Transit of the Panama Canal
The 1953 Caronia “Round South America Cruise” book tells us…
PANAMA bound together two continents before man severed them with his “Big Ditch.” But the great Atlantic and Pacific Oceans are now linked by this engineering marvel of our century, and all the world benefits. A trip of approximately fifty miles in eight hours has replaced that of seven thousand eight hundred miles to reach the other ocean.
[Images: from 1953 “Round South America Cruise” book illustrated by Claire and George Louden Jr.]
This dream of the centuries was begun by De Lesseps of Suez fame but completed by the United States after learning to control the deadly diseases of malaria and yellow fever. The Canal Zone, a ten-mile wide strip of land from coast to coast, is under perpetual lease to the United States.
Travelling from North West to South East with the aid of “mules”, the Caronia is lifted through a series of locks to the eighty-five foot level of the lake. When she is again lowered, she emerges into Pacific waters twenty miles east of her Atlantic entrance.
Panama is the Indian word for “many fish” and is famed for deep sea fishing off both coasts. Alongside old Spanish picturesqueness are found modern conveniences such as the luxurious El Panama Hotel. Old Panama was probably the richest city of the Americas; through it passed the looted Inca wealth on its way home to Spain.
But buildings that once housed a brilliant Colonial life have lain crumbling for two and a half centuries, prostrate from burning and sacking by the notorious pirate, Henry Morgan. Panama became a gold road a second time uring our California gold rush a century ago.
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The “Panama Mules”
Any Panama Canal transit would present the opportunity for tasking someone with a very special errand. Having established that this person hadn't been through the canal before, the task would be explained a few days before arrival.
Every ship was guided through the locks of the Panama Canal by the famous “Panama Mules”, so naturally, being a plentiful ship, there'd be ample supplies aboard with which to feed them. A simple task?
Well, not quite. Also, it was pointed out, the bread and cakes would need to be carefully sorted into 2 separate bins because some of the animals, being old and toothless, couldn't chew on the hard-bits.
Of course, once the ship had arrived into the first lock, there'd be a raucous reception committee up on deck ready to greet any hapless victim struggling with their two bins. There below were the grey “mechanical mules” running on their steel rails.
