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PROWLING ABOUT
PANAMA
BY
GEORGE A. MILLER
ILLUSTRATED BY
ALICE AND A. W. BEST
FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR
[Illustration]
THE ABINGDON PRESS
NEW YORK CINCINNATI
Copyright, 1919, by
GEORGE A. MILLER
DEDICATED
TO THE
YOUNG PEOPLE OF THE EPWORTH LEAGUES
OF THE
CALIFORNIA CONFERENCE
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
FOREWORD 11
I. WHERE THE PROWLING IS GOOD 13
II. THE TRAIL OF THE PIRATES 26
III. PICTURESQUE PANAMA 41
IV. A CITY OF GHOSTS 55
V. THE SPELL OF THE JUNGLE 65
VI. LIFE AT THE BOTTOM 76
VII. THE INTERIOR 93
VIII. ECONOMIC WASTE 109
IX. PANAMA AND PROGRESS 122
X. KNOWING OUR NEIGHBORS 144
XI. THE FAMILY TREE 160
XII. LATIN-AMERICAN HEART 178
XIII. THE CARIBBEAN WORLD 193
XIV. THE PANAMA CANAL 214
XV. PROWLING INTO THE FUTURE 235
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
The Faithful Mule is the Ship of the Jungle 14
The Homeward Way at Nightfall 15
An Empire in the Making 19
A Few Good Roads on the Zone 21
Church at Nata, Oldest Inhabited Town in New World,
Founded 1520 24
The Jungle is the Place for Picnics 27
Even Farm Cabins Are Picturesque in Costa Rica 30
Ruins of Old Panama, the Most Romantic Spot in the New
World 33
Indian Woman at the Fountain 36
Baths--Wholesale and Retail 43
Convent Door 46
Official Lottery in Bishop's House, Panama 48
Ruin of Famous Flat-Arch Church 52
Eighth-Grade Room, Panama 53
Convent Garden 56
Romantic Old Convents Survive 58
Ruined Tower at Old Panama 60
Costa Rica Trapiche, or Sugar Mill 62
Papaya Trees 66
Bananas and Sugar Cane 68
Cacao Pods 70
Proposed Location for Rest Cure 73
Picturesque Jungle Towns 78
Tortillas are Staple 80
Jungle Folk 81
"The Cotter's Saturday Night" 82
Church Bells of Arraijan, Cast 1722 85
First-Grade Room, Panama 89
The Beautiful Savanas of Costa Rica 95
Shipping Costa Rica Vegetables to Panama 99
Good Pineapples Grow Here 103
Dead Timber in Gatun Lake Now Covered with Orchids 105
Interior Meat Market 111
The Flavor of Old Spain 112
Taking the Rest Cure 113
The Oxen Stage of Agriculture 115
Wayside Sellers of Fruit 117
The House Beside the Road 118
Wireless at Darien 123
Farm Grist Mill, Costa Rica 126
Happy Kindergartners, Panama 129
Young Costa Rica is Enterprising 131
Wooden Sugar Mill and Its Maker 133
Public Market, David 137
Indian Boy Goes to School 145
Washday in Costa Rica 147
Riverside Plantation 151
Jungle Products 154
San Blas Indian Chief 161
No Race Suicide Here 162
Jungle Guide 164
One Use for a Head 165
Beggars and Cathedrals 167
Far from the Madding Crowd 169
Seawall Church and School, Panama 171
Mandy Did Her Share 173
The Canal Digger 173
The Town Pump, Interior Village 175
Wayside Cemetery in the Jungle 176
Coconuts--So Good and So High 180
Boiling "Dulce"--Crude Sugar 183
Washing by the River 189
Costa Rica Farm House 194
Bananas Thirty Feet High 197
San Blas Indians Have "Poker Faces" 198
Where Styles Molest No More 201
Chinese Always Start a School 205
"Schooldays" 205
Three in a Row 212
Mother, Home, and--the Simple Life 212
Construction Days in Culebra-Gailard Cut 217
Gatun Spillway, Key to the Canal 224
Cristobal Streets 227
Fat Cattle of Cocle 228
Enchanted Islands in Gatun Lake 231
Panama Public Water Works, Interior Country 237
A Jungle Cathedral 242
Shoe-bills Are Small 248
FOREWORD
The fine art of prowling may be achieved, but is more often a gift of
those to the manner born. Professional globe-trotters are not prowlers.
They are often the victims of their own sense of superiority. Personally
conducted tours are little help to real prowling, and professional guides
reduce the sight-seer to a machine for receiving "canned" information with
gaping mouth, while with his free hand he extracts tips from his reluctant
pocket.
Prowling is an instinct, a sixth sense of locations and values. The
prowler must have intuition and imagination and perseverance and
historical perspective, but with these he must have something else--that
inner vision that finds values in everything human. The expert explorer
will find something interesting in Sahara, but almost any prowler will
have a rare time in Panama.
Probably no spot in the New World has served as the location of so many
kinds of events and interests as this narrow neck of land between two
continents. Brief histories of it have been well written, and the visitor
should by all means read at least one of them. It remains for some seer
yet to tell worthily the story of the four centuries that link the last
discovery of the world's greatest explorer with the final achievement of
the world's most skillful builders.
Panama furnishes an epitome of history. Nearly everything that has ever
happened anywhere in the world has had some counterpart or parallel in
Panama, and of the coming results of the new forces now released on the
Isthmus time alone can be the measure.
This book makes no claims to consistency. Where contradictory
characteristics abound and motives are much mixed, both sides may be
faithfully set forth, but to reconcile them is a difficult matter. There
will be no unified and consistent life on the Isthmus until the advancing
civilization now there outgrows some of its present traits.
Can one tell the truth about Panama and return to the Isthmus? That
remains to be proven. Much depends on the spirit of the prowler. As well
ask whether one can tell the truth about Chicago and be welcome to that
metropolis. Probably Chicago would pay no attention to the comment, but
Panama might take enough interest to notice.
This is not a guidebook. Heaven forbid! It is merely a few notes of a
prowler who found Panama interesting.
CHAPTER I
WHERE THE PROWLING IS GOOD
Panama is the great American curiosity shop. The first city founded by
explorers in the New World, the oldest town in America inhabited by white
men, the most conglomerate mixture of humanity on earth are in Panama. The
bloodiest tale of modern history, the most romantic story of American
exploration, the greatest engineering achievement of man all center in
Panama.
If there be any interest in congested and sweltering humanity, any concern
for the problems of social uplift and personal reaction, Panama is the
laboratory for study. The cleanest and healthiest towns on earth are on
the Canal Zone, and the last word in shiftlessness and inefficiency is
also here. Superstition and science, rascality and rhapsody, efficiency
and squalor, graft and honor, all mixed and mingled--this is Panama.
Jungle and plain, valley and coast, tropic heat and mountain paradise,
fever-swamps and ideal sanitation, engineering success and life in the
primitive open--these too are in Panama.
Strange and mysterious traces are still found of the days when the gold of
Peru was carried across the Isthmus on pack trains. Later the gold-seekers
of California fought their way along the route of the present Canal and
found ships on the west coast for the mines of Eldorado. If any survivors
still live, they can tell stirring tales of the days when it was well
worth a life to carry gold to Aspinwall.
[Illustration: THE FAITHFUL MULE IS THE SHIP OF THE JUNGLE]
It all began with Columbus himself when he sailed into Almirante Bay and
thought that he had found in Chiriqui Lagoon the long-sought passage to
India. What he really found, what was to follow his discovery, he could
not have dreamed, adventurer that he was! Almirante (Admiral), Cristobal
(Christopher), and Colon (Columbus) remain to-day to remind us of the
illustrious explorer who first set foot on Panama. But Columbus gave us
Panama, and never knew! It was Balboa who first saw the waters of the wide
Pacific from the summits of the Isthmian hills. It was Pizarro who packed
across the fifty miles of jungle the timbers of the ships which he put
together on the beach of the Pacific and with which he discovered Peru,
after indescribable hardships and repeated attempts to find the "hill of
gold."
[Illustration: THE HOMEWARD WAY AT NIGHTFALL]
On the Pacific side of the Isthmus was founded Old Panama, the first city
of the New World, where to-day majestic ruins stand, a fitting shrine for
the reverent pilgrim. And between Old Panama and Porto Bello stretches the
famous Paved Trail of Las Cruces.
Along this trail lurked the trouble-hunters and makers of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries. For two hundred years the tinkle of the bells
of the gold-laden pack mules was never silent. On this jungle path, when
stolen gold was carried by the sackful, trouble was certain to follow. The
big trail was a pathway of blood, robbery, and intrigue. All the worst
passions and performances of depraved men turned loose and ran riot for a
century and a half. These were the days when life was raw and rough at
Panama.
To-day the old trail is covered with palms and decorated with orchids.
Occasional stones trace the outline of the ancient highway. Where the
drunken and ribald song of the muleteer rose about the camp-fire at night,
canaries and parrakeets now chatter and sing. The soft caress of the
jungle breeze whispers no tales of the days when the trail could be traced
by the bleaching bones that lined the right-of-way. The jungle is nature's
great blotter for the sins, sorrows, and sufferings of an age now
forgotten--but it all happened in Panama.
Panama is not all jungle. To the westward stretch great savannas, between
the mountains and the sea; miles and miles of smooth and level country
open, fair and well watered, only waiting for the tickle of American
cultivation to laugh a crop. It makes a real estate man's fingers itch;
but that is another story. Where a little cultivation has been
inadvertently perpetrated on the land, tall sugar cane, luscious fruits,
and toothsome vegetables attest the quality of the soil and the climate.
Frequent rivers, numerous inlets on the coast line, occasional interesting
native towns, old churches, impossible "roads," meandering trails,
scattered herds of fat cattle, a few sugar mills, numerous trapiches (cane
grinders), fenced patreros (pastures), and everywhere the mixed-blood
natives--this is Panama in the western provinces.
Panama westward is not all a flat country, however. Eleven thousand feet
into the sky rises the Chiriqui volcano, and a little farther west in the
same range stands Pico Blanco (White Top), at about the same height.
Thrown across the slopes of these lofty summits and half way up lies a
great and beautiful country, with a climate such as might have been
coveted for the site of Eden. Cool, comfortable, and salubrious is this
garden of the gods. In all the so-called temperate zone no land yet
discovered offers three hundred and fifty days per year of comfort and
health. To be sure, vacation pilgrims from the warmer coast country
sometimes make mention of cold feet upon first reaching this Mecca in the
mountains, but nobody finds fault on that account. Most of them like it.
Chiriqui is a garden spot. Wide ranges of fertile soil, gentle slopes
rolling back against the mountain ranges, good harbors along the coast,
and occasional plantations with American improvements, mark the country as
the coming granary of the Republic. Rolling slopes and blossoming fields,
with a background of the never-failing come-and-go of the lights and
shades on the face of the mountains, form a picture not to be forgotten.
Always the summits and the clouds seem to be playing leapfrog in the sky,
and the whole upper world, looking down on the puny traveler, seems ever
trying to say something and never quite uttering its meaning. And he who
looks and listens finds himself trying to say it for them, and never can
he find the word. Perhaps some poetic soul will yet look upon these
heights and tell us what it is they are muttering.
The coast line of western Panama is a fascinating shore. Like enchanted
islands rise bits of forest out of the sea and any of them might be the
castle site of the lord of the main.
In and out between their wooded shores the steamer winds its way till it
dodges in through some narrow "boca" to find a tortuous channel leading to
a landing place, that must always be approached at the whim of the tide.
Whether there be a thousand islands or not, no one knows; but I have stood
on the steamer deck and counted fifty in sight at a time, while other
fifties rose up to meet us as those nearby dropped astern. Here and there
some lonely light blinks its vigil through the night, and the swells of
the Pacific break in fantastic sea-ghosts against the rocky cliffs.
[Illustration: AN EMPIRE IN THE MAKING]
Navigation of these waters is not a science, it is an art. The captains of
these coast craft know every tree and rock and river mouth for four
hundred miles, and make their way through tortuous channels by markings
that no landsman can see. There is one grizzled navigator, said to be
unable to read or write, who knows every marking on the coast for six
hundred miles, and in the long years of service has never made a mistake
or met with an accident. Possibly his success might be due to the fact
that what he does not know does not confuse him. His mental horizon may
not be very distant, but at least he escapes a lot of worry about things
that he (and you and I) cannot control. When the tides have a rise and
fall of eighteen feet, and all harbors are but shallow river mouths, the
negotiation of the coast ports becomes a matter requiring much accuracy of
judgment.
The old trail across the Isthmus is the Mecca of many pilgrims who by some
searching find its scattered stones amid the riotous jungle. The later
trail was opened after the city of Panama was moved to its present site.
It began at Colon, followed the Chagres River to the present site of
Gamboa, and then wound its ways over the low summit of the hills down to
the new Panama and terminated at the "Nun's Beach," where now stand a
Protestant church and school. Here the pack trains were unloaded and the
high tides carried the rafts and lighters out to the ships waiting in the
little harbor.
The dark days of Panama were the days after the gold trade failed. Even
the gold of Peru was not inexhaustible, and the trade across the Isthmus
could not stand continued centuries of robbery and murder. It had to end
some time, and end it did; and when the end came all the Isthmus lapsed
into a slough of despond and lethargy of inertia. For a century and a half
Panama was as forgotten as the Catacombs.
But Panama went her way, whether anybody cared or not. The people left on
the Isthmus were the racial remnants of the mixture of mankind that had
found its way back and forth for two centuries, and they were fairly able
to take care of themselves. The rich forests and fertile soil would bear
fruit and food enough to sustain life whether anyone worked or not, and
the result was not the development of a virile race of men. How could it
be? Probably few spots on earth have had less incentive to develop hardy
and enterprising character than the Isthmus of Panama.
[Illustration: A FEW GOOD ROADS ON THE ZONE]
The prowler about Panama will find a wide variety of interests and
inspirations. Whatever his peculiar, personal fad he can find it
somewhere. Then he can prowl to his heart's content.
If he prefers the sea, there are fifteen hundred miles of coast line to
explore with something new to every mile. Or he can launch out a bit, and
in a day's time make his way to the famous Pearl Islands, where are life
and industry so distinct that weeks mays be spent in studying the
development of a civilization, insular and unique. The coast of Darien has
boundless possibilities for the explorer; and the San Blas Islands would
keep the ethnologist busy for months. For an enchanted inland sea the
Chiriqui Lagoon is unsurpassed.
If historical romance is desired, the prowling is certainly abundant; and
if the prowler is a lover of nature, wild and luxuriant, rioting in
marvelous and indescribable forms of overflowing life, he has but to equip
himself for jungle travel, and he will find wonders by the mile, and
fantastic nature piled mountains high and chasms deep. If it is mountains,
they are here in scenic beauty unsurpassed. If the explorer is a student
of human nature and cares to attempt the unscrambling of this blend of
blood that flows in swarthy faces, he will be busy here for a lifetime.
And if none of these will do, and the curious landsman will have nothing
short of the exploring of vast unchristened wildernesses where no human
foot has ever trod, and where strange and dangerous forms of unclassified
life wander at will through the overgrown forests, he will find it--and
doubtless he will find much more of it than he wants before he gets back
to civilization.
If it is promotion schemes and development projects, then here at least is
a commodious place to put them. Here, in agricultural and colonizing
schemes, somebody will yet get rich--and other somebodies poor.
If the prowler's interest is primarily social, and he would browse about
one of the most interesting cities in America, let him come to Panama.
Ancient Spanish streets, scrupulously clean--can these be found anywhere
else? Side by side, over and under, the sixteenth and twentieth centuries
run together.
And what makes Panama to-day the crossroad of the world? For him who in
the love of engineering skill holds communion with high human achievement,
and prefers to prowl around the locks and docks, and study the marvelous
successes and adaptations and devices of the latest and greatest feat of
brain and hand, this is the very center of the earth. No man with a soul
for the poetry of mechanics can stand in a control house of one of the
locks and see the enormous gates swing back at the movement of a finger
without feeling that man, with all his limitations, has yet in his being
some image of the Creator. To see an ocean giant rise up slowly in the
teeth of gravitation and slip through the gates on to the higher level, is
to wonder whether the portals that look so gloomy to us may not, after
all, be not exits but entrances to a new and higher level of life. What a
text! The ship does not rise by straining but by resting in a narrow
place. And no ship ever yet got through the locks without a pilot. The
whole process is as silent as the forces of eternity. There is a lot more,
and it bears no copyright. Help yourself.
[Illustration: CHURCH AT NATA, OLDEST INHABITED TOWN IN THE NEW WORLD,
FOUNDED 1520]
And for the prowler in the region of philosophy, what a place! What
changes in the geography and commerce and industry and policies and
politics of mankind must follow this last achievement on the historical
Isthmus of Panama, "quien sabe?" ("who knows?") None but the Omniscient.
Trade routes and bank exchanges, commercial dealings and national programs
will all be affected by this three-hundred-foot wide highway of water. If
but some power the gift would give us to come back a century hence and see
what will be doing then!
What social and moral transformations will be wrought in the coming years
by the release of spiritual forces through the new religious life and free
faith brought to Panama with the coming of the Canal? Out of the
soul-bondage of a system of superstition and ignorance will come a new
human consciousness of the worthiness of life and the high privilege of
living. Whether it is to prowl or prophesy, the material is abundant, and
the pilgrim will find rare material a-plenty all about him. Panama is
perplexing and peculiar, but he who finds the key to the riddle will be
kept busy.
Perhaps the amateur explorer has a penchant for old churches. Here they
are. Seven of them, with a couple of first-class ruins thrown in. The rich
monasteries of Peru and Mexico are missing, but for that there is a
reason. Every bit of treasure was stolen as fast as accumulated. Yes, if
unmolested in the past, Panama would be a mine for the antiquarian to-day.
But any active imagination, even on half-time shift, can find here
material for romances, warranted to interest every member of the family,
at reduced prices, if paid for in advance. From the Flat-Arch Church to
the ruins of Old Panama it is good prowling all the way.