Page:The Overland Monthly Volume 5 Issue 3.djvu/38



NE of the strangest gaps in mod ern geographical science is the little knowledge which, after nearly four centuries of explorations and discovery, we possess of the comparatively narrow Strip of land that separates the waters of the Pacific from those of the Caribbean. More than three hundred and fifty years ago, Vasco Balboa de Nufiez led his Spaniards across the mountains of Veragua to the discovery of the mighty ocean whose waters cover nearly half the globe, and, a decade later, the conqueror of Mexico himself penetrated to the heart of Honduras, from the north, and Hernandez planted the standard of Spain by the waters of the Lake of Nicaragua; but the explorations thus commenced by the greatest of the conquistadores have since found few to continue them, and most of the territory of Central America still remains untrodden by the foot of the White Man. The settled Indian tribes of the Plains, and the Pacific Coast, were indeed reduced to submission to the Spanish Monarchy by the sword of Alvarado and the persuasions of Las Casas, and stately cities sprang up by the Lakes of Managua and Nicaragua, and in the Plains of Guatemala, nearly a century before the Mayflower crossed the Atlantic with the Pilgrim Fathers of New England; but neither the wealthy communities that dwelt in those cities, nor the bold adventurers that flocked to the New World in quest of wealth and renown, have made any important addition to our stock of knowledge respecting the wilder parts of the country, which are still almost as little known to us as they were to the followers of Cortez.

The importance of finding or making a direct communication between the Caribbean and the South Sea—as the Pacific continued to be styled down to the days of Cook and Bligh—did not escape the notice of the Spanish Court; and Herrara, the historiographer of Charles the Fifth, pointed out four routes, by which it might be attained, as far back as 1527; but, although those routes have ever since been before the eyes of the world, the question of the practicability of any one of them has never yet been solved, and even the actual existence of a water-communication between the two oceans is still an open question. Considering the limited extent of the territory between Tehuantepec and Panama, the proximity to the ocean of every part of it, and the importance of its position in the highway of commerce for over three hundred years, there seems, at first sight, something inexplicable in the fact of its surface being so little known. Generation after generation of civilized men has grown up, and lived, and passed away, in the flourishing cities of Nicaragua and Guatemala; commerce and learning have lent their aid to their development; the golden treasure of the mines has poured wealth upon them; the war- vessels and merchant - galleons of Spain have sailed up and down the San Juan, and over the waters of the great lake, for century after century, and still the foot of the explorer has scarcely penetrated into the narrow strip of country that separates that lake from the Atlantic. For ages has the wealth of Peru been laboriously carried across the few leagues that divide the Gu'f of Panama from the Caribbean, and still