A Siesta and Such
Preparations for a Panama Siesta--Barricading the
Door--Interruption--Waiting for the End--Obliged to Get up--Opening
the Box of Water--A Fatal Tip--An Imitation College Yell--Its
Effectiveness--Horseback Riding--The High-toned Boarding
Stable--Effect of Work upon Men and Animals in the Tropics--The Tramp
and the Rich Man--Shopping--Tickets for the Bull-fight--Cigaret
Smoking and the Habit--The Dusky Maiden--No Fool like an Old
Fool--Biased Opinions--The War-cry--Town Gossip--A prescription for a
Bottle of Beer--After-dinner Amusements--Ubi Tres Medici--Temperance
of the Doctors--Mosquitoes and Poetry--The Night Watchman.
It was about noon when we finished our Spanish breakfast, and we agreed
to take a siesta and meet again at half-past three. First, however, we
stepped into a provision store in the next building and bought a case
of fifty bottles of mineral water for use in our rooms. My American
ancestors had drunk water for so many years that I had inherited the
habit, and could not give it up, as many foreigners do, and we did not
wish to be obliged to go to the bar every time we wanted a drink of
water, for the bar-tender invariably put something in it.
I then went to my room to try the siesta and learn just what it was
like. By the time I had climbed to the top of the house I was in a
profuse perspiration so that clothes became insufferable and a draft of
air indispensable. Hence, after opening the door about six inches and
putting my trunk against it, I pulled the bed in front of the window
to enable it to catch the drafts and breezes, and hung the upper bed
cover over the foot to shield me from the sight of any one who might
peep around the edge of the barricaded door. After having tucked the
edges of the life-saving mosquito bar carefully under the mattress
all around, I lay down with some of my clothes on. But the drafts and
breezes were imperceptible and perspiration was active, and I soon
had to work one of the edges of the mosquito bar loose, crawl out of
bed and divest myself of more clothes. By keeping perfectly quiet I
now perspired freely only where I was in contact with the mattress,
which would have been considered a hard and cool one for any place but
Panama, where it was a hard one only.
I began reading a Spanish novel to make me sleepy, as I had frequently
done before. I read until my eyes and arms grew tired, when the
book dropped and I began to doze off. Just then I was aroused with
a start by a sudden loud knocking, and upon raising up and looking
over the foot of the bed saw the swarthy _mestizo_ bell boy’s curly
head projecting into the room. He was smiling like a satyr as he
triumphantly announced that the mineral water had come. I did not
return the smile, but again dug my way out under the edges of the
mosquito bar, slipped on an extra garment, pulled away the trunk and
admitted him. After depositing the box he lingered as if he expected to
open it for me; but by using considerable patience and many forcible
expressions I finally got him out, undressed again, crawled under the
edge of the bar, tucked it in laboriously and lay down to dry, and
finish my siesta in peace. But neither sleep nor soothing thoughts nor
alleviating breezes would come. So I tried to read myself to sleep
again, but the book would not functionate. I wanted to get up and stand
behind the door ready to hit the bell boy’s head with a chair the next
time he peeked in; but that would have made me drip. Besides it would
have done him no good, for he would never have known what struck him.
So I lay still....
After a long time the cathedral clock struck two and I felt thankful
that the siesta was half over. After a still longer time I began to
think that the middle-aged clock had run down. But it had not, for
it finally struck half past. After another long interval of weary
waiting, I began to grow sleepy again, when the clock struck three, and
my siesta ended just when it was going to begin. A faint breeze had
begun to stir, and I had forgiven the bell boy and could have taken a
peaceful nap, but had to keep my appointment with Doctor Echeverría.
Encouraged by the faint breeze, I hoped, by moving about slowly and
systematizing the work, to be able to slip into my clothes without
saturating them with perspiration.
I became thirsty and wanted the bell boy to bring a hammer and open the
box of mineral water. But there was no way of calling him, not even a
gas pipe to pound on. So I put on my overcoat, stole across the hall,
through the empty room opposite and found him lounging on the veranda
ready to halloa whenever the gong sounded. I gave him my message,
returned to my room and waited, pitying the poor Spanish people for not
knowing better than to select for the siesta the only two hours in the
day during which it is impossible to sleep.
In about fifteen minutes the boy appeared with an old shoe and broke
open the box with it. I felt toward him as the Spanish banqueters
felt toward Columbus when he stood the egg on an end. I could have
done it myself if I had known how it was going to be done. I now made
the mistake of my trip to the tropics, for I gave the boy a fee, a
harmless-looking Colombian twenty-cent piece. I had felt like murdering
him for doing his duty an hour before, and wished to do the right thing
now by myself. He promptly accepted the money but did not go away.
He asked what else he could do for me. Could he not clean the room,
fill the water pitcher, open another bottle, etc. He was as persistent
as an insurance agent to whom you have rashly given your age. I said
“no” after each question, and after the last one said as loudly and
emphatically as possible that I did not want anything, not even him.
He stood and looked blankly at me with that powerful silence which is
the safe refuge of empty intellects. He was _not_ an insurance agent.
The insurance agent does not understand the value of silence. But to
use strong terms in Spanish does not come natural to a student of the
language, for the books and teachers only teach mild and proper words,
and the Spaniards one meets and practices upon use only polite phrases.
So I found it difficult to convince the fellow that I was furious. I
could only be furiously polite. Yet to give a person a piece of your
mind is, after all, to give away a portion of your own without adding
anything to his, or getting anything in return. Hence I gave up trying
to explain anything and shouted:
“_No, no! Nada, nada! Vayase, vayase! Aburr-r!_” (No, no! Nothing,
nothing! Begone, begone! Adieu!)
Then a ray of intelligence illumined his countenance, and he said in a
low, matter-of-fact tone of voice, “_Me voy_” (I go), and slowly walked
out.
But this was only the beginning of the troubles brought upon me by the
silverpiece. A goldpiece could not have done worse. Every time I went
upstairs either the male, or else the female, chambermaid would follow
me into my room to tidy it or ask to do some errand. Or, if I was not
followed, he or she was sure to open the door about the time I was in
_demi toilette_, for they always tried the door before knocking. In my
disgust and haste to get them out I would mix up my Spanish metaphors
and polite phrases and stutter helplessly, particularly if it was the
female chambermaid with her mature although maidenly smile. As there
was but one key, I began leaving it in the door during my absence so
that they could bring as many pitcherfuls of water and clean up the
room as often as it pleased them, and thus earn their twenty cents
without my help. Upon entering I invariably locked the door and at
the first knock called out, “_No, no! Nada, nada! Vayase, vayase!
Aburr-r!_” imitating as closely as possible the manner of students
giving their college yell. Finally they came to understand, and would
start away as soon as I commenced. I had conquered them. But I had
learned that the conqueror’s lot is not a happy one. Let others go
through the strenuous process of conquering. Passive peace is good
enough for me.
Finally I became so habituated to answering the knocking on the door
with my imitation college yell that I gave it one day when Doctor
Echeverría knocked, and thus frightened him away. He asked me afterward
with whom I was having words--he had never heard one of our college
yells. So I told him the whole story, and asked him the best course to
pursue with mestizo boys and musty old maids. He told me to have faith,
hope and charity, but most of all hope--to order them around a great
deal in order to show that I expected service and was going to pay for
it, but not to fee them until the day of my departure. We followed out
this plan with our table waiter and obtained good service. As in doing
everything else, a man who gives tips should learn how.
When at last my toilet was finished I went down to the office with a
good color and a moist skin. Doctor Echeverría and Señor McGill had
been awaiting me for some time, and thought that I must have slept long
and well during my siesta.
Señor McGill was fond of horses, in accordance with the prevalent
fashion among Panama bachelors who, in lieu of taking a wife, were in
the habit of taking a horseback ride every afternoon. And the ladies
smiled upon them, apparently in approval. After we had been to the
cable office to send the doctor’s cablegram to his wife at San José,
the señor took us to the highest-toned boarding stable in town, where
were kept eight so-called fine horses. He admired them greatly and
pointed out one or two good qualities in two or three of them. But I
picked out three or four bad points in five or six of them, and told
him that, as a bachelor and lover of horses, he should neither accept a
horse nor a wife without asking some one with experience to point out
their bad qualities, since good qualities could be overcome, but bad
ones never. The fine (?) horses were imported, the best and largest one
from Brazil; yet even that one, although of heavy Percheron shape, was
rather small and scrubby, a work horse but not big enough to work. The
tropics may be a good place for wild animals who take their exercise
by night, and domestic animals who do not take any; but animals and
men who habitually do active hard work, develop poorly and degenerate
rapidly. If a man or an animal, however, does not and will not work,
the tropics are the place for him. An amount of active work that is
necessary to keep a man well and in working order in Chicago would soon
kill a white man in Panama, while an amount of inactivity that would
make a man sick in Chicago does him good there.
Tramps should go to Panama and by lying fallow renew the exhausted
and dissipated physical stock of their ancestry. There they can feast
on the plentiful bananas, pineapples, mangoes, papayas and breadfruit,
take siestas under inviting palm trees, and lodge cheaply under wayside
wagons, or in dried mudholes, according to the season. They need not
toil, neither need they spin, yet not Solomon with all his wives to
keep his house from him ever took the comfort they can take. Never
to be cold or hungry, nor to be reproached for improvidence, nor be
brought to want for not working, nor to be dependent upon saloons and
jails to keep from starving and freezing; such is the paradise awaiting
them on the isthmus.
Only the rich man can not take advantage of the conditions in Panama.
The waiters are not well enough trained, the first breakfast is
too skimpy, extras are too difficult to procure, furniture is too
uncomfortable, perspiration too wet, etc. The rich man starves, tires
out, gets sick and has to return to the North, with its steam-heated
houses and complex cuisine, to save his life and live in comfort--if
the rich ever do live in comfort. Some think they do, but they
don’t--although they might easily learn how from their servants.
We shopped a little, buying Porto Rican straw hats, duck trousers and
other thin clothes, and found the prices about the same as those in the
United States for similar articles of good quality, but much cheaper
than in Costa Rica. Although the tickets were not yet on sale, we
engaged seats for the bull-fight that was to take place Sunday, January
1st. I had never seen a bull-fight, although I often had wished to. I
did not hanker after the so-called entertainment, but as a student of
the Spanish people and of their literature I considered it a ceremony
of educational and emotional value. We had intended visiting some of
the Chinese silk and curio stores, but the general custom of closing
at about five o’clock made it necessary to postpone this part of it.
As we were four or five blocks from home, my companions insisted upon
taking a cab to the hotel. I preferred walking, which was better for
the health, but being in Panama had to do as the Panamanians did. The
five-minute ride, however, cooled us off and made us feel better,
showing that the end justified the means.
During our walk and ride Señor McGill kept lighting cigarets and would
have kept us doing the same if we had not refused. Doctor Echeverría
did not smoke and I only smoked cigars. The señor was, however, very
moderate for a South American, for he only smoked about a dozen
cigarets during the afternoon. One of our delegates, a physician from
San Salvador, said that he smoked about seventy-five a day, and that
many of his acquaintances did likewise. It serves to keep men occupied,
just as embroidering and knitting serve to keep women occupied. As
the tobacco in the Central and South American cigaret is very black
and much stronger than in those made in the United States, I should
say that seventy-five of the former would equal about a hundred and
fifty of the latter in its effect upon the nerves. Evolution can go
no farther. Such consummate cigaret fiends are however not common in
the United States. Yet the habit seems to influence men badly whether
they smoke strong or weak tobacco. The practice of smoking often,
seems to grow on them until finally they want to light a cigaret every
time they meet a friend or have a moment of leisure. They light one
every time they sit down, again when they get up, and every time they
hear news or wish to impart news to others. One can keep tab on their
feelings and impressions and intentions by watching their cigaret play.
The habit leads them to give way to their impulses and inclinations
without resistance, and they finally get to smoking automatically,
without thinking about it and without really enjoying it. They smoke
with the same kind of nervous satisfaction that Napoleon walked the
floor when he dictated correspondence, and with correspondingly direful
results. It affects themselves and their friends, however, instead of
their foes, for it keeps them smelling worse than a groom. The habitual
cigaret smoker habitually smells. There is only one worse habit, and
that is to go about publicly sucking an old pipe. This hurts every one
within sight.
Señor McGill left us at the hotel, and the doctor and I went to our
rooms to replace wilted linen. I had just removed my coat and collar,
and was pulling my outer shirt over my head when the dusky maiden of
many seasons came in to fix my room. I got a glimpse of her in time,
and pulled the garment down with a jerk and cried, “Get out! Scat!
Don’t you know better than to frighten a man to death in this way?” I
hadn’t time to compose anything but plain English.
“_Si, señor!_” she said, as she started for the water pitcher.
“You’ve _seen_ enough. Get out, I say.”
She merely smiled in a matter-of-fact way as if to say, “Don’t mention
it. I’ll excuse it this time.” Tropical women seem to know that men
have no modesty.
I was too nervous to speak Spanish, and she was too stupid to guess
what my English meant, so I pointed sternly at the door. She looked at
my outstretched arm and, seeing no weapon in it, smiled again and said,
“_Si, señor!_”
Finally I got the combination and shouted:
“_No, no! Nada, nada! Vayase, vayase! Aburr-r!_”
The formula was effective, for she stared at me with an expression of
petticoat dignity and pop-eyed wonder which said plainer than words,
“There is no fool like an old fool,” and walked out. She must have
thought that changing garments was a public ceremony, like snoring and
seasickness. It was the last time I was caught with my door unlocked.
After securing the door, I talked to the looking-glass and washstand
until I was dressed. I wondered if the terrifying loneliness of the
arctic regions was as hard on the nerves as the terrible sociability of
the tropics. I found myself arguing with poor Weininger, who committed
suicide at the age of twenty-three. He said that woman was mere matter
that could assume any shape. But this one was merely a mass of
petticoat that _couldn’t_ assume any shape. Another man, who has not
yet committed suicide, said that woman’s face was the most beautiful
thing in the world--he had not seen them all.
All of the officials and local celebrities excepting President Amador,
Mr. Wallace and Mr. Barrett were in the habit of stopping at the hotel
on their way, or out of their way, home after business hours, or on
their way from home after dinner, thus rendering the hotel corridor
and barroom quite animated, and, of course, quite interesting to a
stranger; so I went down-stairs to seek solace and safety in a crowd.
After listening awhile to General Jeffries, who had fought in nearly
all of the Central American republics, and who had the right of way
in Panama; and to an American contract agent who was attending to
the building up of Central America and Cuba on North American lines;
as well as to other more distinctly local celebrities, discuss the
conditions and prospects of the little republic, I was invited to take
a bottle of beer with one of those typical United States old gentleman
whom I had found ordering eggs for their early breakfast on the first
morning after my arrival and who were making things so lively for the
waiters. It was the quiet one who had allowed his large, formidable,
rheumatic friend to fight the “Battle of the Eggs” for him. But it was
now his turn to complain. The eggs had done their work, and the problem
was how to get _rid_ of eggs instead of how to _get_ eggs. He had not
lived as Panamanians did, and was not willing to die as they did when
they transgressed. I should have been much more willing to advise him
if he had drunk my beer instead of making me drink it, but I could
not offend him by refusing the most expensive treat next to champagne
and, to my thinking, a better (?), pleasanter and less poisonous
one. I really wanted to take imported bottled water, but I feared to
offend him by making him pay fifty cents for a drink of water, when
beer could be had for the same price. I gave him the prescription of
my old professor, Dr. N. S. Davis, who lived to be eighty-five years
old and always used it upon himself when similarly affected, viz., “R.
Take neither food nor medicine until your stomach is all right again.”
Doctor Davis included all alcoholics in this prohibition of medicine,
but I said nothing to my patient about that. It would have disgusted
him with me.
Pretty soon Doctor Echeverría and Señor McGill appeared, and we
dutifully proceeded to take an _aperitif preparatoire_, for it was
half after six and we would have to face a formidable bill of fare at
seven. In a colder climate active exercise would have been considered
a better appetizer for a hearty meal, but in hot climates an alcoholic
stimulant is considered more enjoyable and quite efficacious. Señor
McGill had even less the figure and fogosity of a high-liver than he
had of a warrior, but he took something genuine, and went out to dinner
with us and did himself honor, drinking iced claret in place of water.
After dinner we returned to the hotel corridor and barroom and spent
the evening talking and treating--all three of us, excepting Doctor
Echeverría and myself, smoking cigarets.
“_Ubi tres medici, ibi duo athei._”
I learned that on Thursday evenings from eight to ten o’clock a public
concert was given in the open air at Plaza Santa Ana, and one on Sunday
evenings in the Parque del Catedral in front of our hotel. On other
evenings there were about three things for the Panamanians to choose
between, viz., to stay at home, undress and keep cool; to go to one of
the clubs and play cards; or to lounge about the hotel and talk and
drink alcoholic liquors or syrupy soft drinks (_frescoes_) at regular
intervals. I met Doctor Cook of Panama; Doctor Calvo, the secretary of
the Panamanian Medical Congress; Doctor Tomaselli, one of the busiest
of the local practitioners, and other physicians, as well as a few
non-professional citizens, and noticed that these physicians, as well
as a few unprofessional citizens, avoided the barroom. They usually
remained in the hotel corridor and did not remain long. Nearly all of
the temperance men, however, drank soft drinks, and they were real men
as far as externals indicated.
About nine o’clock Doctor Echeverría went out to call upon some
friends, and I went across the street into the park and cooled off.
The mosquitoes soon began to congregate, however, and I sneaked up to
my bedroom, escaping the argus-eyed bell boy and bully girl. I locked
the door quickly, undressed in the dark and after carefully tucking in
the edges of the mosquito bar, crawled under it, thinking of Bryant’s
stanzas addressed to the mosquito.
Beneath the rushes was thy cradle swung,
And when at length thy gauzy wings grew strong,
Abroad to gentle airs their folds were flung,
Rose in the sky, and bore thee soft along.
The south wind breathed to waft thee on thy way
And danced and shone beneath the billowy bay.
Calm rose afar the city spires, and thence
Came the deep murmur of its throngs of men,
And as its grateful odors met thy sense,
They seemed the perfumes of thy native fen.
Fair lay its crowded streets, and at the sight
Thy tiny song grew shriller with delight.
I lay listening to the cathedral clock strike the hours and half-hours.
Every time the clock struck during the night, the night watchman blew
his whistle to awaken people and remind them that he was awake. Chicago
policemen wake up their headquarters only. The promptitude of the
whistling made one of our doctors think that the whistling was done by
the clock, and was to awaken the watchman only.