text:  Why then is it withheld from the public? What are our government doing? To supply this deficiency as far as his means allow is the object of the writer of these pages; and in order to show the degree of credit to which his remarks may be entitled and his reasons for differing from the French as regards the means by which the great desideratum is to be achieved he will briefly state that in early life he left Europe under the prevailing impression that the opening of a canal across the isthmus of Panama was practicable; but while in the West Indies some doubts on the subject having arisen in his mind he determined to visit the spot which he did at his own expense and at some personal risk--the Spaniards being still in possession of the country