Carleton Watkins Canoa!--Canoa!
daily runs back and forth between the town of Gorgona and Panama City. One of his boys, say, George Murray, would be positioned in Gorgona to solicit westbound business, coordinate trips and the collect half the money, while another boy, say Carleton Watkins--would be positioned at the Gorgona Gate in Panama City to collect the balance due, prepare the mules for the eastbound trip, and solicit business. Collis would be positioned in Panama City making strategic decisions and to negotiate acquisitions from fortune hunters who gave up and were selling their unused mining kits to finance the passage back home.[32]
Collis's stroke of genius was to maximize profits by invoking the economies of scale to create "mule trains" operating the route between Gorgona and Panama City. It so happens that journalist Theodore Johnson observed such trains and their native handlers when he traveled from Panama City to Gorgona in May of 1849:
"Thus we met string after string of horses and mules, returning for fresh loads or cargo, tied each to the tail of the one in advance, the vaquero or muleteer riding behind all with a long gad in his hand, his head covered with a broad-rimed, parti-colored, coarse straw sombrero, which, with a pair of dirty pantaloons, and form [sic] naked to the waist, often completed this costume. "[33]
Given the amount of freight waiting for secure and reliable transport across the "Andes of the isthmus" economies of scale and efficient organization would have made the cargo transfer operation very profitable. Moreover, the "mule train" scenario becomes an interesting parallel to how the Central Pacific Railroad crossed the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California more than a decade later under Collis Huntington's leadership.
In addition to the above operations, which would have required excellent planning and communications over a period of weeks, not days, Collis made time for a mysterious side adventure. At some unspecified point during second half of April, 1849, Collis told Bancroft's scribe that he left Panama City on foot for an extended journey with a new friend identified only as "Carmichael":
"hearing of a little schooner that was offered for sale at Estebula[34] he went on foot to see her. With a young man
[32] As paraphrased by Evans, p. 24.
[33] Johnson, p. 42. He was at the Isthmus of Panama on his way to California in February and again in May, thus was in a position to observe matters before and after the arrival of the Otsego County boys.
[34] Fig. 3a does not show a location with the name of "Astebula" as given by Bancroft or "Estebula" as given by Evans on the isthmus of Panama.