Note XXXIV-13 — Chapter XXXIV · INTEROCEANIC COMMUNICATION. 1801-1887.

Gov. Pedrarias Dávila had the outlet of lakes Nicaragua and Managua discovered. His officers Este and Rojas favored the plan of a canal round the falls of the San Juan, and another on the Pacific slope. The project occupied the court and colony for many years. Herrera, iv., iii., ii.; Cent. Am., Extractos Sueltos, in Squier's MS., xxii. 108; Fröbel, Aus. Am., i. 144, 241. The plan not only engaged the Spaniards but the French and English, the latter contemplating the conquest of the country. The royal engineer Manuel Galisteo in 1781, the system of locks being little known then, declared the connection of the lake with the Pacific to be impracticable. In 1791 La Bastide proposed widening the river Sapoa between the lake and Papagayo Gulf, and cutting a canal between that river and the gulf of Nicoya; but the French revolution caused the matter to be forgotten. In 1814 the Spanish córtes decreed the survey and construction, but subsequent political events made that decree inoperative. Saravia, Bosq. Polít. Est., 13-17; Viajero, Univ., xxvii. 180-4; Bastide, Mém. Sur. Nouv. Passage, 1-70; Humboldt, Essai Polít., i. 1-17; Bourgoane's Trav., in Pinkerton's Coll., ii. 498-9; Reichardt, Cent. Am., 169-70; Duflot de Mofras, Explor. de l'Oregon, i. 137; Squier's Nic., 658.