Panama fever (85 page)

104    ”learn a foreign language”
or “seek adventure” Quoted in Newton,
The Silver Men
, p. 7.

105    ”A trip to Colón?”
Barbados Herald
, August 6, 1885.

105    ”pretentious, and always complaining”
Quoted in Siegfreid,
Suez and Panama
, p. 252.

106    ”They were excellent workers”
Cermoise,
Deux Ans à Panama
, p. 247.

106     “are left when ill to die in the streets of Colón”
“Governor's Report on the blue book 1881– 2,” p. 32, quoted in Petras,
Jamaican Labor Migration
, p. 112.

Chapter Ten: Fever

108     “evidently in a state of delirium”
Bulletin du Canal Interocéanique
, September 1, 1881.

111     “There was a dismal period for the administration”
Cermoise,
Deux Ans à Panama
, p. 129.

111     “At the moment, the state of health conditions”
Verbrugghe to Reclus, October 5, 1881, quoted in Fauconnier,
Panama
, pp. 208–9.

111    ”No epidemic of maladie had manifested itself”
Star and Herald
, October 1, 1881.

112    ”Mr. Blanchet's death is an irreparable loss”
Bennett to Granville, November 10,
1881, F
O
420/36.

112     The best estimate is that about fifty men died
Star and Herald
, February 22, 1882; and Newton,
The Silver Men
, p. 126.

112    ”the hospital rooms are so vast”
Jos,
Guadeloupéens et Martiniquais au Canal de Panama
, p. 46.

113    ”She is one of those rare women”
New York Herald
, August 22, 1881.

113     “There's only one certain way to diagnose fever”
Cermoise,
Deux Ans àPanama
, p. 148.

115    
“la section de la grande tranchée”

    
Chamberlaine report, May 18, 1882, FO420/37.

115     “invaded by a persistent tiredness”
Cermoise,
Deux Ans à Panama
, p. 230.

117     “all but produced an earthquake”
Nelson,
Five Years at Panama
, p. 178.

118     “I have spent two of the best years of my youth”
Cermoise,
Deux Ans à Panama
, p. 301.

118     “After two years’ work … we are much farther advanced”
Bulletin du Canal In-terocéanique
, December 8, 1882.

118    ”applications for shares showering him from all quarters of France”
New York Tribune
, September 28, 1882.

119    ”The truth is that during the trial period”
Chambre des Députés,
j
e Législature, Session de 1893, Rapport Général
… vol. 1, p. 451.

119     “aged a good deal”
New York Tribune
, quoted in the
Star and Herald
, June 23, 1883.

Chapter Eleven: Jules Dingler

121     “busy … and bright with hope”
Nelson,
Five Years at Panama
, p. 230.

121    ”The work moves steadily on”
Star and Herald
, November 21,1884.

122    ”I intend to show the world that only the drunk and the dissipated”
Haskin,
The Panama Canal
, p. 194.

122    ”This result has surprised all”
Star and Herald
, November 9, 1883.

123    ”determined to have a finger in the canal pie”
Robinson,
Fifty Years at Panama
, p. 151.

124    an American naval officer
Rodgers,
Progress of Work on Panama Ship-Canal
, January 27, 1884 (Sen. Doc. 123, 48th Cong., 1st Sess.)

124    ”So the visitor to Gatún”
Star and Herald
, October 14, 1884.

125    ”From morning till night”
Rodgers,
Progress of Work on Panama Ship-Canal
, January 27, 1884.

126    ”A stampede took place which is hardly possible to describe”
Quoted in
Star and Herald
, January 26, 1884.

126    ”Now and again you see a great swell”
Senior, “The Colon People,”
J amaica Journal
, March 1978, p. 70.

126    ”The infatuation to go seems to have taken hold”
Daily Gleaner
, May 7, 1883, quoted in Senior, “The Colon People,” p. 64.

127     “a flag of liberation”
Senior, “West Indian Participation in the Construction of the Panama Canal,” p. 40.

127     “We are not of those who think it a calamity”
Quoted in
Star and Herald
, February 14, 1884.

127    ”the great outflow from the Colony of labourers”
Star and Herald
, May 18, 1883.

128    Kill my partner / Kill my partner
“West Indian Work Songs,” MCCZ, Box 33.

128    ”They have a way of shifting for themselves”
Star and Herald
, January 29, 1884, p. 79.

129    ”I perceive that these men are partial in their protection”
Letter of March 29, 1883, FO55/297.

129    ”a ruinously expensive method”
New York World
, February 8, 1885.

130    ”Damage amounting to thousands of dollars”
Montreal Gazette
, August 24, 1884.

130     “of a character and complexity to defy description”
Sibert and Stevens,
The Construction of the Panama Canal
, p. 79.

130     the Company lost some 10 percent of the work it paid for
J. Bigelow private diary, March 2, 1886.

130    ”There was no system or organisation”
Jeremiah Waisome, “Competition for the Best True Stories.”

131    ”The rainy season, at last set in”
Star and Herald
, May 25, 1883.

131    ”The heavy downpours of late”
Star and Herald
, May 26, 1884.

132    ”the water will have to be hung up on the sides of the mountains”
Paper read before the Franklin Institute, October 22, 1884, by Charles Colné.

132    ”Fresh engineering difficulties present themselves”
Admiral Lyon to Foreign Office, November 29, 1883, FO420/50.

133    ”A day of reckoning is coming”
Montreal Gazette
, August 24, 1884.

133    ”It is probable the present company will go into bankruptcy”
New York Herald
, November 1, 1884.

134    ”It is generally believed here that the present Company”
Mallet to Foreign Office, July 5, 1884, FO55/304.

134     “It would be a pity that a work such as this should be left partially completed”
Star and Herald
, July 5, 1884.

134    ”Under such circumstances, there is something amounting to heroism”
New York Herald
, December 2, 1883.

135    ”Death becomes a grim joke, burial a travesty”
New York Tribune
, August 8, 1886.

135    ”Probably if the French had been trying to propagate Yellow Fever”
Gorgas,
Sanitation
, p. 232.

136    ”thousand dying with yellow fever”
Charles Wilson, unpublished memoir, p. 74, Box 11, MCCZ.

136     “As for the men”
Montreal Gazette
, August 24, 1884.

136    ”burials averaged from thirty to forty per day”
Nelson,
Five Years at Panama
, p. 7.

137    ”My poor husband is in a despair that is painful to see”
Edgar-Bonnet,
Ferdinand de Lesseps
, p. 184.

137    ”Mr. Dingler was but 20 years of age”
Star and Herald
, February 25, 1884.

138    ”exalted the energy of those who were filled with a sincere love”
Bunau-Varilla,
Panama
, p. 44.

139    ”abominable neglect of all sanitary measures”
Star and Herald
, January 28, 1884.

139     “host of idle loafers, who infect the town”
Star and Herald
, October 25, 1884.

139     “thanks to abstemious habits.”
Nelson,
Five Years at Panama
, p. 17.

139     “Woe to the feeble person who doesn't know how to quench his thirst!”
Reclus,
Panama & Darien
, p. 130.

139    ”designed for nothing but hasty drinking,”
Cermoise,
Deux Ans à Panama
, pp. 52–53.

140    ”a veritable sink of iniquity,”
Bishop,
The Panama Gateway
, p. 88.

140     “the hardest drinking and the most immoral place I have ever known”
Mallet,
Pioneer Diplomat.

140     “spirit of venality and corruption”
Robinson,
Fifty Years at Panama
, p. 61.

140    ”There is a general belief held by many intelligent people”
Nelson,
Five Years at Panama
, p. 18.

141    ”assembly rooms, provided with books, periodicals, and various indoor games”
Bulletin du Canal Interocéanique
, July 18, 1883.

141     “A great enormous hall with a stone floor was the bar-room”
Cermoise,
DeuxAns à Panama
, pp. 52–53.

141     “passions run high owing to the constant proximity of death”
Dansette,
LesAffaires de Panama
, pp. 24–25.

141     “the Sword of Damocles hangs over everyone”
Mimande,
Souvenirs d'un Echappede Panama
, pp. 60–61.

141    ”death and
la fête
are perpetually hand in hand” Cermoise,
Deux Ans à Panama
, p. 145.

142    ”foreign men of dubious reputation”
Perez-Penero,
Before the Five Frontiers
, p. 113.

142     “which as usual was occasioned by the vile rum”
Star and Herald
, May 22, 1883.

142    ”an agglomeration of all nations”
Star and Herald
, September 18, 1883.

143    billed as a hole of 33 meters
Zévaès,
Le Scandale du Panama
, p. 24.

Chapter Twelve: Annus Horribilis

144    ”not unlikely”
New York Times
, quoted in
Panama Star and Herald
, February 3, 1882.

145    ”the British recently took possession of Egypt and the Suez canal”
New York Sun
, November 6, 1884.

145    ”be so fortified as to become a second Gibraltar”
Lord Lyons in Paris to Granville, December 22, 1884, FO420/50.

146    muttering darkly to the British ambassador
Sackville-West to Granville, December 26, 1884, FO420/50.

147    Britain should also have one, built at Tehuantepec.
Sackville-West to Granville, December 28, 1884. FO420/50

148    ”described every Canal functionary”
FR. St. John, British Minister in Bogotá to Granville, March 2, 1885, FO420/51.

149    the Colombian minister shared his grave concerns with the British ambassador
Sackville-West to Granville, January 27, 1885, FO420/51.

150    ”At 2 a.m. on the 16th”
Star and Herald
, March 19, 1885.

151    ”rebel bullets and cannon balls”
Leay note to Mallet, April 3, 1885, FO55/313.

152    ”The firing was hot and reckless in the extreme”
Mallet to Foreign Office, April 4, 1885, FO55/313.

153    ”The entry of the American marines into the city”
Mallet to Foreign Officer, April27, 1885, FO55/313.

153     “the presence [of the U.S. force] is only temporary”
U.S. Navy Department,
Report of Commander Bowman H. McCalla upon the Naval Expedition to the Isthmus of Panama, April 1885.