretch to the horizon. Even while I was on the Isthmus the river and canal disappeared forever before the waters of the rapidly rising flood. ”

“ The engines whistled, the buckets paused, everything stopped instantly, save that from the depths a long chain came quickly up, and clinging to the end of it, as Cellini would have grouped them, were a dozen men—a living design—the most decorative motive I have ever seen in the Wonder of Work. ”

“ BETWEEN Mount Hope and Gatun is much more of the swamp and much more abandoned machinery, but the Canal is not to be seen from the railroad, or any evidence of it, till the train stops at the station of Old Gatun, with its workmen's dwellings crowning the hillside. I regret I made no drawing of these, so picturesquely perched. At the station of Gatun—the first time I stopped—I saw the workmen—in decorative fashion—coming to the surface for dinner. The lithograph was made from a temporary bridge spanning the locks and looking toward Colon. ”

“ NEAR Mount Hope, which—for the French—should be called the Slough of Despond, or the Lake of Despair, is a huge swamp about a mile or so from Colon, on the left bank of the French Canal, seen on the right of the lithograph. This swamp is now filled with all sorts of abandoned French machinery. Dredges, locomotives, and even what seem to be lock gates, show amid the palms in the distance. ”

“ And the interest of these Americans in my work and in their work was something I had never seen before. A man in huge boots, overalls and ragged shirt, an apology for a hat, his sleeves up to his shoulders, proved himself in a minute a graduate of a great school of engineering, and proved as well his understanding of the importance of the work I was trying to do, and his regret that most painters could not see the splendid motives all about ”

“ The design, I believe, of the houses was made by the American engineers or architects.
Very few of the higher Canal officers live at Colon, which is the Atlantic seaport of the Isthmus, the eastern mouth of the Canal, though Colon is west of Panama—such is the geography of the country.
The mouth of the Canal will be fortified; breakwaters and light-houses are being built.
For authorities on fortification it may be interesting to state that the forts will be so situated that the locks will be completely out of range of an enemy's guns. Personally I am not a believer in wars or navies. ”

“ Next day I started across the Continent to Panama, for I learned the Government headquarters were there, and, until I had seen the officials, I did not know if I should be allowed to work or even stay on the Isthmus. But at Gatun I got off the train, determining to do all I could before I was stopped—as I was quite sure I should be. I saw the tops of the locks only a few hundred yards away, and, turning my back on the stunning town piled up on the hillside, walked over to them ”

“ I was very well all the time—and I walked in the sun and worked in the sun, and sat in the swamps and the bottoms of locks and at the edge of the dam, and nothing but drawings happened; but I should not advise others to try these things, nor to get too near steam shovels, which "pick up anything, from an elephant to a red-bug," but sometimes drop a ton rock; nor play around near track-lifters and dirt-train emptiers—for the things are small respecters of persons. But most people do not get hurt, and I never met anyone who wanted to leave ”

“ XIII of the cut was made. The drawing is looking toward the Atlantic. The engineer of the dirt train—the smoke of which is so black because the engines burn oil—climbed up to see what I was at, and incidentally told me he was paid $3,600 a year, had a house free and two months' holiday. It is scarcely wonderful he has little interest in home, but the greatest pride in "our canal," and his only hope was to be "kept on the job" and run an electric locomotive for the rest of his life. ”

“ THIS lock, the nearest the Pacific, is again quite different and is the work of a civil engineer, Mr. Williamson, and not of army officers, like the rest. Between the two forces, I believe, the most fierce harmony exists. The drawing shows the two locks side by side, the great cranes—they are different, too—towering above. All the ground here will be filled by a small lake between this lock and Pedro Miguel. ”

“ The two strange, flat-topped mountains, miles out at sea, are to be fortified, and they are so far from shore, and the locks so far inland, as to be out of range—as well as out of sight—of modern guns and gunners. ”

“ The great machines on each side of the locks are for mixing and carrying to their place, in huge buckets, the cement and concrete, of which the locks are built. The French Canal is in the extreme distance, now used by our engineers. ”

“ On the other, in a separate building, usually, the "silver employees" foreigners; and there are separate dining and sleeping places and cars for negroes, even on workmen's trains. The Indian has the sense and pride to live his own life down there, apart, as at home in India. ”

“ The lower parts, I was told, are to be filled with air, and the gates, worked by electricity, will virtually float. The scaffolding is only temporary, and so is the opening at the bottom and the railroad tracks, which were filled up and discarded while I was there. So huge are the locks—the three, I think, a mile long, each one thousand feet between the gates, and about ninety feet deep—that, until the men knock off, there scarce seems anyone around. ”

“ The drawing was made looking towards Pedro Miguel.
XIV
STEAM SHOVEL AT WORK IN THE CULEBRA CUT
THIS beast, as they say down there, "can pick up anything from an elephant to a red-bug"—the smallest thing on the Isthmus. They also say the shovel "would look just like Teddy if it only had glasses." It does the work of digging the Canal and filling the trains, and does it amazingly—under the amazing direction of its amazing crews. ”