Page:The National geographic magazine, volume 1.djvu/421

 "What if, in this camp, we should, like Rip Van Winkle, sleep for ten years, and then awakening look about us? We are still at Brito, but instead of being in the wilderness, we look down upon a thriving city. In the harbor are ships from all ports of the world. Ships from San Francisco, bound for New York, about to pass through the canal and shorten their journey by 10,000 miles. Ships from Valparaiso, headed for New York, which will take the short cut and save 5000 miles and the dread storms of Cape Horn. At many a masthead floats the British flag, and vessels from Liverpool, with their bows turned towards San Francisco, have shortened their journey by 7000 miles."

"We go aboard one of the many steamers flying the "stars and stripes" and start eastward. All along the line the face of the country has changed; the fertile shores of the Tola basin are occupied by cacao plantations, fields have replaced forests, villages have grown to towns, and factories driven by the exhaustless water power furnished by the canal have sprung up on every available site."

"Along the shore of the lake are immense dry docks, and vessels are resting in this huge fresh water harbor before setting out again on their long voyages. The broad bosom of the noble San Juan is quivering with the strokes of tireless propellors. The roar of the great dam at Ochoa is heard for a moment and then the eastern section of the canal is entered. Here the country is scarcely recognizable so greatly has it changed. Wilderness and marsh have disappeared, and only great fields of plantains and bananas and dark green orange groves are to be seen. A day from Brito and the steamer's bow is rising to the long blue swell of the Caribbean at Greytown."

Well is this picture calculated to excite enthusiamenthusiasm [sic], for it means the dream of centuries realized, the cry of commerce answered, and our imperial Orient and Occident-facing Republic resting content with coasts united from Eastport to the Strait of Fuca.