CHAPTER XI
HOW PANAMA BECAME A REPUBLIC
"BUT I should wonder," said Goethe, as the great German poet was discussing with his friends, in 1827, the possibility of a Panama Canal, "if the United States were to let an opportunity escape of getting such a work into their own hands. It may be foreseen that this young state, with its decided predilection to the West, will, in thirty or forty years, have occupied and peopled the large tract of land beyond the Rocky Mountains. It may, furthermore, be foreseen that along the whole coast of the Pacific Ocean, where nature has already formed the most capacious and secure harbors, important commercial towns will gradually arise, for the furtherance of a great intercourse between China and the East Indies and the United States. In such a case it would be not only desirable but almost necessary that a more rapid communication should be maintained between the eastern and western shores of North America, both by merchant vessels and men-of-war, than has hitherto been possible with the tedious, disagreeable and expensive voyage round Cape Horn. I, therefore, repeat that it is absolutely indispensable for the United States to effect a passage from the Mexican Gulf to the Pacific Ocean, and I am certain that they will do it."
Less than twenty years after this prophecy, the United
