Note 58 — THE PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA, THE ANCIENT CAPITAL OF THE INCA ATAHUALLPA: AND THE FIRST VIEW OF THE PACIFIC OCEAN, FROM THE CREST OF THE ANDES.

p. 299.—“Of the expedition of Vasco Nuñez de Balboa.”

I have already remarked elsewhere (Examen critique de l’histoire de la Géographie du Nouveau Continent, et des progrès de l’Astronomie nautique aux 15ème et 16ème siècles, T. i. p. 349) that Columbus knew fully ten years before Balboa’s expedition the existence of the South Sea and its great proximity to the east coast of Veragua. He was conducted to this knowledge not by theoretical speculations respecting the configuration of Eastern Asia, but by the local and positive reports of the natives, which he collected on his fourth voyage (May 11, 1502, to November 7, 1504). On this fourth voyage the Admiral went from the coast of Honduras to the Puerto de Mosquitos, the western end of the Isthmus of Panama. The reports of the natives, and the comments of Columbus on those reports in the “Carta rarissima” of the 7th of July, 1503, were to the effect that “not far from the Rio de Belen the other sea (the South Sea) turns (boxa) to the mouths of the Ganges, so that the countries of the Aurea (i. e. the countries of the Chersonesus aurea of Ptolemy) are situated in relation to the eastern coasts of Veragus, as Tortosa (at the mouth of the Ebro) is to Fuentarrabia (on the Bidassoa) in Biscay, or as Venice in relation to Pisa.” Although Balboa first saw the South Sea from the heights of the Sierra de Quarequa on the 25th of September (Petr. Martyr, Epist. dxl. p. 296), yet it was not until several days later that Alonso Martin de Don Benito, who found a way from the mountains of Quarequa to the Gulf of San Miguel, embarked on the South Sea in a canoe. (Joaquin Acosta, Compendio hist. del Descubrimiento de la Nueva Granada, p. 49.)

As the taking possession of a considerable part of the west coast of the New Continent by the United States of North America, and the report of the abundance of gold in New California (now called Upper California) have rendered more urgent than ever the formation of a communication between the Atlantic States and the regions of the West through the Isthmus of Panama, I feel it my duty to call attention once again to the circumstance that the shortest way to the shores of the Pacific, which was shown by the natives to Alonso Martin de Don Benito, is in the eastern part of the Isthmus, and led to the Golfo de San Miguel. We know that Columbus (Vida del Almirante por Don Fernando Colon, cap. 90) sought for an “estrecho de Tierra firmë”; and in the official documents which we possess of the years 1505 and 1507, and especially 1514, mention is made of the desired “opening” (abertura), and of the pass (passo), which should lead directly to the “Indian Land of Spices.” Having for more than forty years been occupied with the subject of the means of communication between the two seas, I have constantly, both in my printed works and in the different memoirs which with honourable confidence the Free States of Spanish America have requested me to furnish, urged that the Isthmus should be examined hypsometrically throughout its entire length, and more especially where, in Darien and the inhospitable former Provincia de Biruquete, it joins the continent of South America; and where, between the Atrato and the Bay of Cupica (on the shore of the Pacific), the mountain chain of the Isthmus almost entirely disappears. (See in my Atlas géographique et physique de la Nouvelle Espagne, Pl. iv.; in the Atlas de la Relation historique, Pl. xxii. and xxiii.; Voyage aux Régions équinoxiales du Nouveau Continent, T. iii. p. 117-154; and Essai politique sur le Royaume de la Nouvelle Espagne, T. i. 2de édit. 1825, p. 202-248.)

General Bolivar at my request caused an exact levelling of the Isthmus between Panama and the mouth of the Rio Chagres to be made in 1828 and 1829 by Lloyd and Falmarc. (Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London for the year 1830, p. 59-68.) Other measurements have since been executed by accomplished and experienced French engineers, and projects have been formed for canals and railways with locks and tunnels, but always in the direction of a meridian between Portobello and Panama,—or more to the west, towards Chagres and Cruces. Thus the most important points of the eastern and south-eastern part of the Isthmus have remained unexamined on both shores! So long as this part is not examined geographically by means of exact but easily obtained determinations of latitude and of longitude by chronometers, as well as hypsometrically in the conformation of the surface by barometric measurements of elevation,—so long I consider that the statement I have repeatedly made, and which I now repeat in 1849, will still be true; viz. “that it is as yet unproved and quite premature to pronounce that the Isthmus does not admit of the formation of an Oceanic Canal (i. e. a canal with fewer locks than the Caledonian Canal) permitting at all seasons the passage of the same sea-going ships between New York and Liverpool on the one hand, and Chili and California on the other.”

On the Atlantic side (according to examinations which the Direccion of the Deposito hidrografico of Madrid have entered on their maps since 1809) the Ensenada de Mandinga penetrates so deeply towards the south that it appears to be only four or five German geographical miles, fifteen to an equatorial degree, (i. e. 16 or 20 English geographical miles), from the coast of the Pacific on the east of Panama. On the Pacific side the isthmus is almost equally indented by the deep Golfo de San Miguel, into which the Rio Tuyra falls, with its tributary river the Chuchunque (Chuchunaque). This last-named stream in the upper part of its course approaches within 16 English geographical miles of the Atlantic side of the isthmus to the west of Cape Tiburon. For more than twenty years I have had inquiries made from me on the subject of the problem of the Isthmus of Panama, by associations desirous of employing considerable pecuniary means: but the simple advice which I have given has never been followed. Every scientifically educated engineer knows that between the tropics, (even without corresponding observations), good barometric measurements (the horary variations being taken into account) afford results which are well assured to less than from 70 to 90 French or 75 to 96 English feet. It would besides be easy to establish for a few months on the two shores two fixed corresponding barometric stations, and to compare repeatedly the portable instruments employed in preliminary levelling, with each other and with those at the fixed stations. Let that part be particularly examined where, near the continent of South America, the separating mountain ridge sinks into hills. Seeing the importance of the subject to the great commerce of the world, the research ought not, as hitherto, to be restricted to a limited field. A great and comprehensive work, which shall include the whole eastern part of the Isthmus,—and which will be equally useful for every possible kind of operation or construction,—for canal, or for railway,—can alone decide the much discussed problem either affirmatively or negatively. That will be done at last, which should, and, had my advice been taken, would have been done in the first instance.