To move goods between Asia and the Mediterranean basin, traders had to traverse the narrow isthmus separating the Red Sea and the Nile, journeying in camel-bound caravans through the unforgiving desert.
As the isthmus was then a part of Colombia, President Roosevelt proceeded to negotiate with the government at Bogota a treaty authorizing the United States to cut a canal through its territory.
The idea of a water route across the isthmus, long a dream of navigators, had become a living issue after the historic voyage of the battleship Oregon around South America during the Spanish War.
The very narrow isthmus of Panama presented a unique opportunity for mankind to build a shortcut by carving a Canal across just a bit more than 50 kilometers worth of land that separated the two oceans here.
On February 6 the Nautilus cruised in sight of the city of Aden, perched on a promontory connected to the continent by a narrow isthmus, a sort of inaccessible Gibraltar whose fortifications the English rebuilt after capturing it in 1839.