SWAM PANAMA CANAL

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 944, 10 April 1930, Page 9

SWAM PANAMA CANAL

AMERICAN’S LONG STRUGGLE PAID FEES ON DISPLACEMENT How he dived from the sacrificial altar into the famous Well of Death, 70 feet below, in Yucatan,’ where human sacrifices used to be offered, aud how he swam the Panama Canal is told by a spirited American traveller, Mr. Richard Halliburton, with great humour in his book, New Worlds to Conquer. To get leave to swim the canal he had an interview with the Governor of the Canal Zone, General Walker, when this dialogue took place: “Swim the canal! Why, it’s fifty miles! Rather a long pull for one of your slight physique, I should say.” “You are no doubt right, Governor. I’m not a professional swimmer—not even a good swimmer. But I don’t mean to do it all at once before breakfast—by slow stages rather, as many miles a day as I can, and sleep on shore.” Then came the question of charges. “How would you meet the lock charges ?” “Just as the other ships meet it, sir. I’d pay according to my tonnage.” “Tonnage! You!” General Walker exclaimed, looking at my lost. And he laughed as if he’d never in all his life heard anything so funny. “All right! You win! I’ll send you through—on one condition, my dear fellow: that you be held strictly accountable for any damage you do the Panama Canal! ” Guard With a Rifle Accompanied by a rowboat containing an American marine with a rifle, ready to deal with sharks, alligators, and other savage creatures, the swim was made. To reach the Gatun Locks was like swimming uphill. Every few minutes a ship steamed by, Gatun-bound, and every time such a ship was either lifted from or lowered Into the first chamber, the gates were opened, and out rushed 9 million cubic feet, of water down the 500 ft channel helter-skel-ter out into the Atlantic. “When the locks were reached, I knocked at the colossal outer gates aud demanded entrance,” says Mr. Halliburton. The gate-keeper looked down . . . ‘What nonsense is that?’ he asked, seeing I insisted on standing on my rights.” But the gate-keeper was vanquished. For the first time in the history of tile canal the locks were operated for a single person, and Halliburton paid the preposterously small sum of Is 8d for the treat —on “a displacement of l-13th of a ton.” He reached Panama in safety, despite the alligators and barracudas —fierce, shark-like fish —that chased him.