The Chagres: River of Westward Passage (The Rivers of America Series)

xiv, 418 pp. 8vo. Illustrations by William Wellons. "The Chagres is the thirty-fifth volume in the Rivers of America series and the first one written about a river outside the continental United States. The river of the Canal Zone, the Chagres, has an immensely exciting story. Christopher Columbus arrived on the river in 1502 and started the white man's history of the Chagres. The Chagres was originally a Spanish river - the gateway to Peru - and along its banks millions in gold were transported across the isthmus by slaves chained in long lines. Gold was naturally followed by banditry and banditry by piracy. The big men ranged from explorers like Balboa who treated the natives fairly, through Pedrarias, the tyrannical Spanish governor who reduced the population by 80% in eleven years, to Sir Henry Morgan, the wickedest of pirates, who raped, slaughtered, stole, and even cheated his own men. After a brief peaceful interlude, the Chagres once again became vitally important during the Gold Rush of '49 when the trans-isthmian route became the shortest way from the eastern United States to California. The river's modern story is the history of the Panama Canal: the attempt by the French under deLesseps which failed in 1889; the successful effort which started after the Republic of Panama was set up in 1903. Goethals, the engineer who built the lock canal, and Gorgas, the physician who conquered yellow fever in the Canal Zone, both make their contributions to this exciting story."