Colón and the Panama Railway
Getting Aboard the Italian Steamship--A Life on the Ocean Wave--W.
J. Bryan’s Opinion--The Steerage--A Many-tongued Englishman and
Champagne Cider--The S. S. Limonians and Dinner--A Polyglot
Conversation--Steamer Chairs for Beds--Night Sounds and Nauseous
Smells--Fresh Air a Magic Remedy--Colón--The Formalities of Landing in
the Canal Zone--Passed Through by the Linguistic Englishman--Circular
No. 13--Hotel Washington and Its Discomforts--Attractive
Grounds--Impossible Lodgings--Sudden Departure--Paying
Double--Expensive Transportation--Aristocratic Beer--Getting Something
for Nothing--Suffocated by Handbaggage--The Champagne-Cider-Englishman
Again--Across the Isthmus by Railroad--Buried Treasures--U. S.
Marines--Rhine Scenery--Cutting a Mountain Ridge in Two--Arrival at
Panama--Farewell to S. S. Limonians--Parting without Sorrow--Traveling
Friendship--Wise Cab-men and Cheap Transportation--Two and a half Cab
Rides for a Glass of Beer--Doing as the Wild Beasts do.
The Italian steamship, which shall be nameless, was a large,
fine-looking one when compared with banana boats, and was to arrive and
depart on Sunday. It did so on Monday, and thus was keeping excellent
time for Central American sea travel. It had done it _mañana_, and
every one was full of passive praise.[*]
[*] Please see Transcriber’s note.
In order to avoid having our luggage examined, and being taxed by the
thrifty Costa Rican custom officers, we arranged to have it put aboard
the Italian steamer without being landed. This was easy for us but
difficult for the sailors. They took it to the seaward side of the
ship in a large row boat which held off about six feet and bobbed up
and down like a cork. At an apparent risk of being thrown into the sea
by each rising wave, the sailors made a noose in a heavy, stiff rope
and placed it around half a dozen trunks and bags at a time. Then the
derrick swung the things out over the side of the small boat and up on
the ship in a way that frightened us, for it seemed almost a miracle
that the loosely bound trunks and bags did not slip out and drop
into the deep water. The sailors, however, seemed quite as cool and
unconcerned about the chances of the trunks as about their own.
But how to transfer the ladies was a more difficult problem for us. It
was proposed that they be sent the same way as the luggage, but the
gallant captain vetoed the proposition and swore that we should have
to get them in and out of the row boats, and put them ashore, where
they could board the steamship as became their sex. And, in fact,
after many an “oh” and “no” and “I can’t,” and plenty of shoving and
pulling and catching, we finally got them safely on mother earth. The
promenade from one pier to the other, including a walk through the
gorgeous garden of the gangrenous hotel, and the final boarding of the
ship, which lay alongside the pier, brought our task however to a most
agreeable ending.
As a large number of the San Joséans who had been trapped in Limón by
the washout were going with us, the steamship was quite crowded. It
had come from Italian and Spanish ports and was making a tour of the
Caribbean Sea, stopping at Limón, Colón and several South American
ports, and had all kinds and conditions of men, women, children and
animals on board. Sounds of many languages, English, Spanish, Italian,
French, canine and gallinine, chased one another through the air
in lively competition. We were a sort of Tower of Babel crowd. The
European passengers looked the worse for wear, and their appearance,
actions and words convinced me that “A Life on the Ocean Wave” was a
poetical expression for Englishmen and Americans only. The song has
never been translated that I know of, hence other nations know nothing
of the poetry of such a life; and I had the proof of it right there
before me and all about me. Wm. J. Bryan is said to be responsible
for the following sentence:[1] “There is rest in an ocean voyage. The
receding shores shut out the hum of the busy world; the expanse of
water soothes the eye by its vastness; the breaking of the waves is
music to the ear and there is medicine for the nerves in the salt sea
breezes that invite to sleep.” How eloquent must be the man who can
talk or write like that on shipboard.
[1] _Chicago Daily News_, Jan. 13, 1906.
The steerage was crammed with men, women, children, dogs and chickens;
the dogs and chickens in coops and the humans huddled quite as closely
together on their deck space. The latter were much worse off because
they had a little more intelligence than the chickens, and realized
their situation and sufferings more fully. Some of the men stood up
and some sat on boxes, bundles, sky-lights and parts of the rigging,
staring blankly and stupidly about them; others loitered about the
narrow gangways, or reclined on the dirty deck, playing cards. Women
and girls sat in out-of-the-way places with plates of unbuttered bread
and dry boiled potatoes in their laps, eating with ravenous content and
looking and acting as if they had not eaten before for a fortnight. As
the voyage had been a long and stormy one, the appearances probably
were not at great variance with the facts.
When finally we steamed out into the open sea the big boat, which sat
high out of the water, rocked almost if not quite as badly as had the
S. S. Limón. Many of the saloon (so-called first-class) passengers
amused themselves watching and criticising the sea-weary crowd on
the steerage deck below them, and laughed loudly whenever one of the
sufferers would give way to a paroxysm of sickness. But some of those
heartless laugh-promoters got their deserts, for the night turned out
to be quite stormy and they themselves did what seemed so amusing when
others did it.
The Port Limón passengers were quite gay for people who were traveling
over a thousand miles by sea, and over a hundred by land, in order to
get to a place that had been only a hundred miles distant before the
great flood of the _Reventazon_ or Big Buster River. I was particularly
interested in an English resident of San José who had traveled
extensively in Europe and Central America and spoke French, Italian,
Spanish and English quite fluently and frequently. He spoke to every
one in his own language and was “hail-fellow-well-met” with all. Before
the ship left the pier he treated and was treated by the Limonians
who came to see him off, and after we got off he did the same to his
friends on board. In order to save his head he drank a great deal of
champagne cider, a temperance drink which limits its ravages mainly
to the stomach. We put out to sea at four-thirty, and by five-thirty
his stomach weighed a ton and had to be lightened by throwing a part
of its cargo overboard. By dinner time he was a changed man and acted
as small as before he had acted big. When he sat down at the table he
put on a brave and cheerful look. But I could see that his bravura
and cheerfulness were only skin deep, for there was no confirmatory
luster in his eyes and no pleasant word on his tongue. While the
soup was being eaten he began to look at us with that unmistakable,
conquered expression of a seasick man. He stared at us as if asking us
if we noticed his plight, and when the second course came on he had to
capitulate. He suddenly stood up and said meekly, “I think I must go,”
and left the table, quickening his step as he neared the door.
The dinner was quite elaborate, but the foods were mostly Italian
mixtures and so greasy that although the motion of the boat did
not affect me, my stomach felt, after I had finished, as if it had
done something wrong. Grease and sauce blend the flavors of food
mixtures into a greasy and saucy harmony and, since the taste of
fat is agreeable to the hungry stomach, often make the mess taste
good. This is one of the secrets of economical cooking, which is so
extensively cultivated abroad. The mixtures, although not attractive
to the pampered American palate, are much more healthful than mince
and pumpkin pie, doughnuts, baked beans, gingerbread, boiled corn beef
and cabbage, devil cake and other devil dishes of Yankee invention.
Our Pilgrim Fathers renounced the devil in all but eating. But the
secret of the enjoyment of our dinner was the fact that we S. S.
Limonians, who had become good friends and good sailors during the
mutual and varied experiences of our voyage, all sat at the same table
and took pleasure in each other’s company--the more so because all
around us were strangers with whom we had nothing in common either
social or ancestral. They were gesticulating and talking incessantly,
rolling their R’s like ratchets and becoming more noisy, if possible,
with every glass of wine they swallowed. The ship provided, gratis,
plenty of cheap red and white wine, quite enough to inebriate all of
us if we had been able to drink enough of it. Our Englishman and our
insurance agent tasted it and promptly ordered some good wine at their
own expense. But about the time we were half through eating and the
passengers had drunk about all they wanted, some excellent wine was
brought in and served free. It was better than what either of our men
had ordered and drunk, but came too late for them to enjoy it. Not
having indulged in any before, I took a little and relished it. It
seemed to affiliate with the grease that was growling inside of me, and
made it feel more contented to remain where it was. If our New England
had only provided an antidote or palliative for the sweet and sodden
mixtures with which she tempts us! But she finishes the destruction of
digestion by slaking and cementing them in the stomach with hard cider.
After dinner I made the acquaintance of the Italian ship doctor, who
spoke Italian and French; and Doctor Echeverría from Limón, who spoke
Spanish, French and English; and a physician from Austria, who spoke
Italian, Spanish, French, English and German. And as I attempted to
palm off on them a kind of English, German, Spanish, Italian and French
confusion, we had a dizzy and delightful time together. Sometimes two
languages were spoken at once. But even when the conversation became
general among us the language was apt to be changed with each speaker,
who often could express himself better in a language other than that of
the previous speaker. The comforting part of it was that even when the
language changed with each speaker, most of us could understand what
was said, and only became a little bit dazed and stuttery when we got
to gesticulating and talking too fast. It was delightful, but it was
strenuous. It would have been more congruous to have adopted French,
the only language which we all spoke, as a common medium, but as none
of us was French no one volunteered.
After our polyglot jugglery had exhausted our energies and our interest
we separated, and I lay down on a bench and rested my brain. I remained
there until quite late, for down among the staterooms there was so much
noise and bad air and so many roaches, that the cool quiet fresh air on
deck was not to be exchanged for that below except for the purpose of
obtaining the needed sleep.
When I finally concluded that it was necessary to go to bed, I noticed
some passengers preparing to spend the night in their steamer chairs.
I did not wonder at their choice of lodgings, but wondered how many
shower baths they would get before morning. To have no place to sleep
more comfortable than a reclining chair with wobbly wooden legs and
arms, is one of those sidelights of travel that books seldom tell about
and tourists never look forward to. Down below I found the portholes
on my side of the ship closed in order to keep the waves and fresh air
outside where they belonged. I sighed and climbed up into the upper
berth near the ceiling, for the lower one was occupied by dingy sheets
and pillow cases. The person who had a right to sleep there had given
it up, and was probably outside on a steamer chair where he could
breathe better.
The walls or partitions between the staterooms reached only to within
a foot of the ceiling, which was a provision for diffusing the bad
air and odors equally and impartially among the passengers. I did no
eavesdropping nor had I any desire to pry into my neighbors’ private
affairs, nevertheless I heard doleful groans and desperate whoops
that were intended to be kept secret. The genial English linguist who
had kept sober on champagne cider was in the room next to mine doing
penance. Even after the general noises had subsided he occasionally
broke the silence and started desultory responses and imitations
down the corridor. Finally the forced contemplation of misery became
monotonous and wearisome and I fell asleep and slept until the morning
noises and noisomeness began to come over the partitions and awake my
ears and nostrils to a renewed sense of the situation.
I descended from my elevated couch, hurried into my clothes and went
on deck to let the close air out of my air passages. The effect of the
fresh air was hypnotic, and purgatory was forgotten. In a short time
life became worth living, and I descended to the dining room where the
odors were agreeable, and fortified myself with a water roll and two
cups of café-au-lait. It seemed to me that the half of seasickness
consisted in being stowed away in poorly ventilated and malodorous
covey holes.
We arrived at Colón between eight and nine o’clock. The town has a good
but exposed harbor with large covered piers. Only two or three other
steamships were at the piers, and during the time I was in the town
I never saw more than four there at a time. Although quite a number
of ships stopped, but few stayed long, which was possibly due in part
to the fact that the harbor afforded but little protection from the
terrible “Northers” that occasionally visited it.
As we moved up to the pier, its edge was crowded with gesticulating
negroes asking in Spanish and broken English to carry our baggage but
who, when we finally called to them, told us to wait. This useless
calling made the crowded landing place seem lively and busy, although
nothing was being done but waiting. The health officer came aboard
and vaccinated a few obstinate steerage passengers who had resisted
the efforts of the ship surgeon, but now had to be vaccinated or be
sent back home. He then ordered the cabin passengers all into the
dining-room, glanced at us and talked with the ship surgeon. Then the
custom officer called us into the parlor and made us sign a declaration
of our baggage. Finally, after about an hour of fruitless formality
they allowed us to step on the pier, but held us there to have our
baggage rummaged. At the opportune moment the linguistic San José
Englishman who the day before had drunk champagne cider to everybody’s
health but his own, and to whom the habit not only of talking to
everybody in his or her native language but of giving assistance and
information to everybody, either was an inherited instinct or had
become second nature by cultivation and habit, appeared suddenly, as
if by magic and from nowhere, and made the custom officer ashamed to
examine my trunk. He was not acquainted with the young officer, but
he was as expert with strangers as an insurance agent, and had an
extra traveling experience as well as a compelling touch of nature.
One became his friend at the second word he uttered. His mouth was
so full of words that they came out spontaneously and seemed to
enjoy themselves on their way out. Although he had never heard of me
elsewhere, he introduced me as a delegate to the Medical Congress and
guest of the Republic of Panama, and made me out so important and
distinguished that the officer touched his hat apologetically and
hastily closed and marked my trunk.
Sanitary circular No. 13 was handed to every one who landed at Colón.
It contained instructions as to the best way of avoiding malaria and
yellow fever. I have preserved mine, but it has become so badly torn
and soiled and wrinkled from much handling and stuffing away in a
crowded steamer trunk that it is almost illegible. For the benefit of
those who stay at home, but wish to know how to avoid these maladies,
I reproduce it here. I was unable to smooth out the wrinkles, however,
and think that it must have become slightly altered by my typewriter.
WAR DEPORTMENT.
ISTHMAN CANAL COMMOTION.
OFFICE OF THE CHIEF SAN TOY OFFICER.
Ann Cone, Isthman Canal Zoo,
November 28th, 1904.
Circular No. 13.
This circular is handed to each new rival upon the Isthmuss for the
purpose of instruction as to how to void the disease most prevalent
in Panama and the Canal Zoo--MALE-ARIA. Its cause is now well-known
and each one with a little care can do a great deal toward keeping few
from the disease.
It has been proven that male-aria is only given to man by the bite of
a female musk-eater of a certain species (Anna Pholes). This female
musk-eater must always bite some man-being who is suffering from
male-aria and, in the blood thus drawn, she takes in the male-arian
parachute. Within a few days, this parachute infects the musk-eater
herself, and when she next bites a well parson she injects her
hospital into the beating place. In this hospital the male-arian
parachute is injected, and thus the wealthy parson contracts the
disease.
Now if every man would use a musk-eater-bar, so arranged that the
musk-eaters could not get into the bar-room at night, much protection
would be procured from the disease, for while it may be contracted
during the day time, it is not lovely to be. Probably nine tenths of
the male-arian cusses contract the disease during sleep, because the
male-arian musk-eater is a night biter, and the parson is quiet at
this time.
Absolute protection from musk-eater bites is impossible, but it is
known that Queen-Anne is a deadly person to the male-arial parachute
after she gets into the blood of a humming bee. If therefore every
drone would shake three grins at Queen-Anne once a day, any male-arial
parachute that has been introduced to him during the day would almost
certainly be heeled. The best time probably to shake Queen-Anne is
before going to bed at night.
W. C. Gorgas,
Colonel, Medical Cops, U. S. A.
Chief San Toy Officer.
Colonel Gorgas is said to be a clear-headed, responsible man, but after
reading his circular as restored I will not consider him responsible.
I had heard so much about Hotel Washington and its delightful situation
on the cool tradewindy side of the town that my first endeavor upon
landing was to get there and secure comfortable quarters. As there
were no carriages, omnibuses, horse cars, dog carts or elevated trains
visible on the streets (only steam engines and freight trains), and
as the hotel was only a five-minute walk from the wharf, I walked the
distance and hired a negro boy to carry my trunk. It was only ten
o’clock in the morning but the heat was such that when I arrived I was
perspiring most healthfully, and so was the negro boy with my trunk on
his shoulder. I asked him to allow me to help him carry the trunk, or
hire a helper, but he refused saying that it kept the sun off of his
back.
The hotel had an aged and careworn look and seemed to be more in
need of the mild climate and salubrious surroundings than any of the
guests who were lounging in its shadows. It was two stories high, and
consisted of a long row of rooms, below and above, which extended in
single file parallel with the beach and about a hundred feet from
it on one side, and along a back street on the other side. Which
was the front side, I could not tell. Wide verandas bordered each
floor in front and rear, the rear (or front) ones serving as outdoor
sitting-rooms and the front (or rear) ones as passageways from the
rooms to the stairway outside. Thus each room had a back (or front)
door and window facing the sea and a front (or back) door and window
facing the town. At the end of the building on the right there was
a large bath-house with several cold rain-water shower baths but no
tubs. From the bath-house a wing extended toward the sea, forming with
the main building an L-shaped structure. In the wing the rooms did
not extend through from veranda to veranda and therefore possessed a
door and windows on one side only; a poor arrangement for tropical
dormitories, in which through and through draughts of air are necessary
for health and comfort.
The grounds consisted of a well-kept lawn in the rear (or front)
bounded, near the water’s edge, by a shell road and a fine row of lofty
cocoa palms, the conventional ornaments of inhabited tropical shores.
On the back (or front) verandas one could sit and contemplate the ever
youthful charms of nature, enjoying the constant fanning of the cool
sea breeze and forgetting the hollow-eyed and unattractive, double
faced appearance of the building. The only indoor lounging place was a
small combination sitting-room and barroom; but as there ought to be no
indoors in the tropics except for protection from night-biting insects
and beasts, this defect was apparent only.
I found the manager busy at his desk in a little office about ten feet
square, that opened on one side into the hotel barroom and on the other
into his grocery and provision store, from which he bought provisions
of himself for his hotel. After finishing his business with the clerk,
who had the right-of-way, he greeted me passively, and informed me that
there was not an empty room in the house, but that by night he might be
able to put me in a room with another occupant or two. In the meantime
he had my trunk and bag put in a room in the wing of the house. The
room contained three single iron beds, two old water-worn wooden
washstands, worth $2.00 each, if any one could be found willing to buy
them, a center table two by three feet in diameter, worth $1.50, and
two chairs worth nothing. It had neither a closet nor a wardrobe, and
the two windows and the door were on the same side, and that side was
not toward the sea. For three to sleep under mosquito bars in one room
without an opportunity for a breeze to blow through it, would have been
existing but not living. I did not then know that in the tropics people
sleep with doors as well as windows wide open, utterly indifferent to
the presence or proximity of others, and that they subordinate all
other comforts and callings to that of keeping cool. Seclusion is,
according to tropical standards, an over-refinement of our Northern
modesty. In the tropics strangers eat, talk and sleep in common and in
public in spite of the tedium of small talk all day and the annoyance
of snoring and snorting all night; in the North we eat, think, sleep
and weep as privately as possible, annoying our friends and relatives
only. But I was not born in the tropics nor for the tropics, and longed
for the comforts and privacy I had endured on the S. S. Limón. I wished
I was on my way back to the States. Freezing and its accessories were
not so bad after all and I would in the future cultivate them, and try
to see their bright side. I was completely discouraged, and could not
reconcile myself to a communistic life of this kind; so I resolved
to keep on the move until I found a place where I could live in a
civilized manner even if I did not stop moving until I arrived home.
I asked about trains and was told that the morning train had gone and
no other would go until afternoon. But I went to the railroad station
and learned that a special train would leave in about an hour. It was
organized to take the passengers of our Italian boat across the isthmus
to catch a Pacific Mail S. S. I therefore returned to the hotel and
hired a negro to take my trunk back to the station. This negro produced
a tiny dray-cart, drawn by a tiny four-legged skeleton of a tropical
horse and offered to haul both myself and my trunk. If an able-bodied
man had been harnessed to it, I should have accepted; but I had pity
on the skeleton and walked to the station, allowing the trunk to ride.
I was soon booked and baggaged for Panama, and was happy again at
having escaped the annoyance and discomforts of rooming with strangers
in a strange land, and at having the certainty of arriving in three
hours at my long journey’s end--at Panama, the oldest city on the
continent. Quaint old, cute old, historic old Panama! where picturesque
revolutionists were as plentiful as commonplace millionaires in New
York. Panama meant rest, clean clothes, baths, sight-seeing and
siestas; and it could not be much hotter than Colón. I felt like one of
the world’s elect, for although many go to a hotter place, but few get
to Panama.
I had paid each of the negroes who had carried my trunk the fifty
cents which they demanded. But I learned afterward that they meant
Central American silver, which is worth only half as much as gold.
Hence I paid each of them the equivalent of a dollar in their money, or
double the amount they asked. However, I would recommend this double
method of paying tropical negroes, as it secures good service and
doesn’t bankrupt anybody. My second negro was very attentive and had my
baggage weighed for me, and thus enabled me to pay $2.50 for it without
any trouble. When, however, I had finally settled at the rate of three
cents a pound for my baggage and about that much a rod for my fare, I
discovered that the delegates to the Medical Congress were entitled
to free transportation for themselves and baggage. The negro had thus
cost me $11.50 more than I should have paid. He was literally a born
blackleg and I was a natural born greenhorn, but we were both innocent,
and doing the best we knew how, and no harm had been done.
After my great disappointment with the hotel and all of the activity
involved, I felt faint, for I had breakfasted at break of day on the
conventional nothing, viz., a dry roll and coffee. So I stepped into
a combination saloon and restaurant to get an appetizer to prepare
me for a real breakfast, for in Central America, as in France, they
rightly call their first meal coffee and their second meal breakfast.
When I had drunk my beer the bar-tender asked fifty cents for it.
“This is too much,” I thought. “If they charge fifty cents for beer,
they must charge about a dollar and a half for a highball and five
dollars for a beefsteak. I had better get back home where I can afford
to eat and drink.” I handed the bartender a silver half dollar and to
my surprise he handed me a silver half dollar back. Thinking that he
had made a mistake, I gave it back to him. He took the coin, looked
at it and again returned it to me. Then I also looked at it and saw
that it was a Columbian half dollar, equal to our quarter dollar. I
felt greatly relieved--my glass of beer had only cost a quarter. So I
drank another and made him keep the money, and he apologized for having
tried to make me take the money instead of another beer. I learned
that beer was one of the most expensive drinks on the isthmus. It was
an exotic from Milwaukee. It had to be brought a great distance in
bottles, and instead of costing two thirds as much as a highball it
cost nearly twice as much. The regular price for ordinary drinks at the
bar, excepting beer, was only fifteen cents in U. S. money, which was
consoling. I should be able to drink even if I could not afford to eat.
After getting some real breakfast at half price I felt better as
well as wiser, and went to the station and found the officials still
weighing baggage. The extra train was proving profitable and would
probably be crowded. Hence I hurried into the cars to secure a seat,
and was glad I had done so, for pretty soon they were filled until
there was hardly breathing space. It was not that the passengers were
too numerous, but they had brought countless bags, bundles, blankets
and other unperfumed traveling furniture all done up in hand packages,
and had piled them up on and between the seats. They could take them
thus without paying for them. We had first-class tickets, but were
transported like emigrants and were nearly two hours late in getting
off. But I did not mind that, for the other S. S. Limonians were
there, and we were enjoying each other’s company and the privilege of
commenting freely upon our strange surroundings.
We were hardly out of the station, when the genial
champagne-cider-Englishman from San José, who had telegraphed to the
Pacific Mail S. S. Company to hold their boat for his party, and who
had been mainly instrumental in getting the extra train put on, came
down the aisle with a bottle of that most wine-like whiskey, called
“Scotch,” and our S. S. Limonian Englishman produced three bottles of
that most wine-like water called “White Rock” out of one of his dozen
traveling bags. So we had a Scotch treat. Pretty soon nearly every
person in the car had reverted to his atavistic emigrant nature, and
was eating out of his hand and drinking out of his bottle. It was quite
an enjoyable picknicky experience, only I could not eat. I had taken
a hearty meat breakfast before starting, instead of waiting for this
sociable lunch.
[Illustration: HUTS ON LINE OF PANAMA ROAD]
The journey of two hours was a delightful transformation from our long
siege of Caribbean discomfort. The cars had no glass in the windows,
and the breeze caused by our motion kept us comfortably cool without
bringing in any dust. The inhabitants we saw along the road were as
black and curious looking as imps, and the foliage so dense in
places as to appear almost solid; and the frequent views of portions of
the incomplete canal and of the picturesque rivers that intersected and
mirrored the tangled foliage, lent a fascinating wildness and weirdness
to the landscape, that reminded us of oriental tales and occult
apparitions.
But all is not gold that glitters, nor passion that paints, nor poetry
that poses. Commerce and greed, poverty and death, profit and loss,
had left their trails. In places we saw ruined machinery sticking
out of the underbrush. Indeed, whole workshops were covered and all
but concealed by the rank growth of vegetation. At Bas Matachin a
machine shop with an equipment worth at least a quarter of a million
of dollars and covering six acres was overgrown; and near it several
acres of car wheels and steel rails had already been dug out. After
being put in order the shop was going to develop a capacity for turning
out fifteen locomotives and 115 cars per month. Other warehouses
contained a million dollars’ worth of pumps, dredges and machine
tools. Hundreds of superfluous letter presses and six tons of rusty
steel pens were found among them. At Culebra they were repairing 1,000
cars, thirty locomotives and seven excavators, besides many antiquated
steam shovels, all of which were to be utilized to keep men busy
until more modern machinery could be imported. Costly chicken-coops,
a horse bath-tub 15x75 feet in area, and a pig pen 100x200 feet (the
latter made of concrete with iron supports and a galvanized roof,
and capable of holding 200 hogs) were discovered in the jungle.
Surely Panama until just recently contained the greatest amount of
accessible buried treasures of any country in the world. In the
basement of the administration building at Panama are French printing
presses and lithographic presses, and a carload of drawing sheets,
which is, according to the investigation of Frank C. Carpenter, from
whose writings the above astonishing items of information are taken,
thousands of dollars’ worth more than can be used in all of the work of
the canal.
During the last half hour of the journey across the isthmus the
scenery was hilly, and the view less impeded by crowding vegetation.
The barracks of the U. S. marines at Empire, nestling in the foliage
on the side of the mountain, made a romantic picture as seen from the
train, something like Rhine scenery without the Rhine. And I think
that the luxuriance of the tropical foliage in the valley made an
acceptable substitute for the Rhine at that point. Better to have Rhine
scenery without the Rhine than the Rhine without any scenery, since we
can’t have everything in Panama. It is easier to imagine a river than
to imagine the scenery. But when the canal is finished we will also
have to imagine the scenery, for the present railroad and many of the
villages we were looking at will be at the bottom of a lake, and ships
will be passing over them.
[Illustration: ABANDONED MACHINERY OF THE FRENCH]
We rode through the Culebra cut, where they are cutting through a
mountain ridge 300 feet high. Three hundred feet high seems pretty
low for a mountain ridge until one attempts to dig through it and
carry the rocky debris twenty-three miles up the Atlantic coast whence
it can not be borne back by the torrents of the rainy season. Its
accomplishment would make a fit subject for an Arabian Night story.
But Uncle Sam finds it easy. He is going to build the canal _over_ the
mountain, and make his cement out of the debris.
Suddenly, long before I expected or even desired it, we stopped at
the city of Panama, the Mecca of my pilgrimage. I bade farewell to
the S. S. Limonians, who were taken by the train to the mouth of the
canal where the pier was located and where the Pacific Mail steamer
was waiting for them, and started for Hotel Centrál. One of the most
agreeable features about steamship friends is that there is no pain
at parting. We enjoy them, and leave them rejoicing, and readily find
substitutes wherever we go. If we meet them again soon, we greet them
as vociferously as if they were old cronies; if we never meet them
again we forget them as if they had been changes in the weather.
I found cabmen in abundance, all native negroes. They were unlike any
other cabmen I had ever met. In a way they were saints, gentlemen and
business men, and didn’t “let on.” Instead of taking advantage of the
facts that the weather at Panama was always either hot or rainy, the
distance too great to be walked, and that there were no street cars,
to charge a dollar for the long ride to the hotel at the other end of
the town, they charged ten cents. Pah! In Chicago the cabfare from
the railway stations to my house is two dollars and a half. But by
keeping their price down to ten cents the Panama cabmen not only have
killed street car competition, but they get more jobs without doing any
more work. Their horses do the work while they merely take rides, and
are kept cool by the motion and entertained by their customers. It is
a wonder that with such successful and moral business models so near
them, the Colón negroes can be so mercenary and shortsighted.
I like a cheap ride, but when it is as cheap as that it seems like
something not worth having. One can take two and a half rides for their
price of a glass of beer. It is preposterous. While in Panama I did
refuse to ride once, and walked to the station from the hotel--but only
once. The ride was worth the price of two and a half schooners of beer.
The distance was composed of cobblestones and animated by heat, and
grew upon acquaintance. Walking at night in the tropics is pleasurable
and healthy, but by day it is impossible. In the tropics one should do
as the wild beasts do, viz., keep out of the sun and let beer alone.
[Illustration: ALONG PANAMA RAILROAD]