THE PANAMA CANAL.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1845, 21 November 1884, Page 2

THE PANAMA CANAL.

■SOOO ÜBERERS CARRIED OFF IN THREE

MONTHS. [Philadelphia Record.]

" Over 200,000,000 dollars has been SDent in establishing homes for the engineers and woiking men along the route of the Manama ship canal," said Captain James Whitebank, who has been for more than a year engaged in dredging operations on the canal, and who has just returned home after a tou»h struggle wiuh the dreaded swamp fever.

" Plenty of money there captain 1" ' "Oh, plenty. There is only one thing more common than cash, and that is death. Men die like the leaves in,autumn, ' Only the Italians appear to' live. The dead • are disposed of without ceremony, A shallow grave, no prayers, Bnd all is forgotten, There are now • 15,000 men at work ou the canal, These are mostly negroes from Jamada and also from the French West Indies. These negroes arebrought over in droves as fast 'as tnose at work die, and I venture to; say that not twothirds of the 18,000 laborers now at work will be at work I'year from now. It'B dreadful. Five thousand died during; the past three months; but the large pay tempts men to brave all the dangers. The company appears to have an unlimited supply of. money, and pays off every two weeks." I "What progress has been made in the four years,?" Well, two miles and a half of the canal proper has been dug out, Originally this section was dredged to a depth of fourteen feet, but is now only six feet deep, the soft swamp lands, pressed down by the weight of the dirt thrown out on either side, filling iu the canal from underneath. A good deal of work has, however, been done with the great steam shovels in levelling the high lands through which the canal is to pass, and dredging will soon be stated in those sections. Work is now progressing upon the only large mountain which obstructs th'e way of the canal from ocean to ocean. This mountain is 400 feet high, and nine miles in circumference, and is to be cut down with steam ploughs and carted away. The company has been compelled to 20,000,000 dols,, as I B&id, to locate homes through swamps from whichasabasis the workof digging out the canal can be carried on. This work necessitated the building of railway branches in the swamps aud the making of solid foundations with stone and gravel hundreds of feet wide and miles in extent. Laborers get 3dols. a day, and skilled mechanics and bosses from lOOdols. to 350d015, a month." "Will the canal ever be finished!" "Not, I think, unless the swamp sections are' constructed with piling and that would cost so large an amount of money that the scheme could not possibly pay, But the company appears to have all the cash necessary to carry on the work."