Table of Contents Chapter One The First Attempt 5 Chapter Two New Leadership 11 Chapter Three Dirt and Disease 17 Chapter Four A Huge Task 23 Chapter Five Linked at Last 29 The Story Continues Chapter Six 37ﱖﱚﱘ Biographies 42 Timeline 44 Glossary 46 Websites 47 Reference Map 47 Index 48
Chapter One The First Attempt The men forced their way through the tropical undergrowth It was hot and humid Some slapped at mosquitoes Others were so weak they could barely walk What were they doing in the jungles of Panama It was 1880 and the men were there to build a canal People had been dreaming of this project for centuries More than 350 years earlier Vasco Nuñez de Balboa traveled across Panama after hearing stories about a great body of water In September 1513 Balboa reached the Pacific Ocean He claimed it for Spain It was not long before people talked of building a waterway to link the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific in the west Panama is located on a strip of land called an isthmus At the narrowest point the two oceans are only 50 miles 80 kilometers apart Explorers found dense jungles when they first visited Panama ﱚ5ﱚ
