Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 117, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 May 1914 — LIFE IN THE CANAL ZONE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

LIFE IN THE CANAL ZONE

lATTERLY the papers have been * telling of the work being done down in Panama, lauding C6l- | bnel Goethals for the speed and excellence with which he has accomplished the task set him and reviewing the story of the big ditch. That there should be another side to life down on the isthmus, that not only the engineers’ wives and daughters and sons, but the engineers themselves should come to miss, more and more keenly with each passing week, the luxuries and manners and customs of their homelands seldom enters into the heads of even the most thoughtful. .■

For a fortnight’s visit, the .Isthmus of Panama is indeed delightfull To wake in the morning to hear the boys calling freshly-caught iguanas for sale for your luncheon bouillon; or to let the silvery flute-music of the scis-sor-grinders come through the, finemeshed screen, at your window, to have orchids on your breakfast table and perhaps pluck your own banarias or guavas, and then to stroll down among the quaint Spanish-Americana Is, Indeed, a treat. But after only five days of it, you’ve quite enough; given years of it, and the pall is indeed a great one.

A "Tlpless” Hotel.

All the world, to a man on the isthmus, must center for the term of his stay at Panama City, the capital and metropolis of the republic. Your first peep of this unique city unfolds itself almost as you leave Uncle Sam’s big hotel on the heights. Governor Goethals has made this a “tipless” hotel. Uncle Sam has laid out a park here, the gentle turf sloping down hill to the city itself, and where American soil meets Panamayan and the quarters of the poor there is a school for Spanish children. It is obvious that the business of the future in PanarAa will be with folk from the States; but, while the school is of boys alone and of whites only, at that, it is conducted throughout in Spanish. Follow the little, whiteclad lads from the school , yard into the neighboring native quarter and you find streets with verandas overhanging, as they do in old Madrid, and here women wash the'week’s laundry out under the tree, while little sons play about, nude as Adam, and daughters loiter, wearing just a calico slip. Children are numerous and the "animated chocolate drops” fairly get into one’s way.' In places the older women hoist water from old-fashioned wells out under the palm trees; carrying the pall on the shoulder to the house. Not a courtyard so poor or lowly, however, that does not support its cocoanut palm or two. Up this the dusky native boys “shinny,” to get the great, green-hulled fruit on demand. With the handy machete they split the rind and firing out the nut Then, with a pocketknife from some Yankee trader, they plug one of the three eyes at the end of the'nut (one of the three is always softer than the others) and

drink the lukewarm, refreshing milk. After that they devbur the fruit, and, be one ever so hungry or thirsty, the appetite is quenched. This ease of satisfying the prime demands of life accounts, of course, for the lack of incentive to work, the laziness and idleness of the Panamayans. Wander further away still from the Escuela Publics, out of sight of the big park and the Tivoli on the heights, and in among the palms and you will meet little boys coming to school chatting in Spanish. They wear slippen, but not stockings, and suits of Hght wear, with quaint straw hats and ties. Some of these children are very black; others are brown; all have the soft, gentle voices. In the old quarter are the shops, interesting to tour, but pitiful to rely on. Drug stores, or boticas—dark, measly places—make one wonder what percentage of germb and grime are added to each prescription. Odd little fruit shops neighbor them—shops With a very diminutive tomato, wrapped in bark and seeming like so

much candy; shops of oranges and what seem green bananas, the plantain, of course. Here, too, are the little brown, naked children, scrambling all over the wares. Off to one side opens the saloon area. Women operate these saloons — a buxom duenna in each —and they do a land-office business, for their little lane forms the short-cut across the arc formed by the long main street of Panama, and men as they pass through must, perforce, patronise.

Ever Present Buzzard. Busy, Indeed, is that Broadway of Panama. Instead of street cars there are hacks innumerable. Traffic costs but ten cents from any one point in town to another and so every one, even to the poorest negro, rides in the landaux. Each such vehicle has its bells, clanging wildly for passage and bringing to mind the drivers* cries for way in equally-crowded Gibraltar. High above the city a flock of buzzards hover, these the scavengers of the place. ‘ You turn from peering high at them! to the little shops in which the famousi Panama hats are sold. Hats can be, had in price from five dollars up—gold always. * All American money in Panama is gold; all Panamayan money isi silver. Whatever its denomination, the silver money is worth just onehalf that sum in gold. Panama has another native product for which she is world-renowned and of which specimens are to be had in these little shops. This is the native lace and embroidery, often made in the rear of the shop Itself. The wares will range in value from five cents the yard up. , . .

Throughout this heart of the business district, step behind the little store and you are in a quaint, interesting! courtyard. One great establishment is known as “The Devil,” and American girls, having bought hfits in it, are wont to make a bee-line to “The Devil’s” back yard to have snapshots taken of themselves among the palm trees. Wander off in another section of Panama city and the old depot recalls memories of. your readings of childhood. Built of stone, now gray with age, the depot is a survival of the daysi almost ot the ’4fters. It brings to mind) the wondrous tales of how, before the railway came, men had to cross the isthmus on donkeys; of the fever and; pestilence from which they suffered;! of the great heat and how mules stumbled to destruction on the trails; howi guides would renegade and held one •up, and how, now and then, outlaw bands swept down and boldly murdered the traveler. There’s a more modern station not far distant.

And then your first evening in Panama! Oh, how you envy the lucky; folk destined to spend days and week® and months here! How yoii look even now, to watching the Sunday; drawing of the lottery, the Sunday afternoon at the cock fight; the early Sunday evening drive to deserted Old Panama —America’s proudest city in Its day,-but wrecked by Morgan, the buccaneer, and since given over to the jungle! But most of all you remember the stroll in the balm of an evening when,, back home, the sleet is freezing the window panes and the mercury Is far, below zero! You forget that familiarity breeds contempt and that 365 i * night* of this takes the romance out of the picture.

CENTRAL PLAZA, PANAMA