ripes."

CHAPTER VIII

THE GREAT CANAL

On a glorious afternoon, a few days later, the boys sat on the upper deck
of the liner, as it drew near the city of Colon, on the Atlantic side of
the Isthmus of Panama. With the quick rebound of youth, they had wholly
recovered from the strain of the preceding days, and were looking forward
with the keenest zest, to the opening of the great canal, now only two
weeks distant. They gazed with interest at the Toro lighthouse, as the
steamer left the gleaming waters of the Caribbean Sea, and threaded its
way up the Bay of Limon to Cristobal, the port of Colon.

"And to think," Dick was saying, "that it's four hundred years almost to
a day, since the isthmus was discovered, and in all that time they never
cut it through. To cover that distance of forty-nine miles from the
Atlantic to the Pacific, ships have sailed ten thousand, five hundred
miles. It almost seems like a reflection on the intelligence of the
world, doesn't it?"

"It surely does," asserted Bert, "and yet it wasn't altogether a matter
of intelligence, but of ways and means. In every century since then,
lots of people have seen the advantages of a canal, but they've been
staggered, when they came to count the cost. It's easy enough to talk of
cutting through mountains and building giant dams and changing the course
of rivers. But it's a long jump from theory to performance, and they've
all wilted until your Uncle Samuel took up the job. Even France, the
most scientific nation in Europe, gave it up after she'd spent two
hundred million dollars."

"It's a big feather in our cap," said Tom--"the very biggest thing that
has happened in the way of engineering, since this old earth began. It's
the eighth wonder of the world. The building of the pyramids was
child's play, compared to the problems our people have had to meet. But
we've met them--health problems, labor problems, political problems,
mechanical problems--met and solved them all. The American Eagle has
certainly got a right to scream."

And their enthusiasm for the American Eagle grew with every hour that
passed, after they drew up to the docks and went ashore. Everywhere
there were evidences of thrift and progress and law and order, to be seen
nowhere else in Central or South America. After the slovenly towns and
cities of Mexico, it was refreshing to note the contrast. For five miles
on either side of the canal--the Canal Zone--it wa