THE INTERIOR
We had reached the town of Anton the day before, and I had sent the guide
back with the horses and purposed to make my way alone. The morning was
fresh and balmy, as befitted the dry season, even if a night spent on an
antiquated cot in a room next to that occupied by a man with a racking
cough and a rooster with a clarion voice, were not a perfect repose. The
_rapport_ between the fowl and the afflicted was complete: when one of
them broke the silence, the other immediately took up the refrain. At
breakfast I suggested to the good wife of the host that I had heard that
if a board were placed above a rooster's head so that he could not stretch
upward, he would not crow. She was all solicitude at once at the
suggestion that the noisy cock had disturbed my slumbers, and I had to
protest my indifference to such serenades.
Down the street I found a little store where the owner had a horse or two
to hire upon occasion. Thirty minutes of bicker and I was astride a wiry
little native pony to which a bridle was unknown, and out through the
stately palms and luxurious bananas I made my way to the open country
eastward. The river was thronged with horses led to water, and women busy
with their domestic laundry. It was quaint and picturesque. In some such
manner might the ancient Egyptians have gone about their morning tasks. I
have seen exactly the same procedure in the Philippines and by the rivers
of southern China.
A mile or two from the town the trail mounted a rolling hillock and I
pinched myself to remember that I was not in New Mexico. Straight ahead
rolled the almost level llanos for miles until they were lost in the hills
by Chame, and the purples and pinks of the six-thousand-feet summits were
like a frame for a picture whose southern limits were in the glint of the
blue summer sea. It was a picture and a promise. For two hours the nervous
little pony followed the trail across the smooth plains and frequent
streams. If ever a land was spread out as a challenge to the plow and
seeder, here it was.
I sought a colonization site, where I had heard of a dozen plucky
Americans who were undertaking a plantation on cooperative lines. At last
I found it in the midst of as fine a tract of land as lies beneath the
tropic skies. An old-fashioned farm dinner made life worth living after
native "chow" for days. Modern tractors, plows, a ton of cotton seed, and
other signs of enterprise did much to make the place seem like somewhere
in the great Southwest. But the enterprising Americans were harboring no
delusions regarding the nature of their undertaking. They meant business
and had counted the cost.
[Illustration: THE BEAUTIFUL SAVANAS OF COSTA RICA]
An American on the Canal Zone invested his savings in land in the
interior, and during the vacation built a good wire fence. On his second
visit the fence was totally destroyed by ax, fire, and wire-cutters. The
owner appealed to the local alcalde, a brother of the provincial governor.
He demanded redress for his wrongs. The judge heard his story, and then,
striking a dramatic attitude, smote his breast, and exclaimed, "If these
my friends had not done this thing, I should have done it myself." Which
was to say, no foreigners need apply in those parts. It is probable that
this outrage could not occur under present conditions.
"The Panama politician thinks that all the republic begins in Las Bovedas
and ends in Las Semanas," remarked a plantation owner of the interior
country.
Whether this is true or not, few people realize or know anything of the
splendid country that lies back of the Canal Zone and out of reach of the
flitting traveler. To the average Canal Zone employee all Panama begins at
dock seven and ends in the Administration Building. And for the tourist
who comes to do the Canal in a day, of course, everything begins with the
Washington Hotel and ends with the Tivoli.
But Panama is something vastly more significant than a couple of
slow-service, high-priced hotels. The Isthmian Republic is an empire in
possibilities, entirely apart from the Canal Zone, though the development
of the latent riches of the country is most vitally related to the Canal
enterprise. And the rich belt of land that binds together two continents
is something very much larger than the interesting little city that bears
the name of Panama.
Back of the ten-mile strip controlled by the United States stretches a
land abounding in natural resources which make it potentially a factor of
agricultural and economic importance. To the uninformed citizen of the
United States and other countries the Republic of Panama is a mere
shoestring tying together the two continents, lest the pair become
separated and one of them lost. We look at the Isthmus in contrast with
the two vast continents that lie to the northwest and southeast, and the
connecting link appears small. Panama suffers from comparison with its big
neighbors.
Compared with well-known and important insular holdings in the Caribbean
group, Panama assumes entirely different proportions. Panama is two thirds
as large as Cuba and has one third of Cuba's population. Panama is about
the size of Portugal, is four times as large as Salvador, seven and one
half times as large as Jamaica, and nine times the size of Porto Rico.
Panama is as large as all New England except Maine, and nearly equals the
combined area of New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and West Virginia.
There are interior areas of well-watered, rich soil that equal whole
States in size and yet are entirely unknown to many residents of the Canal
Zone. The Chiriqui Province has a coast line of one hundred and
thirty-three miles and contains as much land as Delaware, Rhode Island,
and Long Island combined. The rich agricultural region in the provinces of
Cocle, Veraguas, Los Santos, and Herrera is as large as the State of
Connecticut. The region east of Panama City reaching out to Chepo is as
large as Rhode Island, and in the Darien country is an area almost
unknown, but abounding in rich resources which would cover the map of New
Jersey with a good margin.
It is supposed that no one lives in this large territory except the
Americans on the Canal Zone and inhabitants of the two cities of Panama
and Colon. This is also indicative of ignorance. The Republic of Panama
has two thirds as many people as Paraguay or Jamaica, and, as previously
stated, one third as many as Cuba, as many as Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho
combined, or is about equal to Utah, Nevada, and Arizona put together.
On the basis of resources and soil and climate and accessibility to
market, Panama can support a population many times her present numbers.
Her capacity for supporting population from her own products is larger
than that of most of the States of the Union, acre for acre. Panama's
resources are as good as those of Jamaica or Porto Rico or Cuba. On the
basis of Jamaican population there should be six and one half million
people in Panama, and if the number of people per square mile were equal
to that of precipitous Porto Rico, we would have a population in Panama of
ten and one half million, which is more than live west of a north and
south line drawn through Denver, Colorado.
That no such population lives to-day in Panama is due to political causes
more than any other factor. The population of Porto Rico has nearly
doubled since American occupation exchanged the old regime for the new.
The barren deserts of the great Southwest are becoming fertile and
populous regions because the people who are possessing the land have a
fair chance, and know that they will be assured a market for their produce
and security for their lives and property. Given political security,
monetary stability, market accessibility, and assurance of economic
cooperation on the part of the government, there are no immediate limits
to the population that Panama may support in comfort.
[Illustration: SHIPPING COSTA RICA VEGETABLES TO PANAMA]
Political stability for the government of Panama is assured by the
relations which exist between the United States and the Isthmian Republic,
a condition which exists in no other Spanish-American republic. The
proximity of the Canal assures a world market. The climate and soil and
water supply nature has provided with lavish hand. Sanitation and hygiene
have become exact sciences, and the matter of retaining good health in the
tropics is no longer a problem. There is still good land to be had on
favorable terms, but the supply will soon be controlled by monopolists who
are seizing the present opportunity to load up their future bank accounts,
while war conditions produce a general depression of the world's
development forces.
The present interior population includes three distinct classes of people.
The original Indian stock still exists, pure and often wild, in the high
mountains and remote regions of the country. These Indians are beginning
to emerge from their fastnesses and get acquainted with their neighbors,
now that they are sure of police protection when they come out. But their
number is small and they are a negligible factor in the totals.
The West Indians are an importation, and while they are easily adapted to
the climate and form the staple of labor supply for the Canal, they are
not the Panamanians and never will be except as they mix with the native
stock and shade off the colors that exist in such confusion. The Negroes
and Panamanians are much more distinct in the interior than about the Zone
with its terminal cities, where the remnants of humanity have been stirred
together for four hundred years. West Indian populations exist in
predominance only on the plantations of the United Fruit Company, where
they supply the labor for the operation of these vast enterprises.
The Panamanian is the predominant man in the interior country. He is not
black, nor is he entirely white, but he has straight hair and features
that indicate that he is a descendant of the original Indian stock, mixed
with the Spanish conquerors who overran the country in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries.
Probably the Panamanian has had less opportunity for advancement than the
people of any other country in America. He has had no chance for national
life or political self-expression. He has been the victim of the most
vigorous and long-continued era of piracy and plunder that the New World
has experienced. He has suffered from bad leadership when he has had any
leadership at all. He has been exploited by everybody who came to the
Isthmus. From the days of Morgan down to the formation of the present
Republic, under American protection and guarantee of peace within and
without, this native has been the outcast of the world and the national
goat of the American flock of nations. He has been kept in ignorance and
superstition by the exclusive control of a system of religious oppression
and subjection, and if by chance he happened to acquire anything worth
getting, somebody was always ready to take it away from him.
This native supplies the labor for such enterprises as have been launched
in the fertile western regions of Panama. With anything like good
treatment he gives a return for his wages, and if he has a chance to
acquire sound health, an intelligent outlook on life, and a share in the
results of his labors, he can be made over into a good citizen. He is not
a bad citizen now, but he is very much undeveloped.
The products of this great interior region are many and their proceeds in
the world's markets are profitable. Present prices make large
opportunities for investment, and a reorganization of marketing facilities
will mark the beginning of an era of prosperity for Panama. The list of
products now being raised in and exported from Panama is a surprisingly
long one, and the total of returns from these commodities would give a
western real estate promoter material for many prospectuses and promises.
The chief products of the country at present are bananas, lumber, rice,
sugar, cacao, meat, citrus fruits, corn, coffee, and coconuts. But there
are a hundred other products, many of which indicate large returns if
produced and marketed on a commercial scale. Rubber, ivory, nuts, hides,
beans, pineapples, potatoes, yams, yucca, cotton, tobacco, plantain, a
long list of fruits and vegetables of high value, and a number of minerals
are but a few of the useful commodities now being supplied to the markets
of the Canal Zone and the world from the interior country of Panama.
Nearly every vegetable that grows in the temperate climate does well in
Panama. Some of the native fruits, such as papayas, mangoes, and alligator
pears, are of delicious flavor and high value. The waters of Panama abound
in vast quantities of fish, and there is supply for a number of fish
canneries. Live stock thrives and is produced in considerable numbers in
the provinces of Cocle and Chiriqui. The Canal Zone is now being used as a
farming enterprise and stock grazing range by the administration of the
Zone with the intention of making the Zone area self-supporting in meat
and fruit and vegetables.
[Illustration: GOOD PINEAPPLES GROW HERE]
With an average import trade of ten millions and an export of more than
half that amount, Panama is even to-day a factor in the world's markets.
It must be said that the largest item on the import list is that of goods
shipped to the Zone, and that the chief export is bananas shipped from
Almirante, but these items indicate large possibilities in further
developments of territories as yet untouched.
The interior of Panama includes three general types of country, very
different in climate and produce. The high mountains are a large area of
country, much of which is fertile soil clear to the peaks, and all of
which on the northern slopes is covered with jungle and forest. These
wooded slopes are wet with abundant rainfall, and luxuriant foliage of
tropical forms bewilders the traveler with illusions of fantastic
creations of nature run mad over the earth. These mountainous parts are
for the most part uninhabited, except by the more or less wild Indians,
who live apart much as they were living four hundred years ago. No white
men have tried to maintain themselves in these regions, and in some
districts it is said that a white man's life is unsafe overnight. Tropical
beasts and reptiles and birds abound among the weird forms of vegetation
that seem to be perpetrating grotesque jokes on the bewildered visitor to
the regions beyond the realm of civilized habitations. There are as yet no
efforts made to establish towns or plantations in this country. Yet if
cleared and cultivated, these regions are capable of supporting a
population as dense as that of Porto Rico, where the steep hills and rocky
peaks are covered with a population of over three hundred per square mile.
The jungle lands of Panama are elsewhere described, and where there is a
jungle there are always rich land and abundant water, sometimes too much
water and need of drainage. The Canal Zone is mainly jungle land, and
where it has been cleared for cultivation excellent results are attained.
The cost of clearing this jungle is not so great as would appear from the
fact that for bananas and many other forms of crop the trees and brush are
cut down and after a time burned, and no further effort is made to clear
the land except about four cleanings per year with a machette. Anything
like plowing is un-thought of for bananas and some other leading crops.
Even sugar is often planted and left to shift for itself, under native
methods, which are subject, of course, to improvement.
[Illustration: DEAD TIMBER IN GATUN LAKE NOW COVERED WITH ORCHIDS]
The third class of land in Panama is the level or rolling prairie land
known as savanas or llanos. These lands lie for the most part in the
valleys back of Bocas del Toro and along the southern, or Pacific, coast
of the country. From Chame to Cape Mala a belt of level country sweeps
around the Parita Bay. From ten to forty miles back of the coast rise the
high mountains, and this fertile strip of country averages about thirty
miles in width and is over a hundred miles long. Rolling country extends
on west of this plain, but the plain itself contains enough good farming
land to feed several millions of people. It is watered and drained by
frequent rivers which cut across from the mountains to the sea every three
or four miles and furnish every facility for cultivation. Most of this
level country is first-grade soil and is adapted to the growing of almost
any of the products of this tropical land. The general appearance of this
open country suggests New Mexico or Southern California much more than any
land below the tropic of Cancer. Its numerous towns and occasional good
roads suggest a newly opened territory in the west, where there are
abundant opportunities for growing up with the country. The newcomer is
apt to be deceived into thinking that all things are now ready and all he
has to do is to move in.
In the extreme western part of Panama lies the great Chiriqui Province
with its best-developed region in the entire Republic. Here are great
cattle ranches, sugar fields, rice plantings, cotton farms, cornfields,
and here are American companies working to develop modern civilized
conditions. Here is the Chiriqui Railroad between Pedrogal and Boquette,
with a branch running westward. More interest has centered in this region
than in any other part of Panama, and if the proposed railroad from Panama
to David is ever built, the whole southern slope of western Panama will
suddenly appear on the map of the world's granaries.
Road-building presents no unusual difficulties in this region such as
confronted the Americans in the Philippines when they built the Benguet
road up from Dagupan. Rainfall is high, but the country is comparatively
level and well drained, and in many of these western provinces a graded
dirt road has kept in good condition for ten years without repairs. During
the dry season it is now possible to travel by coche over much of this
country.
The climate of this interior country is dryer and cooler than that of
Panama, which lies in the jungle area. In the dry season, which is also
the windy season, and lasts in western Panama from mid-December to late in
April, health conditions are excellent, and with proper precautions they
are good all the year around. Needless to remark, the natives take no
precautions whatever.
Good drinking water can be secured by sinking properly located wells, and
this water shows freedom from minerals of a deleterious nature. There are
seaports for coast vessels at almost every river mouth, and roads lead
back from these to the interior towns.
There is a fascination about travel through these interiors. But the trip
must be made during the dry season. We left a large town one morning,
paused on a hilltop to take a picture, which included a troop of cavalry
out on a practice march. It was late, and the three of us departed at good
speed, soon outdistancing the soldiers. Two days later a chance traveler
informed us that the military men were anxious to interview travelers who
had broken the rules with a camera and then vanished from sight. We passed
the encampment on our way back, hung about town two hours, and proceeded.
That night a solitary mounted soldier paused by our camp and remarked,
"I'll bet you are the fellows they are hunting." We suggested that we were
waiting to be found. Two weeks later, a secret service man called and
inquired as to our business on that trip. Which is to say that Panama's
interior is a roomy place in which a man might easily lose himself or find
an empire. A good government, an infusion of energy, and a supply of
capital will make a rich land of nature's great virgin farm.