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The canal runs from northwest to southeast, the Atlantic end at the north being about twenty-two miles west of the Pacific end at the south. This seems rather strange but we must remember that the Isthmus is in the shape of the letter S and it so happens that the shortest point runs in the direction named.
The cost was believed to be excessive and the engineering difficulties were said to be almost insuperable. George Bernard, a French engineer, was of the opinion that the high elevations and scarcity of water along the route would prevent such a canal from having much practical value.
Our district, stretching from the trestleless bridge over the canal to a great tree near Bas Obispo, was easily the fat of the land, the most populous, most cosmopolitan, and embracing within its limits the greatest task on the Zone. Meanwhile we had fallen to studying the "Instructions to Enumerators," the very first article of which was such as to give pause and reflection;
When the check finally came from Washington Nestor was so surprised at its size that he sought the lieutenant, who laughed at him. "Uncle Sam always pays well," he said, "and he wants a little more of your time!" "Wants me?" asked Nestor. "Well, he asks me to get some keen fellows together and go down to the Canal Zone and look into a bit of treason."
Slick, said he, 'the poor labourer does not last long in your country; what with new rum, hard labour, and hot weather, you'll see the graves of the Irish each side of the canal, for all the world like two rows of potatoes in a field that have forgot to come up. "It is a land, sir," continued the Clockmaker, "of hard work. We have two kind of slaves, the niggers and the white slaves.
I purpose having prepared and laid before you at an early day some interesting and valuable statistical information upon this subject. The military and commercial importance of enlarging the Illinois and Michigan Canal and improving the Illinois River is presented in the report of Colonel Webster to the Secretary of War, and now transmitted to Congress. I respectfully ask attention to it.
"The ancients well understood the utility of a communication between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean for their commercial affairs: but they did not think of digging a canal direct, and took the Nile as an intermediate. Very probably the canal which united the Nile to the Red Sea was begun by Sesostris, if we may believe tradition.
The wheat was yellow, the oats were green, the hay was dry and delicious to roll in, and from the old ruined house which nobody lived in, down to the edge of the canal, was a forest of great burdocks, so tall that a whole family of children might have dwelt in them and never have been found out.
The locks in the "Soo" canal, of which more later, have twice had to be enlarged, while the Canadian Government has built a canal of its own on the other side of the river.
He hung the cord again in its place, and immediately desired me to follow him; for this time he did not hold me, and so I walked freely beside him. My chief curiosity now was, to discover where the gate and bridge, for passing through the railing and over the canal, might be; since as yet I had not been able to find any thing of the kind.
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