The Darien expedition of 1854

The Darien expedition of 1854 was an attempt to map a successful route across the Panama jungle to dig what is now known as the Panama Canal. Before this, it had been decades since anyone had documented the route from coast to coast and it was becoming far too expensive to keep sailing around the southern tip of South America.

After a couple of surveyors were hired to map the route they both made completely fabricated reports, both claiming it would be very easy to find a route across the land and it would require only a small distance of forest clearing, so an English company was formed with a capital of nearly $75 million to complete the project.

The first stage was to send a team consisting of 27 men into the Panama jungle to map a set path for the canal to follow, led by Lieutenant Isacc Strain the goal was to record a route from Caledonia Bay on the Atlantic Ocean to Darien Harbour on the Pacific.

For some strange reason, perhaps because of the earlier false reports of how easy it would be, the group only brought enough supplies for 10 days. This turned out to be a very big mistake as not long after they set off they became horribly lost, but decided to continue on instead of trying to retrace their steps.

At one point the group ran into a friendly native tribe who none of the group knew the language, but even still tried to get their help by showing them how to the Pacific. The group followed the natives for several miles before they turned back and left the expedition in the middle of nowhere mid-jungle.

This is when the group knew their lives were at risk as food was now starting to get dangerously low and everyone had been almost eaten alive by mosquitoes. They had no idea which direction was which as their maps were badly out of date and incomplete, but they decided the best idea would be to continue heading west until they reached the sea.

Several of the men were now almost unable to walk due to injuries to their feet, and so Strain thought the best bet would be for the injured to remain in the jungle, while he and some of the healthier members went on the find help, so they set off to try and find someone who could help.

They eventually made it to the coast and were able to obtain several canoes and some food to take to the group. When they arrived back at the wounded camp they found some of the med had died from infection, with the rest of the wounded making it to safety. Out of a total of 27 members in the group, 9 of them died.