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Copyrighted 1897, By William Beverley Harison.
Vol. 1 February 18, 1897. No. 15
There is a new cause for supposing that the Treaty with Great Britain willeither be defeated in the Senate, or else delayed for some time to come.
This new trouble concerns the building of the Nicaragua Canal.
It seems a remote cause, does it not? but it only shows how closely theaffairs of one nation are bound up with those of all the others. No matterwhat our speech, our climate, or our color, we are all a portion of thegreat human family, and the good of one is the good of all.
The Nicaragua Canal is a water-way that will cross the narrow neck of landthat makes Central America. It will connect the Atlantic Ocean with thePacific Ocean.
With the help of such a canal, ships in going to the western coast ofNorth or South America will not need to make the long and dangerous voyagearound Cape Horn.
Cape Horn, you will see if you look on your map, is the extreme southerlypoint of South America.
There are so many storms and fogs there, that the Horn, as it is called,is much dreaded by sailors.
Since the invention of steam, all the steamships go through the Straits ofMagellan, and save the passage round the Horn; but there is not enoughwind for sailing vessels in the rocky and narrow straits, so they stillhave to take the outside passage.
The Straits of Magellan divide the main continent of South America from agroup of islands, called Tierra del Fuego, and Cape Horn is the mostsoutherly point of this archipelago.
The journey down the coast of South America on the east, and up again onthe west, takes such a long time, that the desire for a canal across thenarro