Panama and the canal . no hard Obstacles bottom could be found beneath the soft on tons of rock were dumped upon it and in a fewhours sank out of sight. This swamp was obstacle enoughto force less determined men to quit the work. The next obstacle was the Chagres river. The route ofthe line crossed it at several points and there the terrificfloods made railroad building next to impossible. Thewater often rose ten feet or more above the tracks andswept away the results of months of labor. Another obstacle was the difficulty of securing good labor-ers. The Panama native has a way of wor
Panama and the canal . no hard Obstacles bottom could be found beneath the soft on tons of rock were dumped upon it and in a fewhours sank out of sight. This swamp was obstacle enoughto force less determined men to quit the work. The next obstacle was the Chagres river. The route ofthe line crossed it at several points and there the terrificfloods made railroad building next to impossible. Thewater often rose ten feet or more above the tracks andswept away the results of months of labor. Another obstacle was the difficulty of securing good labor-ers. The Panama native has a way of working one dayand then of loafing for the next week. When he works, hedoes not accomplish much. So laborers had to be imported I04 CHINESE LABORERS from abroad. The Company, as an experiment, broughtover a shipload of eight hundred Chinamen. They immedi-ately began to fall sick. In less than two months aftertheir arrival there was hardly one of the original numberfit to wield a pick or shovel. They gave themselves up to. Floods on Panama Railroad—1906. despair and sought death by whatever means came nearestto hand. Some sat on the shore and awaited the rising tide,nor did they stir until the sea swallowed them. Somehanged or strangled themselves by their cues. The rem-nant, fewer than two hundred, sick and useless, were shippedto Jamaica. BATTLE WITH DISEASE 105 Irish laborers were tried with no better resuks. Finallya gang of several thousand negroes from Jamaica, and afew whites from various sources finished the work. We may already suspect the greatest enemy with whichthe railroad had to fight. More serious than all other ob-stacles to any sreat work in Panama is the . . Disease tropical climate with its tropical diseases. Notonly does the steaming hot weather suck the strength out ofmen who are accustomed to cooler lands, but it leaves themtoo weak to throw off the diseases that lurk in the filth ofthe cities and the deadly air of the swamps. Consumption,typhoid, malaria, p
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