THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA
The Republic of Panama is one of the smallest countries in the world,
its territory being about equal to that of the State of Indiana. It
has no national debt, and has $7,000,000 invested in mortgages, on
real estate in New York City.
When it received $10,000,000 from the United States, in payment for
the rights under which the Panama Canal was built, it immediately
invested about 75 per cent of it, using the remainder for paying the
expenses of the revolution, and for setting the new government on its
feet. It now receives $250,000 a year from the United States as rental
for the Canal Zone, and this, with the $350,000 received as interest
from its real estate mortgages in New York, gives it an annual income
of $600,000 outside of money raised by the usual processes of
taxation.
Under the treaty with the United States, Panama has its independence
guaranteed, and recognizes the right of the United States to maintain
order within its boundaries. This entirely does away with the
necessity of maintaining an army and navy. The result is that with no
appropriations required for military purposes, and with a $600,000
income from the Canal Zone, it enjoys one of the lowest tax rates in
the world.
Although the Republic of Panama has its Declaration of Independence
and its Glorious Fourth, the former was written by a foreigner, and
the latter occurs in November. There is some dispute as to who wrote
the declaration of independence, but the best information points
either to Philippe Bunau-Varilla, a Frenchman, or to William Nelson
Cromwell, an American. These two gentlemen differ upon this subject,
each claiming that he was the Thomas Jefferson of Panama.
When the $10,000,000 was paid to Panama by the United States, one of
the first things done was to build a university, locally known as the
National Institute. Some $800,000 was spent in the construction of the
buildings, which are located near the line of the Canal Zone. But it
so happens that Panama has few teachers qualified to hold university
chairs, and fewer students qualified to pursue university courses; and
the result is that the university is more a place of buildings than a
seat of learning.
No other country in the world calls in another nation to superintend
its elections. When the first presidential election was held the
United States took the initiative and demanded the right to supervise
the balloting. Before the second election was held the President
became ambitious to succeed himself, although the constitution
provided that he could not do so. He thereupon decided to resign for a
period of six months, in favor of one of his partisans, thinking that
this would allow him to live up to the letter of the constitution
even though he were violating its spirit in becoming a candidate for
reelection. This situation was brought to the attention of the United
States, and the President was politely but firmly informed that the
subterfuge would not be permitted. When the election approached each
side thought that the other was trying to win by fraud, and the United
States was asked to referee the political battle.
The City of Panama is famous for its wickedness. Men who have seen the
seamy side of life in all of the big cities of the world declare that
Panama is as bad as the worst of them. Until a few years ago
bull-fighting was permitted, but the bulls were so poor and the
fighters were such butchers that the Government finally outlawed this
form of entertainment. Cock-fighting persists, and numerous cock pits
are popular resorts every Sunday. Nowhere else can one witness a
greater frenzy in betting than at one of these cocking mains. The
backers of the rival birds nod their heads and place their bets so
rapidly that it is more bewildering to the onlooker than the bidding
at an auctioneer's junk sale.
The prize ring has succeeded the bull ring in gratifying the
Spaniard's thirst for gore, and scarcely a Sunday passes that there is
not a prize fight in Panama. Few Americans who attend them come away
without a feeling of disgust over the poor fighting, the brutality,
and the trickery resorted to.
While the Americans have done so much for public cleanliness in Panama
and Colon, the masses seem to know little more about sanitary living
today than before the Americans came. The stenches which greet the
visitor in the native quarters are no less odorous than those
encountered in other cities of tropical America. The bathtub is an
unknown quantity among the masses. Most of the natives who live in the
cities are engaged in some line of small trade. It may be that a shop
has only a platter of sweetmeats and a few bottles of soda on ice, and
that another has only a bushel of different kinds of tropical fruits,
but out of the small sales large families manage in some way to exist.
The markets open early in the morning. There is no spirit of rivalry
among the market men, and they act usually as if they were conferring
a favor upon the buyer. At the markets many Indians are encountered
who bring their wares from the interior and offer them for sale. These
usually consist of pottery, net bags, charcoal and the like.
Life among the Panamans in the jungle is simple indeed. With his
machete the householder may provide a thatched roof for his
mud-floored hut, and he can raise enough beans, plantains and yams,
and burn enough charcoal, and catch enough fish to meet all of his
needs. In the kitchen the principal utensils are gourds and cocoanut
shells. The most tempting morsel that the Panaman can get is the
iguana, a lizard as big as a cat, whose meat is said to taste like
spring chicken. It is about the ugliest creature in the animal world,
and yet it means more to the native Panaman than does possum meat to
the cotton-field darky of the South.
The unconscious cruelty of the average native is remarked by almost
every visitor. He is usually too lazy to be conscious of cruelty, for
that would require exertion. When he catches the iguana, for
instance, he takes it alive so that it may be fattened before being
killed. Its short legs are twisted and crossed above its back, and the
sharp claw of one foot is thrust through the fleshy part of the other,
so as to hold them together without other fastening. The tail, being
useless for food, is chopped off with the machete, and thus mutilated
and unable to move, the lizard is kept captive until fat enough to
eat.
The fruits of Panama are neither so numerous nor so plentiful as those
of Nicaragua or Jamaica. The mamei is a curious pulpy fruit the size
of a peach, with a skin like chamois and with a smooth pit the size of
a peach-stone. The sapodilla is a plum-colored fruit with seeds in a
gelatinous mass. One is usually introduced to the sapodilla with the
remark that, although the seeds are eaten, they have never been known
to cause appendicitis.
Cedar is preferred to mahogany in Panama. The Indians make their
cayucas out of mahogany logs, and it is not uncommon to see bridges 40
feet long and 5 feet thick, made of mahogany logs which would be worth
several thousands of dollars in an American furniture factory.
Panama is famous for its tropical flowers. Many of them are beautiful,
but few are sweet smelling. Orchids abound, especially on the Atlantic
side, and while the waters of the Chagres were being impounded in
Gatun Lake, native boatmen would go out in their cayucas and gather
orchids from the trees. One of the most beautiful of the orchids of
Panama is the Holy Ghost orchid. It blooms biennially, and when its
petals fold back they reveal a likeness to a dove.
Some of the American Women on the Canal Zone became enthusiastic
collectors of tropical flowers. Among these were Mrs. David Du Bose
Gaillard and Mrs. Harry Harwood Rousseau. Both of these ladies spent
much time hunting orchids and other flowers for the verandas of their
houses and for their gardens. Mrs. Rousseau made trips into several of
the other countries of Central America in her quest for new orchids.
The collections made by these two ladies represent the finest on the
whole Isthmus of Panama.
The animal life of the Isthmus is not abundant, although some deer and
a few tapirs are to be found. Alligators abound in the Chagres River
and other streams of the Zone. Perhaps the most interesting form of
animal life to be found on the Isthmus is the leaf-cutting ant. This
ant seems to be nature's original fungus grower. As one walks around
the American settlements, he frequently comes upon a long path filled
with ants, passing back and forth. They resemble a sort of miniature
yacht under full sail, except that the sails are green instead of
white. Upon closer examination it is found that what seemed to be a
sail is a triangular piece of leaf carried on the back of the ant,
with its edges to the wind so as to overcome air resistance. The ants
do not gather these leaves for food, but they store them in such a way
that a fungus grows upon them. They eat the fungus, and when the
leaves are no longer useful they are thrown out and new supplies
brought in.
The native remedies used by the Panamans are many and interesting. For
stomach troubles, which are very rare, they eat papaya. The papaya is
a sort of fruit which might be a cross between a cantaloupe, a
watermelon and a pumpkin, except that it grows on trees. It has the
rind of a green pumpkin, the meat of a cantaloupe, and the seeds of a
watermelon. It is probably richer in vegetable pepsin than any other
plant in existence--a pepsin which neutralizes either alkaline or acid
conditions in the stomach. It is said that a tough steak, wrapped in
the leaf of the papaya tree overnight, becomes tender as the result of
the digestive action of the pepsin in it.
The Indians and Panamans who live in the jungle use the wood of the
cacique, or "monkey cocoanut," to stop any flow of blood. In their
materia medica they have a large number of tropical plants which they
use for their ailments.
The way in which sanitary instruction may be made efficient is
illustrated among some of the people of Panama. Upon one occasion the
Canal Record carried a small diagram of how to make a sanitary
drinking cup out of a sheet of paper. After that there were many
Panamans who, although in a hundred ways indifferent to contagion,
would no longer drink from common drinking cups, but would make their
own sanitary cups. Even the Jamaican negroes employed around the
offices of the commission in many instances would not think of using
the common drinking glass at the office water-cooler.
Two tribes of Indians on the Isthmus have not mixed with the
Caucasians or the negroes. They are the Chucunoques and the San Blas
Indians. The latter tribe has never been known to allow a white man to
remain in its territory after sundown. Even the higher officials of
the Panaman Government are forced to respect this tradition when they
treat with the San Blas chiefs.
Government land in Panama can be bought at the rate of $49.60 for 247
acres, with reductions for larger areas. The Government invites
foreign capital, declaring that the United States stands as a
perpetual guarantee against revolutions within and aggressions
without.
The story of the early days in Panaman history is a strange admixture
of romance and cruelty. The Isthmus was discovered in 1500, and first
settled by an adventurer who had been the Royal Carver in the king's
household at Madrid. Balboa, carrying with him a small force of men
and a lot of bloodhounds, one of them a dog of mighty prowess, known
as Lioncico, or "Little Lion," which drew a captain's pay because of
its fighting qualities, crossed the Isthmus in 1513 and discovered the
Pacific Ocean. After him came a new governor of the Isthmus, who put
Balboa to death.
The Spaniards were unspeakably cruel to the Indians. Even those who
received them kindly were tortured and roasted to death, because they
did not produce enough gold. One governor rode a mule, which was noted
for the frequency of its braying. The Indians were taught that the
mule was asking for gold, and in meeting these demands they not only
had to give what they possessed, but were forced to rob the graves of
their ancestors as well. Upon one occasion the Indians, having
captured a number of Spaniards, melted a lot of the yellow metal and
poured it down their throats, telling them to drink until their
thirst for gold was quenched.
After the Spaniards had established themselves upon the Isthmus, the
English buccaneers, Drake and Morgan, fell upon their cities and
despoiled them. The ruins at Old Panama, which once was a city of
30,000 inhabitants, to-day tell the story of the effective work of
Henry Morgan when he raided it and captured its treasure.
While the Spanish conquerors, the French filibusters, and the English
buccaneers, who took their turns in pillaging Panama, were cruel
beyond imagination, they were always famous for their outward
evidences of religion and piety. The Spanish were always chanting
hymns and honoring the saints; the French would shoot down their own
soldiers for irreverent behavior during mass; the English pirate
captains never failed to hold divine services on Sunday, and often
prohibited profanity and gambling.
Where once Spaniards tortured Indians and British buccaneers raided
Spaniards, where once revolution after revolution left a poor and
desolate country, to-day the gates of Panama are open to the world,
and its trade is invited again to pass that way. The people of the
Isthmus believe that the glory which departed when Morgan sacked Old
Panama, forcing the Pacific trade to seek the Strait of Magellan, will
return with the opening of the Panama Canal, and that their capital,
whose walls cost so much that the Spanish king thought he could see
them from his chamber window in Madrid, will retrieve its ancient
glory.