perils there is no guarding, and every precaution having been taken against foreseeable and preventable dangers, all else must be left to the disposal of that Providence "which by his strength setteth fast the mountains," "who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever." [Illustration: Gatun Upper Lock--West Chamber.] It seems incredible that the canal should ever be in danger of injury or destruction from the attack of any civilized Power, because all nations are apparently interested in its preservation. What, then, is the meaning of these slopes which are being prepared for forts and batteries at either end of the canal? "With the two great forts at the two ends of the canal," writes Mr. Showalter, "fitted with four 14-inch guns, six 6-inch guns, and twelve 12-inch mortars, with twelve companies of coast artillery, one battery of field artillery, four regiments of infantry, and one squad of cavalry, there is not likely to arise a time when these fortifications, backed up by the American navy, will fail to command a proper and wholesome respect from other nations." Yet if the object were simply to maintain the neutrality of the canal, the best course would seem to have been to leave the canal entirely unfortified, as is the case at Suez, and trust to the moral influence of the great Powers and their common interest in keeping the canal free and open to the world's traffic. Obviously the idea of making the canal zone a big military camp and arsenal is not so much to "police" the passage as a great international waterway, but to defend it and the zone as a position of immense strategic importance to the United States. President Hayes, in a message to the Senate in 1880, spoke of the canal as "the great ocean thoroughfare between our Atlantic and Pacific ports, and _virtually a part of the coastline of the United States_." The words I have italicized seem to show that the United States regard the new passage rather as wholly proprietary, like those of Kiel and Corinth, than as international in status, like the Suez Canal. In the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty there is no specific reference to fortification. The only allusion to the defence of the canal occurs in the second subsection of the third clause: "The United States shall be at liberty to maintain such military police along the canal as may be necessary to protect it against lawlessness and disorder." The Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty is rather more specific in its provisions on this subject, though even that instrument seems scarcely to have contemplated an armament and garrison on the large and permanent scale intended at the isthmus.[17]