"The work," the stranger said, in a pleasant tone, which gave no indication of foreign birth "has progressed beyond the expectations of the most enthusiastic advocate of the canal. When we came here we found about seven miles of waterway bored into the side of the Isthmus, reaching, well, about up to the rising slope of Gatun. Beyond this there were scratches in the soil for about forty miles. There was a notch nicked in the hills of Culebra--just a nick bearing no resemblance to what you see before you at this time."