individuals. These men, uniting in bands for self-protection
and taking their lives in their hands, were able with good luck to take
themselves but little else across this central region and the western
barrier. All ordinary communication, all mail and all freight, must go
by sea. The United States was actually divided into two very unequal
parts, and California and Oregon were geographically far distant
colonies.

The ocean highroad belonged to the United States in common with all
nations, but it took American ships to the opposite ends of the earth.
No regular shuttle of traffic sufficient to weave the nation together
could be expected to pass Cape Horn at every throw. The natural route
lay obviously through the Caribbean, across some one of the isthmuses,
and up the Pacific coast. Here however, the United States would have
to use territory belonging to other nations, and to obtain the right of
transit and security agreement was necessary. All these isthmus routes,
moreover, needed improvement. Capital must be induced to do the work,
and one necessary inducement was a guarantee of stable conditions of
investment.

This isthmus route became for a time the prime object of American
diplomacy. The United States made in 1846 satisfactory arrangements with
the Republic of New Granada (later Colombia), across which lay the
most southern route, and in 1853 with Mexico, of whose northern or
Tehuantepec route many had great expectations; but a further difficulty
was now discovered. The best lanes were those of Panama and of
Nicaragua. When the discovery of gold in California in 1848 made haste
a more important element in the problem, "Commodore" Vanderbilt, at that
time the shipping king of the United States, devoted his attention to
the Nicaragua route and made it the more popular. Here however, the
United States encountered not only the local independent authorities
but also Great Britain. Just to the north of the proposed route Great
Britain possessed Belize, now British Honduras, a meager colony but with
elastic boundaries. For many generations, too, she had concerned herself
with securing the rights of the Mosquito Indians, who held a territory,
also with elastic boundaries, inconveniently near the San Juan River,
the Caribbean entrance to the Nicaraguan thoroughfare. From Great
Britain, moreover, must come a large portion of the capital to be
employed in constructing the canal which was expected soon to cut the
isthmus.