The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21). rn VOLUME XVII. Later National Literature, Part II.
XIV. Travellers and Explorers, 1846–1900§ 25. The Isthmus of Panama
In the golden days of ’49 there was a road to the Californian Eldorado by way of the Isthmus of Panama. There were no Indians that way but there was the Chagres River, until a railway was built. There is a particular literature of the Isthmus. A Story of Life on the Isthmus (1853) was written by Joseph Warren Fabens; and an even earlier one The Isthmus of Panama and What I Saw There (1839) is by Chauncey D. Griswold. Then there is Five Years at Panama (1889) by Wolfred Nelson, and numerous others between these dates, including an exceedingly scarce volume, The Panama Massacre (1857), which presents the evidence in the case of the massacre of Americans in 1856. A few years after this event Tracy Robinson appeared on the Isthums and for forty-six years he made it his home. This veteran published his Panama, a Personal Record of Forty-six Years, 1861–1907 only a short time before his death.