PREFACE.

IN December 1879 I accepted a special commission from my friend, the editor of the New York World, to go to Panama, meet M. de Lesseps, who was expected there, and write my impressions on his canal scheme in its different bearings. In studying the way in which that enterprise was launched I was led into a. most mortifying disappointment, for the whole project of the great promoter seemed to me to have been undertaken without any serious studies, and indeed without the common precautions taken by any responsible contractor in works of much less magnitude. Without expressing any opinion on the much-debated question, whether the canal by the Panama Railway line is practicable or not, from the engineer's point of view, what had become patent to me was, that people were enticed to go blindly into that scheme. I wrote at great length in that sense for the World, and I also contributed at the time some editorial matter on the subject for the New York Nation.

Since then I have accompanied, with the interest of a