Note XXXIV-21 — Chapter XXXIV · INTEROCEANIC COMMUNICATION. 1801-1887.

This Isthmus was surveyed in 1520 by two Flemish engineers, who reported adversely. The king for politic reasons would not have the subject mentioned again. So it has been said. Duflot de Mofras, Explor. de l'Oregon, i. 119. The section was repeatedly explored. In 1534 preliminary work for a ship canal was done, under royal order, by Gov. Gama. The Chagres River was made navigable to where the wagon road began. Pan. Céd., in Squier's MSS., xi. 1-6; Andagoya, Carta al Rey., in Id., 8; Garella, Isth. de Pan., 3-5; Datos Biog., in Cartas de Ind., 761. Various schemes were broached in the 17th century, meeting with no encouragement. In 1687 Lionel Wafer was guided by Mandinga Indians from the gulf of San Miguel to Concepcion on the Atlantic side. W. Paterson, from his settlement at Caledonia Harbor, made several journeys into the interior, recommending it to his company for interoceanic traffic. Ulloa and Jorge Juan explored Panamá for a route in 1736. Juan and Ulloa Voy., i. 94; Fitz-Roy, in Lond. Geog. Soc., Jour., xx. 170, 178; Reichardt, Cent. Am., 164-5. A road was opened on the isth. of Darien by Gov. Ariza from Puerto Escocés to Puerto del Príncipe on the Sabana River, which enters the Pacific. Ariza, Darien, MS., 11-12; De Puydt, in Lond. Geog. Soc., Jour., xxxviii. 69; Cullen's Darien, 192-204; Pim's Gate of the Pac., 183-4; Scherzer, Cent. Am., i. 248-9. In 1820 Capt. Illingsworth of the Chilian corvette La Rosa (a) Andes had his shallop drawn across the cordillera, and launched in the Napipi, whence it proceeded to Quibdó or Citerá, near the mouth of the Atrato, where it was found in 1824 by Cochrane, who in examining Darien for a canal route found the obstacles almost insurmountable. Annales des Voy., cliii. 8, 22, 36. Domingo Lopez, a Colombian, traced a line for a canal between Panamá and Portobello. Arosemena, Apuntes Hist., 4. In 1827, C. Friend of the British navy made an excursion from the banks of the Atrato to the bay of Cupica. But the first formal exploration was made, shortly after Friend's tour, by Lloyd of Pres. Bolívar's staff, and Capt. Falmarc, a Swede in the Colombian service, under Bolívar's auspices. After completing their labors in 1829, they declared that a railway, if not a canal, was feasible between Chagres and Panamá. The notes of the expedition were published in Philosophical Trans., for 1830, and in London Geog. Soc., Jour., i. 69-101; Chevalier, Pan., 112-13; Bull. Societé Geog., xiv. 88, 53-66; Democ. Rev., vi. 297-8; Nouv. Annales des Voy., xlviii. 380-1; Garella, Isth. de Pan., 8-9.