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