The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, February 9, 1902, Page 5

THE SUNDAY CALL s AP OF THE MARITIME CANAL OF NICARAGUA ADVANTA:! ght rates. er harbor. tradition of the presence of Caucasian in- vasion at any time, and concerning which it is current bellef among the common people that no white man h trated the mysterious depths of their for- Probably this belief is incorrect, but its existence tells how wild are the wil- @ernesses of Nicaragua. The unpeopled or uncivilized regions are far from the sea and far from the lakes, the main body of the poj fon being In the coast and lake s io the mov higher pa as ever pene- reaching the regions in a which is the developed, west! where developed farther ve here one may go by rail i direction to Ma outheastern Lake BY W. LAIR HILL. Central the history and interest. before the e, but of all site of a ship for the com- v be regarded the march of civ- -sses can republics st attractive conditions. In in the natural 1 prosperity all Cen- lly alike. The low- een the seashore and the of marvelous fertil- pted to the cultiva- ana se climaté is rather but the actual tempera- s so high as in many parts The highlands, 4 tablelands and he ranges of mountains, 2 to the eye, hav es consisting of v decomposed lava 1 and extend & nterior the r le waste or un- se highlands are production of cof- and the fruits and and semi- own country, as the strictly tropical 5 and salubrious enough at of warm clothing e but a necessity. y pled. With an square miles, it num- W0 people. There are without popula- as one will find s of the United where the In- d state as when d this beautiful rs ago. There are considerable jcts of which there is no record or corn, tobacco - e tes of but cool the way the old eity of Leen, the largest in the Btate, containing about 40,000 peo- ple. All the way from Corinto to Lake Managua, a distance of about sixty miles, one is filled with wonder at the beauty and fertility of the country through which he is passing. There appears not one mile, scarcely one acre, of waste land. This is the settled region. and yet not the fiftleth acre is in cultivation. One sees a few sugar plantations, now and then a little corn, three or four acres of tobacco, a small field of cotton and here and there tiny patches of bananas and plantain; but all these together are hardly sufficient in extent to be worth mention- ing. A larger area the aggregate is devoted to cattle raising. For cattle ranges the forest is cleared away or thin- ned out, a few acres—or less—at a time and the land is covered aith a coa grass—the people call it “planted gras to distingulsh it from the natural growth, which is found in occasional small, open in patches. This “planted grass” resembles the “Johnson gr: (sorghum hala- pense), which was introduced into this country some fifteen or twenty years ago under the deceptive name of evergreen millet; but it is not the same. Its feed- ing quality is demonstrated in the fat cattle which are seen in the pastures. Cattle raising is a staple industry all through Central America and consider- able attention is given to improving the quality of the herds, many blooded ani- mals being imported for this purpose from the United States and some from Eng- d. The railway ends at Momotombo, a vil-. lage at the northwest end of Lake Ma- nagua, snug at the foot of the volcano Momotombo, the smoke of whose tor- ment ascends forever and ever. Here passengers are transferred to a comfort- able steamer and carried across the lake to Managua, the capital of the republic, an old-fashioned Spanish-American city with a population of about 20,00. From Managua two hours’ run by rail, still to the southeast, and one finds himself at Granada, another characteristic city of the old Castilian da on the bank of the great lake which gives its name to fhe republic. A sight of this lake and a sail on its laughing waters—for it is always rippling in appreciation of the softest zephyrs that ever kissed lake or sea into laughter—are worth a voyage to the trop- ies, though there were nothing else to lure one to such a venture. The lake is a little over a hundred miles long by an average of about forty-five in width, and its beauty can never be overdrawn. It is surrounded by hilly but not mountainous land, whose undulations come down gent- ly to the water’s edge, clothed in ver- dure, such as even Oregon, the ‘“Emerald Islard,” as Joaquin Miller names it, can- not match; and its surface is always broken into such an expression of quiet coolness as makes one “oblivious of the tropical noonday, while the breeze that in- cessantly plays over its face—well, all other breezes are harsh winds. Into this magnificent body of water numerous rivers empty, and it is the San Juan River which leaves the lake at its southeastern extremity, at the little mil- itary post of San Carlos, one hundred miles or so from Granada. This river is the basis of the proposed canal. It Is quite as large as the Sacramento (taking Red Bluff for the place of comparison), and has been navigated from the earliest times, all the way from the Caribbean to the lake, one hundred and thirty odd miles. The only serious obstruction to its navigation is Castillo rapids, forty miles from the lake, and this is not a more considerable obstruction than some of the rapids in our Northwestern rivers, which have been ascended by steamboats for forty years. The boats on the San Juan do not pass Castillo rapids, however, a portage belng made by means of a tram- ‘way with mule power. The forests on the banks of the San Juan greatly exceed those on the Pacific Coast side of the republic. Indeed, it is hard to realize the possibilities of a ¢rop- fcal forest without seeing those which cover the western slope of Nicaragua, Honduras and Costa Rica. There is hardly an acre of open land, nor an acre of for- est where Increase of timber and follage would seem possible. The exportation of tropical timber products, so long car- ried on in a small way, will some time give scope and opportunity for enterprise of vast magnitude and for industry of in- finite variety and detail. The idea that these forests can offer nothing to com- merce and contridute nothing for the use of the greater world, beyond the small amount of mahogany required for making veneered furniture, logwood enough to supply coloring matter for such of our textile fabrics as may want that par- ticular hue, and for such of our potables as refuse to give their color in the cup without that sort of assistance, and fus- CANAL tic enough to meet the small demand for that article, will have to give way before the knowledge of the next generation con- cerning the resources of the troples, and in presence of the failure of timber sup- ply at home. But that is in the future. ke Nicaragua is only 110 fect above the sea level. It is in the line and at the summit of the lowest pass-across the continent between the Arctic Ocean and the Strait of Magellan—lower by half than the line of the Panama canal. The lake wouid not be pe tibly affected by the use bf water enough to pass the com- merce of the world through locks using its water. ‘It wbuld afford fresh water harbor to any imaginable amount of shipping. It would provide a waterway between the Atlantic and Pacific ports of the United States, approximately 1200 miles shorter than the Panama route; it would send wheat from Washington and California to Liverpool by a water route less than half as-long as that now tra- versed by our Pacific Coast grain fleets, DrReEDcES AT WOoRA NEAR ATLANTIC TERMINUS besides avolding the sea risks of Cape Horn, saving expense of tonnage, saving time in getting retfirns, saving risk and cost of insurance, and it would open to commerce an extensive country endowed by nature with. untold resources, and neg- lected by man with unaccountable inat- tention, while he has spent himself in finding and developing less inviting fields and achieving more difficult triumphs. The vast possibilities of commerce de- velopment which would be opened by con- structing the canal through Nicaragua, as I have endeavored .to present a faint glimpse of them above, cannot be igrored in viewing the question of the location of the international canal from the stand- point of American interests. We are in- terested in common with all natiors in the general benefit to be expected from the opening of this highway of commerce across the continent; but we are also In- terested in a special and American sense in the opportunity that lles at our door for developing the national growth and prosperity of that interesting couatry, which comprises the five republics of Cen- tral America, and at the same time and by the same act adding vastly to our own national commerce and prosperity by giving opportunities for the enterprise of our own people right at our door. Another consideratién which ought not to be forgotten for ome moment is the fact that through this low pass of fifty or sixty miles in width across- the con- tinent the breezes from the Caribbean and the Pacific play unceasingly. There are no calms on land or sea near the points where the shipping would enter the canal. Ships would approach and depart under sall whenever desired without delay: whereas the Panama route is in the line of tropical calms at both termini. This is a matter on which, of course, accurats knowledge can only be obtained through systematic and scientific nautical obser- vation, but the same story came to me, upon inquiry, from so many intelligent seafaring men along the Caribbean coast that scarcely the Nautical Almanae would take it out of my mind or destroy its emphasis as a fact Important to shipping. Besides, the nautical authorities do con- cur. Vessels long becalmed off Colon or Panama are a thing of common oeccur- remch. But no vessel lles becalmed off Greytown, which is at the mouth of the San Juan River; nor at San Juan del Sur on the Pacific side. To steamers (his, of course, Is unimportant, but there is a far cry between this day and that In which the sailing vessel will not be on the seas and playing an Important part in the commerce of the world. But another effect of these winds which s even more to be thought of. In the line of their health-giving sweep mno trople heat develops, mo yellow or pernicious fever exists. Greytown, the old San Juan del Norte of the Spaniard, is one of the oldest ports on the Caribbean Sea, and was for many years one of the buslest: and vet, though the statement will sur- prise most people, there never yet was an epidemic of yellow fever at Greytown; and it is resolutely asserted by businss men of that town that there never was a case of yellow\ fever there which was not brought there from some other port. This is no small matter. The awful death roll of General Aspinwall's enter- prise in the development of the port of Colon will not te forgotten by any per- son who was then old enough to read. until it is forgotten along with all things else. America fairly swooned at sight of her boys tumbled together by hundreds into the burial trench on that dreadful coast. Already business .on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua from Greytown to the north is American in character. Grey- town is an American town in its con- struction and its business is done by Americans and in the American language. The American Consul at 'that place, Colonel W. B. Sorsby, an intelligent American from Mississippi, gave me much Information of the condition of things, and his statements show that there is along the Caribbean coast a great open- . Ing for American enterprise. The British Viee Consul, Herbert Bingham, a loyal ' Briton and obliging gentleman, tells me the country must be opened to commerce through American enterprise. Greytown is a small place, having a population not , exceeding 1000 souls, but it is more of a town than many of the larger towns in the interior, because it is alive. Sixty miles north of Greytown is the flourishing little city of Bluyefields, purely an American city, with American habits, American ways and the good, sweet American tongue. Already it is doing a great commerce with the United States, steamers going thence as often as once or twice a week to New Orleans, Mobile and Galveston, carrying fruits and other prod- ucts of the country. The merchants of Bluefields are almost exclusively Ameri- cans and they have as large stores and carry as large stocks as the retall mer- chants in any of our small American cities. Gold mines are developing in the tributary mountain region to the west and northwest of Bluefields and American cap- ital will soon make the western section of Nicaragua a great gold-producing country and Blueflelds a typical mining city. But the road to this lies through close rapport between the republic of Nicaragua and that of the United States. I have only hinted at a little of what awaits American industry as the result of the construction of the Nicaraguan canal. Take the Pacific Coast shipment of wheat to Europe for a single illustra- tion. According to a report just published the three States, California, Oregon and Washington, shipped out to Europe the past year 42,000,000 bushels of wheat, and this paid freight for 12,000 miles greater distance than it would have paid for with the Nicaraguan canal constructed. Here the isthmian canal offers the reduction of time and freight rates on the one article of wheat almost sufficient to pay interest on its construction, not to speak of the thousand other lines of commerce which would receive like benefits. I use the wheat only for a sallent example. An isthmian canal is needed, and the American people are going to have it; and it is Inconceivable that between one route and another a difference in cost of a few millions of dollars is going to balk the American people in their determination to have the best. I know not that the Ni- caragua route will cost more than the Panama route. But suppose it should: the Ameriean people will not hold gufltiess the Senator or Representative who Is in- strumental in selecting the less conven- jent and useful route for commerce be- cause the Frenchmen may offer it on terms that will save a few million dollars. If, all things considered, the Panama route is the one which the Interests of commerce and - the interests of America indicate as the proper route for the canal, by all means let us have it, even though we pay the Frenchmen more than their work is worth; but if it is not the best, if Nicaragua is the best for the great ex- pansion of our country’s commerce and the accommodation of the shipping of the world, then there should be no hesitation and the Nicaragua route should be chosen even though the French company offered us their work and franchises for, not $40,~ 000,000, but forty cents.