CHAPTER XXIX.TREASURES OF THE DEEP—THE SAN PEDRO ALCANTARA—MARGARITA—SEEKING LOST TREASURE—OCEAN MINING-NAVY BAY, COLON—INTER-OCEANIC COMMUNICATION—GOMARA’S PROJECT—NELSON’S SCHEME—THE NICARAGUA ROUTE—THE ACANTI-TUPISI ROUTE—INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION.
TREASURES OF THE DEEP—THE SAN PEDRO ALCANTARA—MARGARITA—SEEKING LOST TREASURE—OCEAN MINING-NAVY BAY, COLON—INTER-OCEANIC COMMUNICATION—GOMARA’S PROJECT—NELSON’S SCHEME—THE NICARAGUA ROUTE—THE ACANTI-TUPISI ROUTE—INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION.
The dream of Clarence has occupied the waking thoughts of many since Shakespeare’s time, and in the West Indies, as well as off our own coast, it has been the ambition of treasure-hunters to find the Spanish gold which here and there paves the sea. Near Carthagena we passed a vessel engaged on a diving expedition, and not far from Cumaná we had seen another ship, which was said to be in search of the vast treasure sunk in the San Pedro Alcántara.
The history of this unfortunate vessel is an interesting one. In 1815, Ferdinand VIII. of Spain, dispatched from Cadiz a number of transports with men, money, and provisions, for the supply of the fleet, which was then stationed in the Caribbean Sea. These ships sailed under the convoy of the San Pedro Alcántara, a three-decked line of battle-ship mounting seventy-four guns. On board were 1,400 soldiers, under the command of General Morillo, and in the treasure-chests were between three and four million dollars. When the San Pedro Alcántara arrived at La Guaira, therevolution had so far progressed that the Spanish citizens of that town and of Carácas, fearing the loss of their personal property, transferred their gold and jewels to the man-of-war. This act was soon imitated by the convents and churches of Venezuela, and the vessel was laden with an immense treasure of jewels, gold and silver altar plate, valuable pictures, coin, and costly ornaments. The jewelled tiara of the Virgin of Guadaloupe, which was sent from Valencia, was alone of almost priceless value.
From La Guaira the San Pedro Alcántara sailed up the coast to the island of Margarita—now known as Nueva Esparta—where the troops disembarked and defeated the Venezuelan forces stationed there. The brave Margaritans, who, during the War of Independence, proved themselves to be as truly patriotic as the Llaneros, retired to the hills and inaugurated a guerilla warfare which harassed the Spaniards beyond measure. Still their towns were open to attack, and Asuncion, Pampatar, Norte, and others, were sacked and destroyed by the invaders. Thus the wealth of the San Pedro was again added to, and, as there was much treasure in these towns, it is supposed that little was saved from the sudden descent of the conquerors.
After the plundering of the last town, orders were received that the San Pedro should sail at once to Cumaná. To celebrate their successes a grand revel was held on board one night; casks of wine and spirits were broached, and success to the ensuing expedition was so eagerly drunk that it is doubtful whether there was a single sober man in the vessel. Then arose an alarm of fire. How the fire originated is unknown, but it speedily reached a cask of brandy,which burst, and the deck was instantly deluged with liquid fire. The flames were soon darting through the hatchways and lapping the sails, and so quickly did the conflagration spread that nothing could have checked it, even if sober men had tried to stem the danger. As it was, the wild mob, mad with drink and fear, thought only of flight. With difficulty the boats were lowered, and men sought to reach them, either by jumping into them from the deck, or battling with each other in the water to clutch their sides. Of the few boats that there were, all except one were either capsized or stove in.
In the meantime the fire made its way to the powder-magazine. Suddenly a tremendous explosion rent the air, a lucid light hung for a moment over the doomed vessel, and the air was filled with mangled corpses and fragments of the ship. The after-half of the San Pedro Alcántara had been blown to pieces, and the forward half quickly sank beneath the waves. Over a thousand men perished in the fire and ocean on that night. The magazine had been situated beneath the strong chambers wherein were stored the Spanish treasure-chests, the riches of the people and churches of Venezuela and the plunder of the towns. All was now scattered and buried in the sea.
In a paper describing this disaster, it is said that in 1816 an American Captain visited the scene of the wreck, one mile from the island of Cuagua, and succeeded in securing about 30,000 dollars in silver. Again in 1845 a company was organized in Baltimore for the purpose of seeking the lost treasure. The remnant of the wreck was easily found, but owing to the lack of proper diving apparatus the attemptproved a failure. A few months later the same company sent out another expedition. This search was prosecuted under an agreement with the government of Venezuela. During the first three months quantities of copper, huge rusty anchors and guns, were dragged up, but only about 1,500 dollars in silver coin were recovered. The search had been confined to the immediate vicinity of the sunken wreck, and the divers became so dissatisfied by the ill results of their labour that they refused to continue unless those in charge of the explorations would test the theory they formed, which was that the force of the explosion had hurled the treasure-chests some distance away from the spot where the ship went down. They were humoured, and the vessel was anchored in another place. The first time the diving bell went down on the new ground, 750 dollars were picked up in two hours, and this success continued so well that in six months about 200,000 dollars in silver had been recovered. Then the major portion of the divers and crew having surreptitiously possessed themselves of such portions of the treasure as they could secrete, stole a boat and set sail for La Guaira. The remainder of the party returned to Baltimore, having been unable to pursue the exploration for want of divers.
In 1849 another American barque recovered several thousand dollars in silver, but how much is not known, as the Captain suddenly hauled his anchor on board and set sail for the Horn, bound for the new El Dorado on the Pacific coast. In 1856, 28,000 dollars were recovered, and, in 1858, 30,000 more. In April, 1877, a Captain Folingsby went to Venezuela to obtain permission from the government to search for the lostmillions, and effected a contract whereby, in consideration of the payment of five per cent on all sums he might recover, he was granted the exclusive right to drag, dredge, and dive for the sunken treasures of the San Pedro Alcántara for the period of six years. Armed with this contract, Captain Folingsby organized an expedition for the thorough and exhaustive exploration of all the ocean bed over which the treasure might have been scattered by the explosion of the ship. He has had extensive experience as a diver, and having been in the employ of the Baltimore company in 1845 and 1846 in their searches, is thoroughly familiar with the ground on which he is to work. He believes that the strong boxes which held the gold, jewels, and church plate were not burst by the explosion, but simply tossed away to a greater distance than seekers have hitherto deemed it worth while to go from the wreck. No gold has as yet been found, but simply silver, and this he accepts as evidence of the correctness of his theory. He thinks that he can go over all the ground in about eight months. His dredges and drags are of the most approved patterns, fitted with special appliances such as chair-nettings, to let sand escape, but to hold everything else. As 500,000 dollars are about all that have hitherto been recovered, he has the hope of finding at least four or five millions and, with every requisite that knowledge and unrestricted capital can supply, he confidently expects to achieve success. As he was to sail from New York early in 1878, the vessel we saw near Cumaná must have been his. With that idea we cordially wished a prosperous finale to the ocean-mining of the enterprising Captain.
From Savanilla onwards to Panama the little we sawof the coast was uninteresting. We were seldom near enough to appreciate the colour-chords on beach, hill and savanna, and the sombre monotone of the land seemed but an extension of the yellow green sea. The nights were calm and beautiful, and as we sailed on and on through the great star-chamber, the vessel appeared to plunge through a sea of fire. Long gleams of blue, green and purple crested the waves that were only raised by the vessel’s bow, and the teeming phosphorescent life made the starry waters more brilliant even than the sky. But pleasant as the nights were, the French Mail Company interfered with our entire enjoyment of them, by a silly order which forbade passengers to take their pillows on deck. They might sleep there if they chose—and everyone did choose—but under no circumstances were pillows allowed. Various were the devices made use of to disguise the forbidden articles, but those who indulged in them were generally awakened by a polite reminder from one of the officers or stewards that the pillows must be taken below. Then the differentruseshad to be repeated. The pillow-prohibition was the only fault that could be found with this comfortable vessel.
Our little voyage along the Spanish Main had been slow and deliberate, but as the old Spanish proverb says “step by step goes a long way,” and at last we entered a pretty horse-shoe bay surrounded by low misty hills, and were presently moored alongside one of the fine wharfs at Colon. Here we were at the narrowest point of that narrow isthmus, to cross which by water has been a problem to the great nations of the world for three centuries and a half. The project of connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans by a canalis a scheme of such vast commercial importance that it may be interesting to take a rapid glance at a few of the numerous surveys made with a view to inter-oceanic communication. As early as 1513 the Spanish explorers believed in the existence of a narrow strait leading across to the Pacific. In the following year, the Spanish Government gave a secret order for the preparation of a coast-chart to determine whether such a strait really existed. In the hope of finding such a passage, Cortez sent out his expeditions and prepared a map of the Gulf of Mexico, which he sent to Spain in 1524. Then the European Powers explored and searched the whole coast-line of the New World, and at length realized the fact that from Colon the continent extended uninterruptedly north and south. Just as the Suez Canal is only an enlargement of the plan conceived and executed by the Pharaohs 4,000 years ago, so the Panama or Darien route, when completed, will be the practical result of a project contemplated as far back as three centuries and a half.
In 1551, a Spaniard of the name of Gomara proposed that a canal should be constructed to connect the oceans, and suggested three of the same routes that have been under the consideration of modern engineers. “It is true,” said the proud Castilian, “that mountains obstruct the passes, but if there are mountains there are also hands; let but the resolve be made, and there will be no want of means; the Indies, to which the passage will be made, will supply them. To a King of Spain, with the wealth of the Indies at his command, when the object to be attained is the spice trade, what is possible is easy.” But soon Spain fell from her high estate, religious intolerance benumbed her energies, andthe project of the canal became at last a mere legend.
In 1780 the Nicaragua route was first projected, and Captain—afterwards Lord—Nelson conveyed a force of 2,000 men to San Juan de Nicaragua for the conquest of the country, and in one of his despatches said, “In order to give facility to the great object of Government, I intend to possess the great lake of Nicaragua, which at the present may be looked upon as the inland Gibraltar of Spanish America. As it commands the only water-pass between the oceans, its situation must ever render it a principal port to ensure passage to the Southern Ocean, and by our possession of it Spanish America is severed in two.” The expedition was a failure, however, and nothing came of Nelson’s project.
In 1814, the Spanish Cortes decreed the opening of a canal, but the matter was deferred and the decree never executed. In 1825, after the Central American States had secured their independence, they asked the co-operation of the United States in constructing a canal. In 1828, the King of the Netherlands proposed to undertake the work, and sent over General Verveer with instructions to build the canal. The General found Central America engaged in one of its regular half-yearly revolutions, and the matter was deferred until 1830, when the revolution in his own country put an end to the plans. In 1836, Mr. John Bailey made some preliminary surveys for a route across Nicaragua, which were brought to a close by the dissolution of the “Confederation of the Centre.” In 1850, under appointment from the Atlantic and Pacific Ship-canal Company, Mr. Childs, of Philadelphia, began a survey on the Pacific side, and after examining severalroutes chose the line which terminated in Brito Harbour, giving very strong reasons against the Lake Managua route, which have been confirmed by every subsequent survey. British capitalists were interested in this route, and would have adopted Mr. Child’s plans if favourable arrangements could have been made with Nicaragua. But the Nicaraguan Government finally killed the scheme, as far as British capital was concerned, by demanding twenty-five per cent of profits.
In 1873, President Grant appointed an Inter-oceanic Canal Commission, to examine the various proposed routes and report on the most feasible. The Commission considered the following surveys: the Isthmus of Tehuantepec; the Nicaragua route,viâLake Nicaragua; the Isthmus of Panama; the San Bias and Chepo route; the Caledonian and North routes; the Caledonian and Sucubti route; the Cacarica and Tuyra route; the Atrato and Truando route; and the Atrato-Napip route. The Commission unanimously reported that the Nicaragua route possessed, both for construction and maintenance of a canal, greater advantages, and offered fewer difficulties from engineering, commercial, and economic points of view, than any one of the routes shown by surveys to be practicable. This route, beginning on the Atlantic side, at or near Greytown, would run by canal to the San Juan River, thence following its left bank to the mouth of the San Carlos River, at which point navigation of the San Juan begins, and by the aid of three short canals of an aggregate length of three and a half miles reach Lake Nicaragua. Thence across the lake and through the valleys of the Rio del Medio and the Rio Grande to what is known as the Port of Brito, onthe Pacific coast. No doubt exists as to the entire practicability of constructing this canal, the cost of which, with all the necessary adjuncts—locks 400 feet in length and 26 feet depth of water—may be set down as at least twenty million pounds sterling.
The last survey of the several routes has very lately been completed by Lieutenant-Commander Wyse of the French Navy. After an exhaustive survey, he judges that the best route for a canal is what he describes as the Acanti-Tupisa route. This starts from the Gulf of Darien on the Atlantic side, following the Atrato River for a short distance and passing through the valley of the Tupisa to the Tuyra River, which flows into the Gulf of San Miguel. Commander Wyse has proposed that M. de Lesseps should be President of an International Commission that shall assemble before long to examine the different lines that have been surveyed, and to select whichever will be, in their judgment, the easiest and most desirable to construct. It is probable that the choice of routes will rest between the Acanti-Tupisa and that of Nicaragua, but when work will actually be commenced on either is doubtful. Before the Atlantic and Pacific join hands across the Isthmus another century may elapse, and the problem propounded four hundred and fifty years before may still be unsolved.