Canadian Transport Sourcebook

Chapter VI

Home Via Panama

One more survey in British Columbia ended my experience in that Province. In 1877, I was sent with Charles E. Perry, C.E. (son of the old City Engineer of Ottawa) to locate about one hundred miles of line down the North Thompson River to Kamloops. We split the party, Perry running the trial line ahead, while I took charge of the location.

This was the one and only soft job I ever had in the Service. Everything went smoothly. It was not a very difficult matter to pick out a line down the valley of a river, and we made rapid time, arriving at Kamloops much sooner than we were expected. George Brunel, C.E., of Ottawa, was coming up from Savonna's Ferry to join lines with us and when that was completed we returned to Victoria in the Fall.

Having applied for a month's leave, Perry and I with a young Scotchman, an Assistant Engineer named Wallace, returned home via Panama and New York. Arriving at San Fransisco from Victoria, we took passage on the good ship Grenada, Captain Connolly, bound for Panama. We put into a few ports en route including Manzanilla and Matazlan on the Mexican Coast. The skipper was a good little fellow and he and I became quite friendly on the long hot passage of twenty days down the coast; in fact, so friendly that he made what I thought was quite a favourable bargain with me, agreeing to furnish all the whiskey on the trip, if I would provide the ice and limes. This sounded reasonable to my unsophisticated soul and I promptly jumped at it.

I found out later, however, that whiskey was comparatively cheap, whereas my ice bill was $22.50 the very first week, as they charged $1.00 a pound for that commodity. He had me there.

However, I scored on the lime question. We were in a sweltering hot, land-locked Mexican harbour one day, when I was told we were running short of limes. There was dozens of big canoes filled with natives round the ship and with the aid of a silver Mexican dollar, worth about forty cents, I chartered a whole family with their fleet to supply me with limes for the rest of the passage. They had literally filled my state-room to the roof when the first officer interfered and said the ship was getting too much of a "list" to starboard. All for forty cents in our money!

The landing at Panama was picturesque and unique in those days; the ships lay off about five miles, then the passengers took to the boats and, upon getting into the coral shoals, were transferred to canoes, the last stage of all being on the broad back of a big nigger arrayed as one of "Nature's noblemen," which was quite embarrassing to the ladies.

Phew! It was hot and humid in Panama. There was a war or a revolution going on, we were told, and we saw a few nigger regiments parading the streets. We inspected the oldest cathedral in America, the gaol, and the Botanical Gardens during our short stay, and then crossed the Isthmus on the dinky little railway, forty-two miles long, for Colon, where we found a ship awaiting us bound for New York and soon got cooled off as we neared Cape Hatteras, where it always seems to blow.