Transcriber’s Notes
Text printed in italics has been transcribed _between underscores_,
bold face text =between equal signs=, and underlined text ~between
tildes~. Small capitals have been replaced with ALL CAPITALS.
More Notes may be found at the end of this text.
[Illustration: PANAMA CANAL AND CANAL ZONE
NOTE: From its Atlantic end at Colon, the Canal runs for 10 miles _due
south_; then its general course is to the eastward into the Pacific.
This is quite contrary to the popular conception of its general
direction and is due to the fact that the Isthmus, at the Canal, bends
to the eastward, so that the Pacific Ocean at this point is south and
east of the Atlantic, as shown by the small insert map at lower left
hand corner of the main map above.]
PANAMA
And the Canal
IN PICTURE AND PROSE
A complete story of Panama, as well as the history, purpose
and promise of its world-famous canal--the most
gigantic engineering undertaking since
the dawn of time
_Approved by leading officials connected with the great enterprise_
By WILLIS J. ABBOT
Author of The Story of Our Navy, American Merchant Ships and Sailors,
Etc.
Water-colors by
E. J. READ and GORDON GRANT
Profusely illustrated by over 600 unique and attractive photographs
taken expressly for this book by our special staff
Published in English and Spanish by
SYNDICATE PUBLISHING COMPANY
LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO
HAVANA BUENOS AIRES
1913
Copyright 1913, by F. E. Wright
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 5
CHAPTER I. THE FRONT DOOR TO PANAMA 9
Antilla, a New Sugar Port--The Island of Jamaica--Kingston, The
Colonial Capital--Women as Burden Bearers--Characteristics of the
Native Jamaican--Life of the Negro Woman.
CHAPTER II. CRISTOBAL-COLON; AND THE PANAMA RAILROAD 23
The Approach to Colon--The Architecture and Population of
Colon--Railroad Building in a Swamp--The French Come to Colon--The
Beautiful Roosevelt Avenue--Colon Streets in the Early Days--The
Varied Population of Colon--San Blas Indians and Their Cayucas--The
Ghastly Story of the Chinese--Cost and Charges of the Panama Railroad.
CHAPTER III. NOMBRE DE DIOS, PORTO BELLO AND SAN LORENZO 45
The Harbor of Porto Bello--The First Appearance of Balboa--Early
Indian Life in Panama--The Futile Indian Uprising--The First Sight of
the Pacific--The Beginning of Balboa’s Downfall--The Traitor in
Balboa’s Camp--The Character of Vasco Nunez de Balboa--Panama a Link
in Philippine Trade--Flush Times in Porto Bello--The Piratical Raid of
Sir Francis Drake--The Futile Attack on the Treasure Train--The
Appearance of Morgan the Buccaneer--The Pillage of Porto Bello.
CHAPTER IV. SAN LORENZO AND PANAMA 75
The Waterway to San Lorenzo--Approach to San Lorenzo Castle--A Rip Van
Winkle of a Fortress--The Assault of the Buccaneers--The End of Porto
Bello and San Lorenzo.
CHAPTER V. THE SACK OF OLD PANAMA 87
The Advance of the Buccaneers--The Banquet before Panama--The
Buccaneers Triumphant in Battle--The Pirates’ Orgy of Plunder--How
Morgan Plundered His Pirates--The Scene of Morgan’s Great Exploit.
CHAPTER VI. REVOLUTIONS AND THE FRENCH RÉGIME 101
The Scottish Settlement in Panama--Disasters Beset the Scotch
Colonists--The Repeated Revolutions of Panama--Early Projectors of a
Panama Canal--Sea Level or Lock Canal--A Relic of the French
Days--Some of the Finished Work of the French--The Financial
Aberrations of De Lesseps--Yellow Fever’s Toll of French Lives--The
Value of the French Work.
CHAPTER VII. THE UNITED STATES BEGINS WORK 123
Why Panama Wanted Independence--Our Share in the Revolution--A
Revolution Without a Single Battle--Treaty Rights of the United
States--Illustrations of the Magnitude of the Canal Work--The Passage
of the Canal Locks--Spectacular Features of Gatun Lake--The
Abandonment of Canal Towns--The Pacific Terminus of the Canal--The
Forts at the Pacific Entrance.
CHAPTER VIII. THE FORMATIVE PERIOD 147
The Beginning of Work under Wallace--The Absentee Commissioners and
the Red Tape--The Successful War with Yellow Fever--The Change from
Wallace to Stevens--The Varying Estimates of the Canal Cost--The
Resignation of Engineer Stevens.
CHAPTER IX. COL. GOETHALS AT THE THROTTLE 161
What the Colonel Meant by Orders--The Colonel’s Sunday Morning
Court--The Autocratic Power of Col. Goethals--The Panama Work Shows
Governmental Efficiency.
CHAPTER X. GATUN DAM AND LOCKS 171
Atlantic Beginning of the Canal--The Plan of the Gatun Dam--How the
Chagres Current was Blocked--The Spillway, The Nerve Center of Gatun
Lake--The Uses of the Electric Power of Gatun--The Colossal Concrete
Work at Gatun--The Motive Power of the Lock Gates.
CHAPTER XI. GATUN LAKE AND THE CHAGRES RIVER 187
The Native Affection for the Chagres--The Indispensable Native
Cayuca--Keeping the Record of the Chagres--Cruces in Its Day of
Greatness--Animal Life on the Chagres River--A Typical Foreign Laborer
on The Zone.
CHAPTER XII. THE CULEBRA CUT 201
The Great Problem of the Slides--The Physical Characteristics of the
Slide--Some Peculiar Features of the Slides--The Explosive Experience
of Miguel--The Gorgeous Coloring of Culebra--The Perilous Passage of
Culebra Cut--The almost Human Work of the Steam Shovel--The Work of
the Steam Shovellers--The almost Indispensable Track Shifter--The
Industrious Ants of Panama--The End of the Canal at Balboa.
CHAPTER XIII. THE CITY OF PANAMA 224
The First Appearance of Panama City--The Popular Panama
Lottery--Panama’s Cost of Living is High--Scenes in the Panama
Market--The Prevalent Temper of the Panamanians--Why Americans are not
Popular--American Sentiment on the Isthmus--The Public Buildings of
Panama--The Stout Walls of Panama City--Scenes of the Mardi Gras
Carnival--Cock-Fighting and the Liquor Trade--In the Ancient Chiriqui
Prison--The Many Churches of Panama--Panama Clubs and Open Air Life.
CHAPTER XIV. THE SANITATION OF THE ZONE 253
Beginning the Warfare on Mosquitoes--Methods of the Anti-Mosquito
Crusade--Some Humors of the Mosquito War--How the Streams are
Sterilized--Results of the War on Mosquitoes--The Two Great Canal
Commission Hospitals--The System of Free Medical Treatment--The
Pleasant Village of Taboga--The Sanitarium and Leper Colony.
CHAPTER XV. THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA 273
The Doubtful Soil of Panama--The Simple Study of Native Life--The
Building of the Bridegroom’s House--Labor and Land Titles in
Panama--Agriculture and Temperature in Panama--Rubber and Cocoanuts
Offer Possibilities--The Sport of Shooting Alligators--A Colossal
Agricultural Enterprise--The Banana as an Empire Builder--Why the
American Flag is Rare--Getting the Bananas to Market--David and the
Cattle Country--Gold from the Indian Tombs--Efforts for a System of
Industrial Education.
CHAPTER XVI. THE INDIANS OF PANAMA 305
Marriage Customs of the Indians--The Many Tribes of Panama
Indians--Characteristics of the San Blas Tribe--An
Exclusive Aboriginal People--Family Quarters of the San Blas--Customs
of the Chocos and Guaymies--Peculiarities of the Darien Indians.
CHAPTER XVII. SOCIAL LIFE ON THE CANAL ZONE 320
The Population of the Canal Zone--The Temptations to Matrimony on the
Zone--The Gold and Silver Employees--The Object Lesson of the Canal
Zone--Why It is not at all “Socialistic”--In a Typical Canal Zone
Dwelling--Some Features of Zone Housekeeping--Prices of Food at the
Commissary--The Complicated Social Life of the Zone--Church Work and
the Y. M. C. A.
CHAPTER XVIII. LABOR AND THE GOVERNMENT OF THE ZONE 341
The Colossal Business of the Commissary--The Task of Feeding Forty
Nationalities--The Stern Suppression of the Social Class--Evil Effect
of the Abolition of the Canteen--Some Figures Concerning the
Commissary Service--The International Agreement on the Commissary--The
Police System of the Zone--The School System of the Zone--Agricultural
Possibilities on the Zone--Future Possibilities of the Canal Zone.
CHAPTER XIX. FORTIFICATIONS, TOLLS, COMMERCE AND QUARANTINE 363
Why Fortify the Canal at All?--The Suez Canal no Parallel--Some
Details of the Fortifications--The Mobile Force on the Zone--The
Sufficiency of Fortifications Planned--Effect of the Canal on Trade
Routes--The Railroad Fight on the Canal--The Canal and the Flag--The
First Immediate Advantage of the Canal--The Much-mooted Question of
Tolls--Our Trade with Pacific-Latin America--Time Saved by Panama
Canal Route--The Possible Commerce of the Canal--Some Phases of Our
Foreign Trade--The Need of Our Own Ships and Banks--What Our Merchant
Marine is--The Grave Question of Quarantine.
CHAPTER XX. DIPLOMACY AND POLITICS OF THE CANAL 399
Our Reckoning with Colombia--Our Commercial Interests in South
America--Mutual Interests of the United States and Great Britain--What
the Canal has and will Cost--New Work for the Interstate Commerce
Commission--The Moral Lesson of the Panama Canal.
LIST OF COLORED ILLUSTRATIONS
1 MAP OF PANAMA CANAL AND CANAL ZONE _Facing title page_
FACING PAGE
2 DUKE STREET, KINGSTON, JAMAICA 16
3 GOING TO MARKET 40
4 A NATIVE VILLAGE 72
5 OLD FRENCH CANAL AT MOUNT HOPE 104
6 ANCON HILL FROM THE HARBOR OF PANAMA 128
7 THE WASHING PLACE AT TABOGA 152
8 A NATIVE BAKERY 176
9 THE RIVER AND VILLAGE OF CHAGRES 192
10 THE CULEBRA CUT 216
11 AVENIDA B, PANAMA CITY 232
12 PANAMA BAY FROM ANCON HOSPITAL 256
13 A TYPICAL NATIVE HUT 280
14 VENDOR OF FRUIT AND POTTERY 304
15 OLD LANDING AT TABOGA 336
16 SWIMMING POOL AT PANAMA 368
17 SANTA ANA PLAZA, PANAMA 392
LIST OF BLACK AND WHITE ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
1 The Sentinel Tree 5
2 Scene on Otoque Island, Panama Bay 6
3 The Rank, Lush Growth of the Jungle 7
4 Ruins of Old Panama 8
5 Tree Growing out of a Chimney in Jamaica 9
6 Cane River Falls 10
7 The Road to Market 11
8 Sports on Shipboard 12
9 The “Oruba” 12
10 Bog Walk, Jamaica 13
11 Government Buildings, Kingston 14
12 King Street, Kingston, Jamaica 15
13 Jamaica, Where Motoring is Good 16
14 Women on the Way to Market 17
15 A Yard and its Tenants 18
16 Coaling Steamships 19
17 Market Women and their Donkeys 20
18 One Way of Carrying Bananas 21
19 “Gwine to de Big Job” 22
20 Toro Point Light 23
21 Toro Point Breakwater 24
22 The New Cristobal Docks 24
23 “Palms Which Blend With the Sea” 25
24 Colon in 1884 26
25 Fire-Fighting Force at Cristobal 27
26 The New Washington Hotel 28
27 The Only Stone Church in Colon 28
28 Nature of Country near Colon 29
29 Panama Pottery Sellers 30
30 Hindoo Laborers on the Canal 30
31 San Blas Boats at Early Dawn 31
32 San Blas Indian Boys 31
33 San Blas Lugger Putting Out to Sea 31
34 The Atlantic Fleet Visits the Isthmus 32
35 Roosevelt Avenue, Cristobal, About to Lose its Beauty 33
36 The De Lesseps Palace 34
37 The National Game--Cock-Fighting 34
38 How the Jungle Works 35
39 “Bottle Alley” 36
40 D Street, Colon, Paved 37
41 Bachelor Quarters at Toro Point 38
42 A Colon Water Carrier 39
43 An Open Sewer in a Colon Street 39
44 By a Coclé Brook 40
45 The Mangroves Marching on Stilt-like Roots 40
46 A Picturesque Inlet of the Caribbean 41
47 Childish Beauty Without Art 42
48 A Corner of Mount Hope Cemetery 42
49 The Soulful Eyes of the Tropics 43
50 Market Day at David 43
51 Scene on Almirante Bay 44
52 Modern Porto Bello from Across the Bay 45
53 Typical Native Hut in Porto Bello District 46
54 Entrance to Porto Bello Harbor, from Spanish Fort 47
55 Bullock Cart on the Savanna Road 47
56 Modern Indian, Darien Region 48
57 Native Family in Chorrera 49
58 Seventeenth Century Ruin at Porto Bello 50
59 Street in Modern Porto Bello 51
60 Ancient Trail from Porto Bello 52
61 Spanish Fort at Entrance to Porto Bello Harbor 53
62 A Group of Cholo Indians 54
63 Natives Grinding Rice in a Mortar Owned by All 55
64 Family Travel on the Panama Trail 56
65 Deserted Native Hut 57
66 What They Still Call a Road in Panama 58
67 Outdoor Life of the Natives 59
68 Native Hut and Open-Air Kitchen 60
69 Cocoanut Grove on the Caribbean Coast 61
70 Canal Commission Stone Crusher, Porto Bello 61
71 Native Huts near Porto Bello 62
72 An Indian Family of the Darien 62
73 Ruined Spanish Fort at Porto Bello 63
74 San Blas Luggers at Anchor 64
75 The Teeth of the Tropics 64
76 Native Bridge in the Darien 65
77 Choco Indian Girls 66
78 Indian Huts near Porto Bello 67
79 Country Back of Porto Bello 68
80 Native Women of the Savannas Bearing Burdens 68
81 Camina Reale, or Royal Road near Porto Bello 69
82 A Lady of the Savanna 70
83 Native Children, Panama Province 70
84 Bull-Rider and Native Car at Bouquette, Chiriqui 71
85 The Indians Call Her a Witch 72
86 A Cuna Cuna Family near Porto Bello 72
87 A Trail near Porto Bello 73
88 A Cholo Mother and Daughter 73
89 A Group of Cuepa Trees 74
90 Mouth of the Chagres River 75
91 Mouth of the Chagres from the Fort 76
92 The Sally-Port at San Lorenzo 77
93 Church at Chagres 78
94 Old Spanish Magazine 79
95 Spanish Ruins, Porto Bello 79
96 Our Guide at San Lorenzo 80
97 The Author at San Lorenzo 80
98 Looking Up the Chagres from San Lorenzo 81
99 The True Native Social Center 82
100 Tropical Foliage on the Caribbean 83
101 On the Upper Chagres 84
102 Native Panama Woman 84
103 A Character of Colon 85
104 Woman of the Chagres Region 85
105 Near a Convent at Old Panama 87
106 Casa Reale or King’s House 88
107 The Ruined Tower of San Augustine 89
108 Wayside Shrine on the Savanna Road 90
109 Arched Bridge at Old Panama, Almost 400 Years Old 91
110 Foliage on the Canal Zone 92
111 The Chagres Above San Lorenzo 93
112 In the Crypt of Old San Augustine 94
113 A Woman of Old Panama 94
114 Wash Day at Taboga 95
115 A Street in Cruces 96
116 Breaking Waves at Old Panama 96
117 Old Bell at Remedios, 1682 97
118 The Beetling Cliffs of the Upper Chagres 97
119 The Roots Reach Down Seeking for Soil 98
120 Bluff near Toro Point 99
121 “Whether the Tree or the Wall is Stouter is a Problem” 100
122 San Pablo Lock in French Days 101
123 Part of the Sea Wall at Panama 102
124 The Pelicans in the Bay of Panama 103
125 The Road from Panama to La Boca 104
126 The City Park of Colon 105
127 Children in a Native Hut 105
128 The Water Front of Panama 106
129 The Water Gate of Panama 106
130 Entrance to Mount Hope Cemetery 107
131 Cathedral Plaza, Panama 108
132 Avenida Centrale 109
133 Ancon Hill at Sunset 110
134 Abandoned French Machinery on the Canal 110
135 Overwhelmed by the Jungle 111
136 A Lottery Ticket Seller 112
137 Machinery Seemingly as Hopeless as this was Recovered, Cleaned
and set to Work 112
138 The Power of the Jungle 113
139 La Folie Dingler 114
140 Near the Pacific Entrance to the Canal 114
141 Where the French Did Their Best Work 115
142 An Old Spanish Church 116
143 Juncture of French and American Canals 116
144 Part of the Toll of Life 117
145 The Ancon Hospital Grounds 118
146 A Sunken Railroad 118
147 A Zone Working Village 119
148 Negro Quarters, French Town of Empire 120
149 Filth that would Drive a Berkshire from his Sty 121
150 Canal Valley near Pedro Miguel 122
151 Panama Soldiers Going to Church 123
152 The Official Umpire, Cocle 124
153 The Man and the Machine 125
154 Landing Pigs for Market 126
155 The Trail near Culebra 126
156 In the Banana Country, on the Coast near Bocas del Toro 127
157 The Best Residence Section, Colon 128
158 The Old Fire Cistern, Panama 129
159 The Two Presidents: Roosevelt and Amador 130
160 Cholo Chief and His Third Wife 131
161 Native House and Group at Puerta Pinas 131
162 What They Call a Street in Taboga 132
163 Hindoo Merchants on the Zone 132
164 Chamé Beach, Pacific Coast 133
165 French Dry Dock, Cristobal 133
166 What the Work Expended on the Canal Might Have Done 134
167 A Graphic Comparison 134
168 What the Panama Concrete Would Do 135
169 Proportions of Some of the Canal Work 135
170 The “Spoil” from Culebra Cut Would Do This 135
171 In a Typical Lock 135
172 Lock at Pedro Miguel Under Construction 137
173 Range Tower at Pacific Entrance 138
174 Bird’s Eye View of Pedro Miguel Locks 138
175 The Vegetable Martyrs 139
176 Native Street at Taboga 140
177 Gamboa Bridge with Chagres at Flood 141
178 The Y. M. C. A. Club House at Gatun 141
179 Working in Culebra Cut 142
180 Miraflores Lock in March, 1913 143
181 Naos, Perico and Flamenco Islands to be Fortified 143
182 Beginning of New Balboa Docks 144
183 The Old Pacific Mail Docks at Balboa 144
184 The Pacific Gateway 145
185 Completed Canal at Corozal 146
186 Tunnel for the Obispo Diversion Canal 147
187 The Two Colonels 148
188 A Walk at Ancon 149
189 In the Hospital Grounds 149
190 French Cottages on the Water Front, Cristobal 150
191 Pay Day for the Black Labor 151
192 In Wallace’s Time 152
193 The Fumigation Brigade 153
194 Typical Screened Houses 154
195 A Street After Paving 154
196 Stockade for Petty Canal Zone Offenders 155
197 Hospital Buildings, United Fruit Co. 155
198 Beginning the New Docks, Cristobal 156
199 A Back Street in Colon 157
200 Steam Shovel at Work 158
201 The Balboa Road 158
202 A Drill Barge at Work 159
203 Pacific Entrance to the Canal 160
204 Col. Goethals at His Desk 161
205 Railway Station at Gatun 162
206 President Taft Arrives 162
207 Col. Goethals Reviewing the Marines at Camp Elliott 163
208 President Taft and “the Colonel” 164
209 Big Guns for Canal Defence 164
210 Col. Goethals Encourages the National Game 165
211 Old French Ladder Dredges Still Used 166
212 The Colonel’s Daily Stroll 166
213 A Side Drill Crew at Work 167
214 The Colonel’s Fireworks 168
215 A Heavy Blast Under Water 168
216 The Colonel’s Daily Meal 169
217 “The Goethals’ Own” in Action 169
218 Bas Obispo End of Culebra Cut 170
219 Entrance to Gatun Locks 171
220 I. Colon: These Pictures in Order form a Panorama of the Colon
Water Front 172
221 II. Colon: Part of the Residential District on the Water Front 173
222 III. Colon: Panama Railroad and Royal Mail Docks 173
223 IV. Colon: The De Lesseps House in the Distance shows Location
of New Docks 173
224 South Approach Wall, Gatun Locks 174
225 Gatun Locks Opening into the Lake 174
226 Gatun Lake Seen from the Dam 175
227 Bird’s Eye View of Gatun Dam 175
228 Construction Work on Gatun Dam 176
229 Pumping Mud into the Core of Gatun Dam 176
230 Gatun Upper Lock 177
231 Gatun Center Light 177
232 Emergency Gates 177
233 Spillway Under Construction 178
234 Partly Completed Spillway, 1913 179
235 The Giant Penstocks of the Spillway 180
236 The Spillway at High Water 180
237 Lock Gates Approaching Completion 181
238 The Water Knocking at Gatun Gates 182
239 Wall of Gatun Lock Showing Arched Construction 182
240 Traveling Cranes at Work 183
241 Building a Monolith 183
242 A Culvert in the Lock Wall 184
243 Diagram of Lock-Gate Machinery 184
244 Towing Locomotive Climbing to Upper Lock 184
245 The Heavy Wheel Shown is the “Bull Wheel” 185
246 The Tangled Maze of Steel Skeletons that are a Lock in the
Making 186
247 The Chagres, Showing Observer’s Car 187
248 Fluviograph at Bohio, now Submerged 188
249 Automatic Fluviograph on Gatun Lake 188
250 The Village of Bohio, now Submerged 189
251 Steps Leading to Fluviograph Station at Alhajuela 190
252 A Light House in the Jungle 190
253 The Riverside Market at Matachin 191
254 Railroad Bridge Over the Chagres at Gamboa 192
255 A Quiet Beach on the Chagres 192
256 Poling Up the Rapids 193
257 Construction Work on the Spillway 193
258 Water Gates in Lock Wall 194
259 The Lake Above Gatun 194
260 How They Gather at the River 195
261 Washerwomen’s Shelters by the River 196
262 A Ferry on the Upper Chagres 196
263 The Much Prized Iguana 197
264 Cruces--A Little Town with a Long History 198
265 A Native Charcoal Burner 198
266 The Natives’ Afternoon Tea 199
267 Piers of the Abandoned Panama Railway 200
268 Working on Three Levels 201
269 The Original Culebra Slide 202
270 Slide on West Bank of the Canal near Culebra 203
271 Attacking the Cucaracha Slide 204
272 Diagram of Culebra Cut Slides 205
273 A Rock Slide near Empire 205
274 The Author at Culebra Cut 206
275 Cutting at Base of Contractors Hill 206
276 A Rock Slide at Las Cascades 207
277 Slicing Off the Chief Engineer’s Office 208
278 How Tourists see the Cut 208
279 Jamaicans Operating a Compressed Air Drill 209
280 Handling Rock in Ancon Quarry 209
281 In the Cucaracha Slide 210
282 Brow of Gold Hill, Culebra Cut 211
283 A Dirt-Spreader at Work 212
284 “Every Bite Recorded at Headquarters” 212
285 A Lidgerwood Unloader at Work 213
286 The Track Shifter in Action 213
287 One of the Colonel’s Troubles 214
288 The Sliced-off Hill at Ancon 214
289 A Lock-Chamber from Above 215
290 When the Obispo Broke in 215
291 Ungainly Monsters of Steel Working with Human Skill 216
292 Building an Upper Tier of Locks 217
293 Traveling Cranes that Bear the Brunt of Burden Carrying 217
294 The Floor of a Lock 218
295 Excavating with a Monitor as Californians Dig Gold 218
296 A Steam Shovel in Operation 219
297 Bird’s Eye View of the Miraflores Locks 220
298 The Rock-Break that Admitted the Bas Obispo 220
299 An Ant’s Nest on the Savanna 221
300 A Termite Ant’s Nest 221
301 Deep Sea Dredge at Balboa 222
302 Proportions of the Locks 222
303 The Great Fill at Balboa Where the Culebra Spoil is Dumped 223
304 Panama Bay from Ancon Hill 224
305 Santa Ana Plaza 225
306 Panama from the Sea Wall; Cathedral Towers in Distance 226
307 The Bull Ring; Bull Fights are now Prohibited 227
308 The Panama Water Front 227
309 The Lottery Office in the Bishop’s Palace 228
310 San Domingo Church and the Flat Arch 228
311 Chiriqui Cattle at the Abattoir 229
312 The President’s House; A Fine Type of Panama Residence 229
313 The Fish Market 230
314 San Blas Boats at the Market Place 230
315 The Vegetable Market 230
316 The Market on the Curb 231
317 Where the Flies get Busy 231
318 Cayucas on Market Day 231
319 Panama from the Bay; Ancon Hill in the Background 232
320 Pottery Vendors near the Panama City Market 233
321 From a Panama Balcony 234
322 The First Communion 235
323 Marriage is an Affair of Some Pomp 235
324 The Manly Art in the Tropics 236
325 A Group of National Police 236
326 Taboga, the Pleasure Place of Panama 237
327 Santa Ana Church, 1764 237
328 The Panama National Institute 238
329 The Municipal Building 239
330 The National Palace and Theater 239
331 Salient Angle of Landward Wall 240
332 Boys Skating on Sea Wall 240
333 Vaults in the Panama Cemetery 241
334 Ruins of San Domingo Church 242
335 Some Carnival Floats 243
336 The Ancient Cathedral 244
337 The Police Station, Panama 245
338 Church of Our Lady of Mercy (La Merced) 245
339 Young America on Panama Beach 246
340 Ready to Control the Pacific 246
341 The Flowery Chiriqui Prison 247
342 The Market for Shell Fish 248
343 The Cathedral and Plaza 249
344 In a Panama Park 250
345 Salvation Army in Panama 250
346 Costume de Rigueur for February 250
347 Bust of Lieut. Napoleon B. Wyse 251
348 On Panama’s Bathing Beach 252
349 Quarantine Station at Pacific Entrance to Canal 252
350 Col. W. C. Gorgas 253
351 What Col. Gorgas Had to Correct 254
352 Administration Building, Housing the Sanitary Department 254
353 Dredging a Colon Street 255
354 The War on Mosquitoes. I 256
355 The War on Mosquitoes. II 256
356 The War on Mosquitoes. III 257
357 The War on Mosquitoes. IV 257
358 Sanitary Work in a Village 258
359 The Mosquito Chloroformer’s Outfit 259
360 The Mosquito Chloroformer at Work 259
361 Ancon Hospital as Received from the French 260
362 The Canal Commission Hospital at Colon Built by the French 261
363 French Village of Empire after Cleaning up by Americans 262
364 The Bay of Taboga from the Sanitarium 262
365 The Little Pango Boats Come to Meet You 263
366 Old Church at Taboga 263
367 The Rio Grande Reservoir 263
368 In Picturesque Taboga 264
369 In the Grounds of Ancon Hospital 265
370 The Sanitarium at Taboga Inherited from the French 266
371 A Fête Day at Taboga 266
372 Feather Palm at Ancon 267
373 Taboga from the Bathing Beach 267
374 Taboga is Furthermore the Coney Island of Panama 268
375 Burden Bearers on the Savanna 269
376 Hotel at Bouquette, Chiriqui 270
377 A Bit of Ancon Hospital Grounds 270
378 The Chief Industry of the Natives is Fishing 271
379 Nurses’ Quarters at Ancon 271
380 The Leper Settlement on Panama Bay 272
381 The Gorge of Salamanca 273
382 Native Family in Chorrera 274
383 A Street in Penemone 275
384 The Hotel at David 275
385 View of Bocas del Toro 276
386 Vista on the Rio Grande 276
387 At the Cattle Port of Aguadulce 277
388 The Royal Road near Panama 277
389 The Meeting Place of the Cayucas 278
390 Banana Market at Matachin 279
391 In the Chiriqui Country 280
392 Banana Plant; Note Size of Man 280
393 Construction of Roof of a Native House 281
394 A Native Living Room and Stairway 281
395 Rubber Plantation near Cocle 282
396 Bolivar Park at Bocas del Toro 282
397 A Ford near Ancon 283
398 Old Banana Trees 284
399 Pineapples in the Field 284
400 Waiting for the Boat 285
401 Country House of a Cacao Planter at Choria 285
402 Started for Market 286
403 Loading Cattle at Aguadulce 286
404 Dolega in the Chiriqui Province 287
405 Mahogany Trees with Orchids 287
406 Bayano Cedar, Eight Feet Diameter 288
407 The Cacao Tree 288
408 Street in David 288
409 In the Banana Country 289
410 Market Place at Ancon 290
411 Fruit Company Steamer at Wharf 291
412 United Fruit Company Train 291
413 Sanitary Office, Bocas del Toro 291
414 A Pile of Rejected Bananas 292
415 A Perfect Bunch of Bananas 292
416 The Astor Yacht at Cristobal 293
417 The Bay of Bocas 293
418 Bringing Home the Crocodile 294
419 A Morning’s Shooting 294
420 On Crocodile Creek 295
421 The End of the Crocodile 295
422 Above the Clouds, Chiriqui Volcano 296
423 The Chiriqui Volcano 296
424 Native Market Boat at Chorrera 297
425 In Bouquette Valley, the Most Fertile Part of Chiriqui 297
426 Coffee Plant at Bouquette 298
427 Drying the Coffee Beans 298
428 Drying Cloths for Coffee 299
429 Breadfruit Tree 299
430 Primitive Sugar Mill 300
431 Chiriqui Natives in an Ox-Cart 300
432 Proclaiming a Law at David 301
433 The Cattle Range near David 301
434 Despoiling Old Guaymi Graves 302
435 A Day’s Shooting, Game Mostly Monkeys 302
436 The Government School of Hat Making 303
437 Beginning a Panama Hat 303
438 Coffee Plantation at Bouquette 304
439 Work of Indian Students in the National Institute 304
440 The Crater of the Chiriqui Volcano 304
441 Trapping an Aborigine 305
442 Native Village on Panama Bay 306
443 A River Landing Place 306
444 The Falls at Chorrera 307
445 On the Rio Grande 307
446 Old Spanish Church, Chorrera 308
447 The Church at Ancon 308
448 The Pearl Island Village of Taboga 309
449 Native Village at Capera 309
450 A Choco Indian in Full Costume 310
451 Some San Blas Girls 311
452 Chief Don Carlos of the Chocoes and His Son 312
453 The Village of Playon Grand, Eighty-five Miles East of the
Canal 312
454 San Blas Woman in Daily Garb 313
455 A Girl of the Choco Tribe 313
456 Daughter of Chief Don Carlos 313
457 Native Bridge over the Caldera River 314
458 Guaymi Indian Man 315
459 Indian Girl of the Darien 316
460 Choco Indian of Sambu Valley 317
461 Panamanian Father and Child 318
462 Choco Indian in Every-day Dress 319
463 A Squad of Canal Zone Police Officers 320
464 A Primitive Sugar Mill 321
465 Vine-clad Family Quarters 321
466 Quarters of a Bachelor Teacher 321
467 Main Street at Gorgona 322
468 In the Lobby of a Y. M. C. A. Club 323
469 Street Scene in Culebra 324
470 Young America at Play 324
471 Hindoo Merchants at a Zone Town 325
472 The Native Mills Grind Slowly 325
473 Commission Road near Empire 326
474 The Fire Force of Cristobal 327
475 Orchids on Gov. Thatcher’s Porch 328
476 The Catasetum Scurra 329
477 Married Quarters at Corozal 330
478 Fighting the Industrious Ant 330
479 Foliage on the Zone 331
480 The Chief Commissary at Cristobal 332
481 What the Slide Did to the Railroad 333
482 Not from Jamaica but the Y. M. C. A. 334
483 A Bachelor’s Quarters 334
484 The Tivoli Hotel 335
485 The Grapefruit of Panama 335
486 Pure Panama, Pure Indian and all Between 336
487 Interior of Gatun Y. M. C. A. Club 337
488 Y. M. C. A. Club at Gatun 337
489 Marine Post at Camp Elliott 338
490 Tourists in the Culebra Cut 338
491 Lobby in Tivoli Hotel 339
492 Altar in Gatun Catholic Church 340
493 La Boca from the City 341
494 At Los Angosturas 342
495 The Water Front at Colon 342
496 Negro Quarters at Cristobal 343
497 Labor Train at Ancon 344
498 Negro Sleeping Quarters 344
499 A Workmen’s Sleeping Car 345
500 A Workmen’s Dining Car 345
501 Old French Bucket Dredges 346
502 Old French Bridge at Bas Obispo 346
503 The Relaxation of Pay Day 347
504 Bas Obispo as the French Left it 347
505 Convicts Building a Commission Road 348
506 Construction Work Showing Concrete Carriers and Moulds 349
507 How the Natives Gather Cocoanuts 350
508 Looking Down Miraflores Locks 350
509 Hospital at Bocas 351
510 New American Docks at Cristobal 351
511 Ox Method of Transportation 352
512 Road Making by Convicts 352
513 Entrance to Bouquette Valley 353
514 Cocoanut Palms near Ancon 353
515 Native Religious Procession at Chorrera 354
516 Opening the Cocoanut 354
517 Rice Stacked for Drying 355
518 Bullock Cart in Chorrera 355
519 Sun Setting in the Atlantic at Lighthouse Point 356
520 The Fruitful Mango Tree 357
521 Completed Canal near Gatun 358
522 Traveling Cranes at Miraflores 358
523 The Review at One of the Roosevelt Receptions 359
524 Pacific Flats Left by Receding Tide 359
525 A Whaler at Pearl Island 360
526 An Old Well at Chiriqui 360
527 A Good Yield of Cocoanuts 361
528 Cholo Girls at the Stream 361
529 Shipping at Balboa Docks 362
530 Explaining it to the Boss 363
531 Spanish Monastery at Panama 364
532 Choco Indian of Sanbu Valley 364
533 The Rising Generation 365
534 Ancon Hill, Where Americans Live in Comfort 365
535 Gatun Lake, Showing Small Floating Islands 366
536 A Spectacular Blast 367
537 The First View of Colon 367
538 A Porch at Culebra 368
539 Avenida Centrale, Panama, near the Station 368
540 In a Chiriqui Town 369
541 A Mountain River in Chiriqui 369
542 Biting Through a Slide: Five Cubic Yards per Bite 370
543 Commissary Building and Front Street, Colon 371
544 Pedro Miguel Locks 372
545 Detail Construction of a Lock 373
546 A Group of Guaymi Girls 374
547 A Zone Sign of Civilization 374
548 Part of the Completed Canal 375
549 His Morning Tub 375
550 Native Girl, Chorrera Province 376
551 Native Boy, Chorrera Province 376
552 Park at David 377
553 Main Street, Chorrera 377
554 A Placid Back Water in Chiriqui 378
555 Gatun Lake. Floating Islands Massed Against Trestle 379
556 Guide Wall at Miraflores 380
557 Poling Over the Shallows 381
558 The Spillway Almost Complete 381
559 San Blas Lugger in Port 382
560 The Beginning of a Slide 382
561 “Making the Dirt Fly” 383
562 The Happy Children of the Zone 383
563 Map of the Panama Cutoff 385
564 An Eruption of the Canal Bed 386
565 Culebra Cut on a Hazy Day 388
566 Bird’s-Eye View of Miraflores Lock 389
567 Handling Broken Rock 390
568 Lock Construction Showing Conduits 390
569 Traveling Crane Handling Concrete in Lock-Building 391
570 Tivoli Hotel from Hospital Grounds 392
571 Mestizo Girl of Chorrera 392
572 How Corn is Ground 393
573 They Used to do This in New England 393
574 Pile-Driver and Dredge at Balboa Dock 394
575 Giant Cement Carriers at Work 395
576 Tracks Ascending from Lower to Upper Lock 396
577 Col. Goethals’ House at Culebra 397
578 Electric Towing Locomotives on a Lock 398
579 A Church in Chorrera 399
580 A Native Kitchen 400
581 Native House in Penomene 400
582 Giant Cacti Often Used for Hedging 401
583 A Street in Chorrera 401
584 The Town of Empire, Soon to be Abandoned 402
585 The Panama Railroad Bridge at Gamboa 403
586 A Street in Chorrera 404
587 A Pearl Island Village 404
588 Diagram of Comparative Excavations by the French and Americans
in Culebra Cut 405
589 View of Pedro Miguel Locks Nearing Completion 405
590 Native Woman, Cocle 406
591 River Village in Chiriqui 406
592 The Pearl Island Village of Saboga 406
593 The Tug Bohio with Barges in Middle Gatun Lock 408
594 Looking Down Canal from Miraflores Lock to the Pacific 408
595 Culebra Cut Partially Filled with Water 409
596 Floating Islands in Gatun Lock Entrance 410
597 The First Boat Through. I. 411
598 The Flag in Two Oceans 412
599 The Continent’s Backbone Broken 413
600 The First Boat Through. II. 414
COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY F. E. WRIGHT, “PANAMA AND THE CANAL”
INTRODUCTION
Panama. They say the word means “a place of many fishes,” but there is
some dissension about the exact derivation of the name of the now
severed Isthmus. Indeed dissension, quarrels, wars and massacres have
been the prime characteristics of Panama for four hundred years. “A
place of many battles” would be a more fitting significance for the name
of this tiny spot where man has been doing ceaseless battle with man
since history rose to record the conflicts. As deadly as the wars
between men of hostile races, has been the unceasing struggle between
man and nature.
You will get some faint idea of the toll of life taken in this conflict
if from Cristobal you will drive out to the picturesque cemetery at
Mount Hope and look upon the almost interminable vista of little white
headstones. Each marks the last resting place of some poor fellow fallen
in the war with fever, malaria and all of tropic nature’s fierce and
fatal allies against all conquering man. That war is never ended. The
English and the Spaniards have laid down their arms. Cimmaroon and
conquistadore, pirate and buccaneer no longer steal stealthily along the
narrow jungle trails. But let man forget for a while his vigilance and
the rank, lush growth of the jungle creeps over his clearings, his
roads, his machinery, enveloping all in morphic arms of vivid green,
delicate and beautiful to look upon, but tough, stubborn and fiercely
resistant when attacked. Poisoned spines guard the slender tendrils that
cling so tenaciously to every vantage point. Insects innumerable are
sheltered by the vegetable chevaux-de-frise and in turn protect it from
the assaults of any human enemy. Given a few months to reëstablish
itself and the jungle, once subdued, presents to man again a defiant and
an almost impenetrable front. We boast that we have conquered nature on
the Isthmus, but we have merely won a truce along a comparatively narrow
strip between the oceans. Eternal vigilance will be the price of safety
even there.
[Illustration: _Photo by H. Pittier. Courtesy American Geographic
Magazine. Washington._
THE SENTINEL TREE]
If that country alone is happy whose history is uninteresting, then
sorrow must have been the ordained lot of Panama. Visited first by
Columbus in 1502, at which time the great navigator put forth every
effort to find a strait leading through to the East Indies, it has
figured largely in the pages of history ever since. Considerable cities
of Spanish foundation rose there while our own Jamestown and Plymouth
were still unimagined. The Spaniards were building massive walls,
erecting masonry churches, and paving royal roads down there in the
jungle long before the palisades and log huts of Plymouth rose on the
sandy shores of Cape Cod Bay. If the ruins of the first city of Panama,
draped with tropical vines, are all that remain of that once royal city,
its successor founded in 1673 still stands with parts of the original
walls sturdily resisting the onslaught of time.
It appears there are certain advantages about geographical littleness.
If Panama had been big the eyes of the world would never have been
fastened upon it. Instinctively Columbus sought in each of its bays,
opening from the Caribbean that strait which should lead to far Cathay.
Seeking the same mythical passage Balboa there climbed a hill where
“--with eagle eyes,
He star’d at the Pacific--and all his men
Look’d at each other with a wild surmise
Silent upon a peak in Darien.”
Hope of a natural strait abandoned, the narrowness of the Isthmus made
it the shortest route for Cortez, Pizarro and other famous Spanish
robbers and murderers to follow in their quest for the gold of the
Incas. As the Spaniards spoiled Peru, so the buccaneers and other
pirates, belonging to foreign nations, robbed and murdered the
Spaniards. The gold fever filled the narrow Isthmus full of graves, and
of moldering bodies for which there was not even hasty sepulture. In
time the Peruvian hoards were exhausted, Spaniards and Englishmen,
buccaneers and pirates vanished. Then came a new invasion--this time by
a nation unknown in the days of the Great Trade and the Royal Road. Gold
had been discovered in California, and now troops of Americans fought
their way through the jungle, and breasted the rapids of the Chagres
River. They sought gold as had Pizarro and Cortez, but they sought it
with spade and pan, not with sword and musket. In their wake came the
Panama Railroad, a true pioneer of international trade. Then sprung up
once more the demand for the waterway across the neck which Columbus had
sought in vain.
The story of the inception and completion of the canal is the truly
great chapter in the history of Panama. Not all the gold from poor Peru
that Pizarro sent across the Isthmus to fatten the coffers of kings or
to awaken the cupidity and cunning of the buccaneers equals what the
United States alone has expended to give to the trade of the world the
highway so long and so fruitlessly sought. An act of unselfish bounty,
freely given to all the peoples of the earth, comes to obliterate at
last the long record of international perfidy, piracy and plunder which
is the history of Panama.
[Illustration: SCENE ON OTOQUE ISLAND, PANAMA BAY]
This book is being written in the last days of constructive work on the
Panama Canal. The tens of thousands of workmen, the hundreds of officers
are preparing to scatter to their homes in all parts of the world. The
pleasant and hospitable society of the Zone of which I have written is
breaking up. Villages are being abandoned, and the water of Gatun Lake
is silently creeping up and the green advance guard of the jungle
swiftly stealing over the forsaken ground. While this book is yet new
much that I have written of as part of the program of the future will
indeed have become part of the record of the past.
[Illustration: THE RANK, LUSH GROWTH OF THE JUNGLE]
I think that anyone who visited the Canal Zone during the latter years
of construction work will have carried away with him a very pleasant and
lively recollection of a social life and hospitality that was quite
ideal. The official centers at Culebra and Ancon, the quarters of the
army at Camp Otis and the navy and marine corps at Camp Elliott were
ever ready to entertain the visitor from the states and his enjoyment
was necessarily tinged with regret that the charming homes thrown open
to him were but ephemeral, and that the passage of the first ship
through the canal would mark the beginning of their dismantling and
abandonment. The practiced traveler in every clime will find this
eagerness of those who hold national outposts, whether ours in the
Philippines, or the British in India and Hong Kong, to extend the glad
hand of welcome to one from home, but nowhere have I found it so
thoroughly the custom as on the Canal Zone. No American need fear
loneliness who goes there.
In the chapter on “Social Life on the Canal Zone” I have tried to depict
this colonial existence, so different from the life of the same people
when in “the states” and yet so full of a certain “hominess” after all.
It does not seem to me that we Americans cling to our home customs when
on foreign stations quite so tenaciously as do the British--though I
observed that the Americans on the Zone played baseball quite as
religiously as the British played cricket. Perhaps we are less
tenacious of afternoon tea than they, but women’s clubs flourish on the
Zone as they do in Kansas, while as for bridge it proceeds as
uninterruptedly as the flow of the dirt out of the Culebra Cut.
Nobody could return from the Zone without a desire to express thanks for
the hospitalities shown him and the author is fortunate in possessing
the opportunity to do so publicly. Particularly do I wish to acknowledge
indebtedness or aid in the preparation of this book to Col. George W.
Goethals, Chairman and Engineer in Chief, and to Col. W. C. Gorgas,
Commissioner and Chief Sanitary Officer. It goes without saying that
without the friendly aid and coöperation of Col. Goethals no adequate
description of the canal work and the life of the workers could ever be
written. To the then Secretary of War, Hon. Henry L. Stimson, under
whose able administration of the Department of War much of the canal
progress noted in this book was made, the author is indebted for
personal and official introductions, and to Hon. John Barrett, one time
United States Minister to Colombia and now Director General of the Pan
American Union, much is owed for advice and suggestion from a mind
richly stored with Latin-American facts.
On the Canal Zone Hon. Joseph B. Bishop, Secretary of the Isthmian Canal
Commission, Hon. Maurice H. Thatcher, Civil Governor, and Mr. H. H.
Rousseau, the naval member of the Commission, were particularly helpful.
Thanks are cordially extended to Prof. F. A. Gause, the superintendent
of schools, who has built up on the Canal Zone an educational system
that cannot fail to affect favorably the schools of the surrounding
Republic of Panama; to Mr. Walter J. Beyer, the engineer in charge of
lighthouse construction, and to Mr. A. B. Dickson who, by his active and
devoted work in the development of the Y. M. C. A. clubs on the Zone,
has created a feature of its social life which is absolutely
indispensable.
The illustration of a book of this nature would be far from complete
were the work of professional photographers alone relied upon. Of the
army of amateurs who have kindly contributed to its pages I wish to
thank Prof. H. Pittier of the Department of Agriculture, Prof. Otto
Lutz, Department of Natural Science, Panama National Institute; Mr. W.
Ryall Burtis, of Freehold, N. J.; Mr. Stewart Hancock Elliott, of
Norwalk, Conn.; Mr. A. W. French, and Dr. A. J. Orenstein of the
Department of Sanitation.
The opening of the Panama Canal does not merely portend a new era in
trade, or the end of the epoch of trial and struggle on the Isthmus. It
has a finality such as have few of the great works of man. Nowhere on
this globe are there left two continents to be severed; two oceans to be
united. Canals are yet to be dug, arms of the sea brought together. We
may yet see inland channels from Boston to Galveston, and from Chicago
to New York navigable by large steamships. But the union of the
Mediterranean and the Red Sea at Suez, and the Atlantic and Pacific at
Panama stand as man’s crowning achievements in remodeling God’s world.
As Ambassador James Bryce, speaking of the Panama Canal, put it, “It is
the greatest liberty Man has ever taken with Nature.”
[Illustration: RUINS OF OLD PANAMA]
CHAPTER I
THE FRONT DOOR TO PANAMA
The gray sun of a bitter February day was sinking in a swirling sea as
the ship doggedly plowed its way southward along the New Jersey coast.
One after another the beacons that guard that perilous strip of sand
twinkled out, and one after another voyagers unused to ocean’s stormiest
moods silently disappeared into secretive cabins. “It may be a stern and
rockbound coast,” said one lady with poetic reminiscence, “but I wish I
was on it!” For it must be set down as a melancholy truth that the
voyage from New York to Colon is as a rule tempestuous.
Most who seek the Canal Zone as mere sightseers will choose winter for
the trip, at which time wintry gales are the rule as far south as the
Bahamas--after which the long smooth rollers of the tropical ocean will
sufficiently try the unaccustomed stomach even though the breezes which
accompany them be as mild as those of Araby the blest. In brief, to
reach in winter our newest possession you must brave the ordinary
discomforts of a rough voyage, and three days of biting cold weather as
well, unless you sail from New Orleans, or the terminus of Mr. Flagler’s
new over-sea railroad at Key West.
Despite its isthmian character, the Canal Zone, Uncle Sam’s most
southerly outpost, may be called an island, for the travelers’ purpose.
True it is bordered on but two sides by water, and thus far violates the
definition of an island. But it is only to be reached by water. The
other two sides are walled in by the tangled jungle where vegetation
grows so rank and lush that animal life is stunted and beaten in the
struggle for existence by the towering palms, clustering ferns and
creeping vines. Only things that crawl on their bellies like the serpent
accursed in Eden grow to their fullest estate in this network of
rustling green. Lions there are, by the talk of the natives at least,
but when you encounter them they turn out to be mere stunted specimens
of our northern wild cat. The deer, rarely met, are dwarfed but are the
largest animals to be found in the jungle, though one hears reports of
giant boas. Indeed the remnants of the age of reptiles are large to our
eyes, though puny in comparison with the giants that scientists
christened, long centuries after they were extinct and unable to
protest, with such names as ichthyosaurus. You will still find lizards
or iguana, three to five feet long, if your search of the jungle be
thorough. The tapir, or ant eater, too, grows to huge size. But it is
not dread of wild animals that keeps man from penetrating the jungle.
The swift growing and impenetrable vegetation blocks the paths as fast
as cut, and he who would seek the Canal Zone must follow the oldest of
highways, the sea.
[Illustration: TREE GROWING OUT OF A CHIMNEY IN JAMAICA]
If New York be the port of departure, several lines offer themselves to
the traveler, and soon after the canal is opened their number will be
increased. At present the Panama Railroad Company, owned by the
government, maintains a line of ships mainly for the carriage of
supplies and employes of the Canal Commission. There is already
discussion of the wisdom of abandoning this line after the construction
work is over, on the ground that the United States government has no
right to enter into the business of water transportation in competition
with private parties. If sold by the government, however, the line will
doubtless be maintained under private ownership. The United Fruit
Company, an American corporation with an impressive fleet of ships all
flying the British flag, also carries passengers to the Isthmus from New
York and New Orleans, as does the Hamburg-American Line, from New York
only. My own voyage was by the Royal Mail Steam Packet line, an historic
organization chartered in 1839 for the express purpose of bringing
England into closer touch with its West Indian colonies. The excellent
ships of this line, sailing fortnightly from New York, touch at the
little port of Antilla on the northern shore of Cuba, spend twenty-four
hours at Jamaica and reach Colon on the eighth day of the voyage. Thence
the ship plows along through our American Mediterranean, touching at
Trinidad, St. Kitts, Barbadoes and other British colonial outposts until
at last she turns into the open ocean, buffeting her way eastward to
Gibraltar and Southampton, her home port.
[Illustration: CANE RIVER FALLS]
A real bit of England afloat is the “Oruba” with officers clad on
festive occasions in full dress uniforms closely resembling those of the
Royal Navy, and stewards who never dropped dishes in a storm but dropped
their h’s on the slightest provocation. “’E’s in the ’old, mum,”
explained one when a lady inquired for the whereabouts of a missing dog.
It is wonderful after all how persistent are the British manners and
customs in the places the English frequent. From the breakfast tea,
bloaters and marmalade, to the fish knives sensibly served with that
course at dinner, but which finicky Americans abjure, all about the
table on these ships is typically English. In the colonies you find
drivers all turning to the left, things are done “directly” and not
“right away,” every villa has its tennis court, and Piccadilly, Bond
St., and Regent Street are never missing from the smallest colonial
towns.
But to return to the voyage. For four days we steamed south along a
course as straight as though drawn by a ruler. For three days the wind
blew bitter and cutting, the seas buffeted the weather side of the ship
with resounding blows, and the big dining saloon displayed a beggarly
array of empty seats. Betwixt us and Africa was nothing but a clear
course for wind and wave, and both seemed to suffer from speed mania.
Strange noises rose from the cabins; stewardesses looked business-like
and all-compelling as they glided along the narrow corridors. Hardened
men in the smoke room kept their spirits up by pouring spirits down, and
agreed that the first leg of a voyage to Colon was always a beastly one.
But by the morning of the fourth day a change comes over the spirit of
our dreams. The wind still blows, but it is soft, tempered to the shorn
lamb. The ship still rolls, but the mysterious organ called the stomach
has become attuned to the motion and ladies begin to reappear on the
deck. The deck chairs so blithely rented at New York are no longer
untenanted, and we cease to look upon the deck steward who took our
money as a confidence man. A glance at the chart at noon shows us off
the northern coast of Florida and the deep blue of the water betokens
the Gulf Stream. Next morning men begin to don their white suits, and
the sailors wander about barefooted. A bright girl suggests that a
voyage from New York to the tropics is like a shower bath taken
backwards, and we all are glad that the warm water faucet is at last
turned on.
[Illustration: THE ROAD TO MARKET
A typical highway of Jamaica, followed by natives going to Kingston]
The first land we sight after the Jersey coast has faded away is Watling
Island, in the Bahamas. Everybody looks at it eagerly--a long, low-lying
coast with a slender lighthouse, a fishing village and the wreck of a
square rigged vessel plainly visible--for this is believed to be the
first land sighted by Columbus. Of that there is some debate, but there
is always debate on shipboard and any event that will furnish a topic is
welcome. Everything about the ship now has turned tropical. The shady
deck becomes popular, and the 240 pound ship’s doctor in immaculate
white linen with the cutest little shell jacket after the Royal Navy
pattern becomes a subject for wonder and admiration.
Antilla, the first stopping place on the way south, is a cluster of
houses on a spacious bay on the northern side of Cuba, connected with
Santiago and Havana. Doubtless some day it may become a notable shipping
point, and indeed the shores of the bay are dotted with great sugar
houses and carpeted with fields of shimmering green cane. But today only
a lighter load of timber and a few tropical products are shipped--that
is if we except a bunch of tourists who have come this far on the way to
Colon by rail and the short sea trip from Florida to Cuba. Most of them
were in doubt whether they had improved upon the discomfort of four
rough days at sea by electing twenty-four hours of rough riding on the
Cuban railway instead.
[Illustration: SPORTS ON SHIPBOARD
THE “ORUBA”]
Past the quarantine station which, with its red-topped hospital, looks
like a seashore resort, we steam, and the boat’s prow is again turned
southward. Jamaica, our next port of call, is thirty-six hours away, and
at last we have placid blue water from which the flying fish break in
little clouds, and a breeze suggestive of the isles of spice. The ship’s
company which two days back was largely content with cots, and the
innumerable worthless remedies for seasickness, always recommended by
people who don’t get sick, now pines for exercise and entertainment.
Young men normally sane, bestride an horizontal boom and belabor each
other with pillows until one or both fall to the hospitable mattress
below. Other youths, greatly encouraged by the plaudits of fair ones,
permit themselves to be trussed up like fowls exposed for sale, and,
with ungainly hops and lurches, bunt into each other until one is
toppled to the deck. The human cockfight brings loud applause which
attains its apogee when some spectator at the critical moment with a
shrill cock-a-doodle-doo displays an egg. A ship in the tropics is the
truest of playgrounds. We are beginning to feel the content of just
living which characterizes the native of the tropics. Indeed when the
deck is cleared and waxed, and the weather cloths and colored lights
brought forth for the ball, most of the men who left New York full of
energy find themselves too languid to participate. I don’t know whether
the Royal Mail exacts of its officers an aptitude for the dance, but
their trim white uniforms were always much in evidence when the two-step
was in progress.
[Illustration: BOG WALK, JAMAICA
There are no bogs along this beautiful drive. The name was originally
“Bocas del Agua,” and has been corrupted to its present form]
Early on the second day out from Cuba a heavy gray mass showed clear on
the horizon to the southwest. It is reported by the historians that when
Queen Isabella once asked Columbus what Jamaica looked like he crumpled
up a sheet of stiff paper in his palm, then partly smoothing it
displayed it to the Queen. The illustration was apt. Nowhere does a more
crinkly island rise from the sea. Up to a height of 7000 feet and more
the mountains rise sheer from the sea with only here and there the
narrowest strip of white beach at the base. For the most part the
tropical foliage comes unthinned down to the water. In early morn the
crests of the hills are draped with clouds, and from the valleys betwixt
them masses of white mist come rolling out as the rays of the sun heat
the atmosphere. For forty miles or so you steam along this coast with
scarce an acre of level land between the mountains and the deep until in
the distance you descry the hollow in which Kingston lies embedded. A
low lying sand bar runs parallel to the shore and perhaps a mile out,
forming the barrier for the harbor which is indeed a noble bay well fit
to shelter navies. But the barrier, though but a few feet above high
water now, is sinking gradually, and the future of Kingston’s harbor is
somewhat distressing. Once this low sandbar bore the most riotous and
wicked town of history, for here stood Port Royal to which flocked the
pirates and buccaneers of the Spanish Main, with their booty--doubloons,
pieces of eight, beauteous Spanish señoritas and all the other
attractive plunder with which the dime novels of our youth made us
familiar. A right merry spot was Port Royal in those days and a pistol
bullet or a swift stab in the back, though common enough, only halted
the merriment for one man at a time. But fire purged Port Royal, and the
pleasant pursuit of piracy began to fall into disrepute. Instead of
treating the gallants who sailed under the Jolly Roger as gentlemen
adventurers, civilized governments began to hang them--England being the
last to countenance them in making Henry Morgan, wildest of the reckless
lot, a baronet, and appointed him governor of Jamaica. Now Port Royal
has shrunken to a fishing village, bordering upon the abandoned British
naval station at the very harbor’s mouth.
[Illustration: GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS, KINGSTON
The special type of reënforced concrete buildings with broad arcades is
well adapted to the tropics]
One sees there the emplacements for guns, but no guns; the barracks for
marines, but no men. Even the flagstaff rises dismally destitute of
bunting. No sign of military or naval life appears about the harbor. The
first time I visited it a small British gunboat about the size of our
“Dolphin” dropped anchor and sent four boatloads of jackies ashore for a
frolic, but on my second visit the new Governor of the colony arrived on
a Royal Mail ship, unescorted by any armed vessel, and was received
without military pomp or the thunder of cannon.
The fact of the matter is that the ties uniting Jamaica to the mother
country are of the very slenderest, and it is said that not a few
Jamaicans would welcome a change in allegiance to the United States. The
greatest product of the island is sugar. Our tariff policy denies it
entrance to our market, though as I write Congress is debating a lower
tariff. The British policy of a “free breakfast table” gives it no
advantage in the English markets over the bounty-fed sugar of Germany.
Hence the island is today in a state of commercial depression almost
mortuary. An appeal to Canada resulted in that country giving in its
tariff a 20 per cent advantage to the sugar and fruit of the British
West Indies. Thus far, however, Jamaica has refused this half a loaf,
wishing the preferential limited to her products alone.
[Illustration: KING STREET, KINGSTON, JAMAICA]
Meanwhile English writers of authority are openly discussing the
likelihood of Jamaica reverting to the United States. In its South
American supplement the London _Times_ said in 1911, speaking of the
United States: “Its supremacy in the Gulf of Mexico and in the Caribbean
Sea is today practically undisputed; there can be little doubt,
therefore, that the islands of the West Indies and the outlying units of
Spanish America will, upon the completion of the Panama Canal, gravitate
in due course to amalgamation with the Great Republic of the North.” And
Mr. Archibald Colquhoun, an authoritative writer on British West Indian
policy, said about the same time: “It is certain that Jamaica, and
other West Indian Islands, in view of the local geographical and
economic conditions--and especially in view of the change which will be
wrought in those conditions by the opening of the Panama Canal--must
sooner or later decide between Canada and the United States.”
This situation may lead the Imperial Government to throw Jamaica a sop
in the shape of heavy expenditures for fortifications, a large resident
garrison and a permanent naval station. But it is unlikely. If Kingston
is within easy striking distance of the Canal, it is within easier
striking distance of our powerful naval base at Guantanamo. The monopoly
of striking is not conferred on any one power, and the advantage of
striking first would be open to either.
Not impressive as viewed from the water, the town is even less so when
considered in the intimacy of its streets. An air of gray melancholy
pervades it all. In 1907 an earthquake rent the town into fragments, and
the work of rebuilding is but begun. Ruins confront you on every hand,
the ruins of edifices that in their prime could have been nothing but
commonplace, and in this day of their disaster have none of the dignity
which we like to discover in mute memorials of a vanished past. Over all
broods a dull, drab mantle of dust. The glorious trees, unexcelled in
variety and vigor, have their richly varying hues dulled by the dust, so
that you may not know how superb indeed is the coloring of leaf and
flower except after one of the short sharp tropical rains that washes
away the pall and sets the gutters roaring with a chocolate colored
flood.
[Illustration: JAMAICA, WHERE MOTORING IS GOOD]
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY F. E. WRIGHT
DUKE STREET, KINGSTON, JAMAICA
Beauty, dignity and pathos abide in the residence streets of the ancient
colonial town. Hard times for sugar planters, even more than the
earthquake, have cast a gloom over the community.]
Making due allowance for the tropical vegetation and the multitudinous
negro, there is much that is characteristically English about Kingston.
The houses of the better class of people, however fragile in
construction, stand somewhat back from the street, guarded by ponderous
brick walls in order that the theory “every Englishman’s house is his
castle” may be literally maintained. And each house has its name painted
conspicuously on its gate posts. The names are emphatically English and
their grandeur bears no apparent relation to the size of the edifice.
Sometimes they reach into literature. I saw one six-room cottage labeled
“Birnamwood,” but looked in vain about the neighborhood for Dunsinane.
[Illustration: WOMEN ON THE WAY TO MARKET
“The woman or the donkey furnishes transportation”]
The town boasts a race course, and the triple pillars of English social
life, cricket, lawn tennis and afternoon tea, are much in evidence. The
Governor is always an Englishman and his home government, which never
does things by halves, furnishes him with a stately official residence
and a salary of £5000 a year. The Episcopal Archbishop of the West
Indies resident there is an Englishman. But most of the heads of
official departments are Jamaicans, which is quite as it should be, for
out of the 850,000 people in the island only about 1660, according to
the census of 1911, were born in England, Scotland or Ireland.
Furthermore the number of “men from home” is relatively decreasing,
although their influence is still potent. Even the native Jamaican of
the more cultivated class speaks of England as home, and as a rule he
spends his holidays there. Yet the keenest observers declare that the
individual Englishman in Jamaica always remains much of a stranger to
the native people. He is not as adaptable even as the American, and it
is asserted that American influence in the island grows even as British
domination is weakened.
One home feature which the English have impressed upon the islands is
good roads. The highways leading from Kingston up into the hills and
across the island to Port Antonio and other places are models of road
making. They are of the highest economic value, too, for in marketing
farm products the one railroad is but little used. Nearly everything is
brought from farm to market on the heads of the striding women, or in
straw panniers slung over the backs of patient donkeys. Amazing are the
loads these two patient beasts of burden--biped and quadruped--bear.
Once in a while a yoke of oxen, or a one horse cart is seen, but in the
main the woman or the donkey furnishes transportation. To the Jamaican
there is nothing wrong with the verbiage of the Tenth Commandment to
which our progressive women take violent exception. To him there is
nothing anomalous in lumping in his or his neighbor’s wife with “his ox
or his ass.” So the country roads on a market day are an unending
panorama of human life, of women plodding to market--often a two days’
journey--with a long swinging stride, burden firmly poised on head, or
returning with smaller loads gossiping and laughing with much gleaming
of white teeth as the stranger passes. The roads are a paradise for
automobilists--smooth, of gentle grade, with easy curves and winding
through the most beautiful scenery of tropic hillsides and rushing
waters. Only the all-pervading dust mars the motorists’ pleasure.
[Illustration: A YARD AND ITS TENANTS
“The huts are inconceivably small, a trifle larger than billiard
tables”]
If the air is dusty, the prevailing complexion is dusky. For in this
island of about 850,000 people only about 15,000 are listed in the
census as “white,” and the whiteness of a good many of these is
admittedly tarnished by a “touch of the tarbrush.” As in every country
in which any social relation between the races is not remorselessly
tabooed--as it is in our southern states--the number of “colored” people
increases more rapidly than that of either black or white. There were in
1834, 15,000 whites out of the population of 371,000; there are today
15,605, but the blacks and mongrels have increased to more than 800,000.
The gradations in color in any street group run from the very palest
yellow to the blackest of Congo black. That is hardly the sort of
population which the United States desires to take to its bosom.
[Illustration: COALING TRANSATLANTIC STEAMSHIPS]
The Jamaica negro is a natural loafer. Of course he works when he must,
but betwixt the mild climate, the kindly fruits of the earth and the
industry of his wife or wives, that dire necessity is seldom forced upon
him. My first glimpse of industrial conditions in Jamaica was taken from
the deck of a ship warping into dock at Kingston. Another ship, lying at
the same dock, was being coaled. Down and up the 1000 feet or so of dock
tramped long files of indescribably ragged, black and dirty figures.
Those going down bore on their heads baskets piled high with coal, going
back they bore the baskets empty. Of the marching figures fully
two-thirds were women. With tattered skirts tucked up to the knees and
the merest semblance of waists, barefooted, they plodded along. The
baskets carried about 65 pounds of coal each, and for taking one from
the pile and emptying it into the ship’s bunkers these women received
half a cent. There was no merriment about the work, no singing as among
our negro roustabouts on the Mississippi. Silently with shoulders
squared, hands swinging in rhythm and basket poised firmly on the head,
the women strode along, working thus for perhaps eight or nine hours and
then flocking home chatting noisily as they darkened the streets and
forced the white-clad tourists to shrink aside from grimy contact. On
the country roads you find lines of women carrying fruit and vegetables
to market, but seldom a man. Yet thus far that weaker sex has not
developed a suffragette, although they support the colony.
There is much head work in Jamaica, even if there be little brain work.
The negroes carry everything on their heads. The only hat I saw on a
man’s kinky poll was an old derby, reversed, filled with yams and thus
borne steadily along. A negro given a letter to deliver will usually
seek a stone to weight it down, deposit it thus ballasted amidst his
wool and do the errand. In Panama an engineer told me of ordering a
group of Jamaicans to load a wheel-barrow with stones and take it to a
certain spot.
“Would you believe it,” he said, “when they had filled that
wheel-barrow, two of the niggers lifted it to their companion’s head,
balanced it and he walked off with it as contented as you please.”
The huts in which the negroes live are as a rule inconceivably small.
They are just a trifle larger than a billiard table, built of wattled
cane, and plastered over with clay. The roof is usually a thatch of
palm branches, though sometimes ragged strips of corrugated iron are
employed with much less artistic effect. In what corresponds to our
tenements, the rooming places of day laborers, the yard rather than the
house is the unit. So you will see on a tiny shack about the size of a
playhouse for children the sign, “Rooms for Rent,” which applies not to
the pigmy edifice bearing it, but to the cluster of huts set down helter
skelter in the yard. The people sleep in the huts, incidentally barring
them so far as the flimsy construction permits against any possible
entrance of fresh air. All the other activities of life are conducted in
the open--cooking, eating, sewing, gossiping. A yard is the most social
place imaginable, and the system not only contributes to health by
keeping people in the open air, adds to the gayety of life by grouping
so many black families in one corral, reduces the high cost of living as
our model tenements never can hope to, but makes one black landlord
independent, for the possession of a yard with its rooms all rented
leaves nothing needed for enjoyment except a phonograph and an ample
supply of the rum for which the island is famous.
[Illustration: MARKET WOMEN AND THEIR DONKEYS
The true industrial forces of Jamaica. Men are seldom seen as carriers
or sellers of produce]
Racially the Jamaica peasant is a negro, with varying admixtures of
white blood. The mongrel breed is steadily increasing and the pure white
population relatively decreasing. Economically the peasant is either a
day laborer or a servant, and as 40,000 are classed as servants in a
population where the employing class is limited, it follows that
employers keep many servants and the supply always exceeds the demand.
Children come rapidly to the Jamaicans. Marriage is easy and to dispense
with it easier still, so that 62 per cent of the births are
illegitimate. “My people are very religious,” said a missionary proudly,
“but, dear me, how immoral they are!”
When girls are about twelve years old the mothers, tired of supporting
them, for that task is seldom assumed by the fathers, take them to town
on the first market day. The little produce being sold, the pair proceed
from house to house seeking some “kine missus” who will take a school
girl. In the end the child becomes the property of whoever will clothe,
feed and shelter her. Pay is not expected, though when she grows helpful
she is sometimes given an occasional gift of silver. The rights of the
mistress are patriarchal, and whether or not she spoils the child the
rod is seldom spared. When she gets to be seventeen or so the girl
suddenly disappears in the night, with a bundle of her clothing. The
inevitable man has crossed her path and she has gone to be his companion
and slave.
[Illustration: ONE WAY OF CARRYING BANANAS
At the docks of the United Fruit Co., mechanical carriers, so perfected
as not to bruise the fruit, have replaced the leisurely negro]
When you think of it there is not much economic change in her situation.
She worked for her mistress for nothing--she does the same for her
husband, or more commonly for her “friend.” He may work spasmodically
for her when the need of actual money compels, but as a rule she is the
wage earner. Always she tends the little garden and takes its slender
produce to market. Sometimes she joins the coal-bearing Amazons down at
the steamship docks. Often she goes back to the family which brought her
up and offers her services anew--this time for a wage. Every house has
two or three boxes a few feet away serving for servants’ quarters, but a
girl of this type will decline these, renting instead a shack in a
“yard,” taking there daily the materials for her dinner usually provided
by her mistress. At its door, in a brazier, or a tiny stove, she will
cook the meal for the idle “husband” and the children who arrive with
mechanical regularity. After supper there is the gossip of the dozen or
more women in the yard.
The rebuilding of Kingston, compelled by the earthquake, is proceeding
apace. The town will lose much in quaintness, one can see that by the
ruins of some of the older structures in which stately colonial outlines
can be traced. But it will gain in adaptation to the climate and the
ever-present earthquake menace. The main business street--King Street,
of course, being a British colony--is lined on either side with arcaded
concrete buildings of a uniform type. Ceilings are high, windows large
and one may walk the three long blocks of the busiest business section
without emerging from the shady arcades. The government buildings,
occupying two full squares and setting well back from the street, are of
a type that suggests the streets of India, and are also of reinforced
concrete. It is the belief of the authorities that the comparative
lightness of this material coupled with its resistant powers will enable
it to survive any earthquake. The whole period of the shock of 1907
barely exceeded ten seconds, but its wreckage will not be repaired in
ten years.
[Illustration: “GWINE TO DE BIG JOB”]
The cargo that we have taken on from the spice-scented dock is
technically called a “cargo of black ivory,” made up of negroes sailing
for Colon to work on the “big job.” Good-natured, grinning negroes
these, though I have heard that, on the smaller ships that carry them by
hundreds for the 500 miles for five dollars each, they sometimes riot
and make trouble. With us they were inoffensive, though it is perhaps as
well that the passenger quarters are to windward of them. The religious
sentiment is strong upon them and as the sun goes down in the waste of
waters the wail of hymn tunes sung to the accompaniment of a fiddle and
divers mouth organs rises over the whistle of the wind and the rumble of
the machinery. One can but reflect that ten years ago, before the coming
of Col. Gorgas and his sanitation system, three out of five of these
happy, cheerful blacks would never return alive from the Canal Zone.
Today they invite no more risk than a business man in Chicago going to
his office, and when their service is ended the United States government
is obligated to return them to Jamaica where for a time their money will
make them the idols of the markets, lanes and yards.