Panama is crowded with Blacks, Indians, Hindus, Spanish, and many
Chinese. The streets are narrow and full of people all the time. The
stores open right upon the streets, and all the houses are built at the
edge of the sidewalk with balconies on the upper stories out over the
sidewalk.
Some of the children are terrible beggars and hang onto your coat while
you are walking along the street. And many of them run around, without
a thing on, stark naked funny little black children.
We drove out to Old Panama one day, and saw the ruins of what used to
be the richest city in the New World. All the pirates knew this was a
very rich city and full of treasures. Gold was brought there from Peru
and then shipped to Spain on Spanish ships.
In 1637 Henry Morgan, a famous English pirate and adventurer, came
across the isthmus and attacked the city of Old Panama. The city burned
up, almost all of it, and the few people who escaped then made another
city which is the present Panama, six miles away. It is a better place,
with a better harbor at the mouth of the Boca Grande River.
We went to the top of Ancon Hill in an auto, way up above the City to
get the view—way off over the Canal, over the city, far beyond the Old
Panama ruins, and of course far out to sea. There are three cannons on
this hill, and I could turn one all by myself and see how it works. If
Panama should ever be attacked, this would be a wonderful hill for
protecting the city. There are fortifications on both sides of the
Canal entrance at Balboa. They also have quite a few aeroplanes.
We went swimming at the Balboa Club-house pool, one of the best I have
ever seen. Mr. Grieser showed me the proper leg stroke for the crawl,
and I met a twelve year old boy there who had gone to New York with a
crack team of swimmers. He dived from a sixty-foot board in Madison
Square Garden.
Don Dickerman bought three dugouts from a native fisherman in Panama,
and he also got two monkeys, a Cebus, a marmoset, and a cunning little
monkey-like animal called a kinkaiu, which goes out mostly at night.
This last little one was very soft and furry and was very gentle too.
He curled himself and tried to keep in the dark all day, sleeping. I
hope I can buy one some time for I like him better than the other pets.
Bobbie Fish bought a little pet called a coatamundi. We call him
“Snootie” for his upper lip is long and sticks out over his lower. He
is little almost as a rat with a furry long tail. Betty has a brown
puppy, named Dyna—short, she says, for Dynamite Bill who gave it to
her.
Gregory Bateson left at Panama and took many of the live things back
with him to New York. The lizards and smaller things died but the pair
of lovely albatrosses lived and I hope I shall see them when I go to
the Zoo. Bateson is still a student at Cambridge University in England
and his father is a famous scientist.
On Saturday night late we pulled out of the dock at Panama, but we had
to wait all next day at anchor in the outer harbor for two new firemen.
Two of ours had left and not come back to the boat. And as the Captain
wanted to keep all the rest of the crew aboard we stayed out there so
more couldn’t leave.