JOSEPH PENNELL'S PICTURES
OF THE PANAMA CANAL
FOURTH EDITION
Joseph Pennell's Pictures
of the Panama Canal
REPRODUCTIONS OF A SERIES OF
LITHOGRAPHS MADE BY HIM ON THE
ISTHMUS OF PANAMA, JANUARY—MARCH,
1912, TOGETHER WITH IMPRESSIONS
AND NOTES BY THE ARTIST
PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1913
COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY JOSEPH PENNELL
PUBLISHED, SEPTEMBER, 1912
PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS
PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A.
TO
J. B. BISHOP
SECRETARY OF THE ISTHMIAN
CANAL COMMISSION
WHO
MADE IT POSSIBLE
FOR ME TO DRAW
THESE LITHOGRAPHS
AND
WHO WAS ALSO GOOD
ENOUGH TO ACCEDE
TO MY REQUEST AND
READ AND CORRECT
THE PROOFS FOR ME
INTRODUCTION—MY LITHOGRAPHS OF THE PANAMA CANAL
THE idea of going to Panama to make lithographs of the Canalwas mine. I suggested it, and the Century Magazine and IllustratedLondon News offered to print some of the drawings I mightmake.
Though I suggested the scheme a couple of years ago, it was notuntil January, 1912, that I was able to go—and then I was afraidit was too late—afraid the work was finished and that there wouldbe nothing to see, for photographs taken a year or eighteen monthsbefore, showed some of the locks built and their gates partly in place.
Still I started, and after nearly three weeks of voyaging found,one January morning, the Isthmus of Panama ahead of the steamer,a mountainous country, showing deep valleys filled with mist, likesnow fields, as I have often seen them from Montepulciano lookingover Lake Thrasymene, in Italy. Beyond were higher peaks,strange yet familiar, Japanese prints, and as we came into theharbor the near hills and distant mountains were silhouetted withJapanese trees and even the houses were Japanese, and when weat length landed, the town was full of character reminiscent of Spain,yet the local character came out in the Cathedral, the tower of which—apyramid—was covered with a shimmering, glittering mosaic ofpearl oyster shells. The people, not Americans, were primitive, andthe children, mostly as in Spain, were not bothered with clothes.
I followed my instinct, which took me at once to the greatswamp near the town of Mount Hope, where so many of De Lesseps'plans lie buried. Here are locomotives, dredges, lock-gates, hugebulks of iron, great wheels, nameless, shapeless masses—half underwater, half covered with vines—the end of a great work. I cameback to Colon by the side of the French Canal, completed andworking up to, I believe, Gatun Lock and Dam, and spent the afternoonin the American town, every house Japanese in feeling, Frenchor American in construction, screened with black wire gauze, dividedby white wood lines—most decorative—and all shaded by a forest ofpalms. Through these wandered well-made roads, and on them werewalking and driving well-m