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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/4786-h.zip b/4786-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..13f7e8b --- /dev/null +++ b/4786-h.zip diff --git a/4786-h/4786-h.htm b/4786-h/4786-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..547d56a --- /dev/null +++ b/4786-h/4786-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,7953 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<HTML> +<HEAD> + +<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> + +<TITLE> +The Project Gutenberg E-text of Zone Policeman 88, by Harry A. Franck +</TITLE> + +<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> +BODY { color: Black; + background: White; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + text-align: justify } + +P {text-indent: 4% } + +P.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +P.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: small } + +P.letter {text-indent: 0%; + font-size: small ; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.footnote {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.transnote {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.intro {font-size: medium ; + text-indent: -5% ; + margin-left: 5% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.finis { font-size: larger ; + text-align: center ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +</STYLE> + +</HEAD> + +<BODY> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Zone Policeman 88, by Harry A. Franck + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Zone Policeman 88 + A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers + +Author: Harry A. Franck + +Posting Date: September 11, 2009 [EBook #4786] +Release Date: December, 2003 +First Posted: March 19, 2002 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ZONE POLICEMAN 88 *** + + + + +Produced by Robert Rowe, Charles Franks and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +ZONE POLICEMAN 88 +</H1> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +A CLOSE RANGE STUDY OF THE PANAMA CANAL<BR> +AND ITS WORKERS +</H2> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BY +</H3> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +HARRY A. FRANCK +</H2> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +Author of "A Vagabond Journey Around the World"<BR> +and "Four Months Afoot in Spain" +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +TO A HOST OF GOOD FELLOWS THE ZONE POLICE +<BR> +Quito, December 31, 1912 +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<TABLE ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%"> +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="10%"> +<A HREF="#chap01">I</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="10%"> +<A HREF="#chap02">II</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="10%"> +<A HREF="#chap03">III</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="10%"> +<A HREF="#chap04">IV</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="10%"> +<A HREF="#chap05">V</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="10%"> +<A HREF="#chap06">VI</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="10%"> +<A HREF="#chap07">VII</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="10%"> +<A HREF="#chap08">VIII</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="10%"> +<A HREF="#chap09">IX</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="10%"> +<A HREF="#chap10">X</A> +</TD> +</TR> + +</TABLE> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap01"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER I +</H3> + +<P> +Strip by strip there opened out before me, as I climbed the "Thousand +Stairs" to the red-roofed Administration Building, the broad panorama +of Panama and her bay; below, the city of closely packed roofs and +three-topped plazas compressed in a scallop of the sun-gleaming +Pacific, with its peaked and wooded islands to far Taboga tilting +motionless away to the curve of the earth; behind, the low, irregular +jungled hills stretching hazily off into South America. On the +third-story landing I paused to wipe the light sweat from forehead and +hatband, then pushed open the screen door of the passageway that leads +to police headquarters. +</P> + +<P> +"Emm—What military service have you had?" asked "the Captain," looking +up from the letter I had presented and swinging half round in his +swivel-chair to fix his clear eyes upon me. +</P> + +<P> +"None." +</P> + +<P> +"No?" he said slowly, in a wondering voice; and so long grew the +silence, and so plainly did there spread across "the Captain's" face +the unspoken question, "Well, then what the devil are you applying here +for?" that I felt all at once the stern necessity of putting in a word +for myself or lose the day entirely. +</P> + +<P> +"But I speak Spanish and—" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah!" cried "the Captain," with the rising inflection of awakened +interest, "That puts another face on the matter." +</P> + +<P> +Slowly his eyes wandered, with the far-away look of inner reflection, +to the vacant chair of "the Chief" on the opposite side of the broad +flat desk, then out the wide-open window and across the shimmering +roofs of Ancon to the far green ridges of the youthful Republic, ablaze +with the unbroken tropical sunshine. The whirr of a telephone bell +broke in upon his meditation. In sharp, clear-cut phrases he answered +the questions that came to him over the wire, hung up the receiver, and +pushed the apparatus away from him with a forceful gesture. +</P> + +<P> +"Inspector:" he called suddenly; but a moment having passed without +response, he went on in his sharp-cut tones, "How do you think you +would like police work?" +</P> + +<P> +"I believe I should." +</P> + +<P> +"The Captain" shuffled for a moment one of several stacks of unfolded +letters on his desk. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it's the most thankless damned job in Creation," he went on, +almost dreamily, "but it certainly gives a man much touch with human +nature from all angles, and—well, I suppose we do some good. +Somebody's got to do it, anyway." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course I suppose it would depend on what class of police work I +got," I put in, recalling the warning of the writer of my letter of +introduction that, "You may get assigned to some dinky little station +and never see anything of the Zone,"—"I'm better at moving around than +sitting still. I notice you have policemen on your trains, or perhaps +in special duty languages would be—" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I was thinking along that line, too," said "the Captain." +</P> + +<P> +He rose suddenly from his chair and led the way into an adjoining room, +busy with several young Americans over desks and typewriters. +</P> + +<P> +"Inspector," he said, as a tall and slender yet muscular man of Indian +erectness and noticeably careful grooming rose to his feet, "Here's one +of those rare people, an American who speaks some foreign languages. +Have a talk with him. Perhaps we can arrange to fix him up both for his +good and our own." +</P> + +<P> +"Ever done police duty?" began the Inspector, when "the Captain" had +returned to the corner office. +</P> + +<P> +"No." +</P> + +<P> +"Military ser—" +</P> + +<P> +"Nor that either." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, we usually require it," mused the Inspector slowly, flashing his +diamond ring, "but with your special qualifications perhaps— +</P> + +<P> +"You'd probably be of most use to us in plain clothes," he continued, +after a dozen questions as to my former activities; "We could put you +in uniform for the first month or six weeks until you know the Isthmus, +and then— +</P> + +<P> +"Our greatest trouble is burglary," he broke off abruptly, rising to +reach a copy of the "Canal Zone Laws"; "If you have nothing else on +hand you might run these over; and the 'Police Rules and Regulations,'" +he added, handing me a small, flat volume bound in light brown +imitation leather. +</P> + +<P> +I sat down in an arm-chair against the wall and fell to reading, amid +the clickity-click of typewriters, telephone calls even from far-off +Colon on the Atlantic, and the constant going and coming of a negro +orderly in shiningly ironed khaki uniform. By and by the Inspector +drifted into the main office, where his voice blended for some time +with that of "the Captain," At length he came back bearing a copy of +the day's Star and Herald, turned back to the "Estrella de Panama" +pages so rarely opened in the Zone. +</P> + +<P> +"Just run us off a translation of that, if you don't mind," he said, +pointing to a short paragraph in Spanish. +</P> + +<P> +Some two minutes later I handed him the English version of the account +of a near-duel between two Panamanians, and took once more to reading. +It was more than an hour later that I was again interrupted. +</P> + +<P> +"You'll want to catch the 5:25 back to Corozal?" inquired the +Inspector; "Mr. ——, give him transportation to Culebra and back, and +an order for physical examination. +</P> + +<P> +"You might fill out this application blank," he added, handing me a +long legal sheet, "then in case you are appointed that much will be +done." +</P> + +<P> +The document began with the usual, "Name——, Birthplace——, and so +on." There followed the information that the appointee "must be at +least five feet eight; weigh one hundred and forty, chest at least +thirty-four inches—" Then suddenly near the bottom of the back of the +sheet my eyes caught the startling words;—"Unless you are sure you are +a man of physical appearance far above the average do not fill out this +application." +</P> + +<P> +I was suddenly aware of a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach; the +blank all but slipped from my nerveless fingers. Then all at once there +came back to me the words of some chance acquaintance of some far-off +time and place, words which were the only memory that remained to me of +the speaker, except that he had lived long and gathered much +experience, "Bluff, my boy, is what carries a man through the world. +Act as if you're sure you are and can and you'll generally make the +other fellow think so." I sat down at a desk and filled out the +application in my most self-confident flourish. +</P> + +<P> +"Go to Culebra to-morrow," said the Inspector, as I bade the room +good-day and stepped forth with my most military stride and bearing, +"and report back here Friday morning." +</P> + +<P> +I descended to the world below, not by the long perspective of stairs +that leads down and across the gully to the heart of Ancon, but by a +short-cut that took me quickly into a foreign land. The graveled +highway at the foot of the hill I might not have guessed was an +international boundary had I not chanced to notice the instant change +from the trim, screened Zone buildings, each in its green lawn, to the +featureless architecture of a city where grass is all but unknown; for +the formalities of crossing this frontier are the same as those of +crossing any village street. It was my first entrance into the land of +the panamenos, technically known on the Zone as "Spigoties," and +familiarly, with a tinge of despite, as "Spigs"; because the first +Americans to arrive in the land found a few natives and cabmen who +claimed to "Speaga dee Eng-leesh." +</P> + +<P> +To Americans direct from the States Panama city ranks still as rather a +miserable dawdling village. But that is due chiefly to lack of +perspective. Against the background of Central America it seemed almost +a great, certainly a flourishing, city. Even to-day there are many who +complain of its unpleasant odors; to those who have lived in other +tropical cities its scent is like the perfumes of Araby; and none but +those can in any degree realize what "Tio Sam" has done for the place. +</P> + +<P> +Toward sunset I passed through a gateway with scores of +fellow-countrymen, all as composedly at home as in the heart of their +native land. Across the platform stood a train distinctively American +in every feature, a bilious-yellow train divided by the baggage car +into two sections, of which the five second-class coaches behind the +engine, with their wooden benches, were densely packed in every +available space with workmen and laborer's wives, from Spaniards to +ebony negroes, with the average color decidedly dark. In the +first-class cars at the Panama end were Americans, all but exclusively +white Americans, with only here and there a "Spigoty" with his long +greased hair, his finger rings, and his effeminate gestures, and even a +negro or two. For though Uncle Sam may permit individual states to do +so, he may not himself openly abjure before the world his assertion as +to the equality of all men by enacting "Jim Crow" laws. +</P> + +<P> +We were soon off. Settled back in the ample seat of the first real +train I had boarded in months, with the roar of its length over the +smooth and solid road-bed, the deep-voiced, masculine whistle instead +of the painful, puerile screech that had recently assailed my ear, I +all but forgot I was in a foreign land. The fact was recalled by the +passing of the train-guard,—an erect and self-possessed young American +in "Texas" hat, khaki uniform, and leather leggings, striding along the +aisle with a jerking, half-arrogant swing of the shoulders. So, +perhaps, might I too soon be parading across the Isthmus! It was not, +to be sure, exactly the role I had planned to play on the Zone. I had +come rather with the hope of shouldering a shovel and descending into +the canal with other workmen, that I might some day solemnly raise my +right hand and boast, "I helped dig IT." But that was in the callow +days before I had arrived and learned the awful gulf that separates the +sacred white American from the rest of the Canal Zone world. Besides, +had I not always wanted to be a policeman and twirl a club and stalk +with heavy, law-compelling tread ever since I had first stared +speechless upon one of those noble beings on my first trip out into the +world twenty-one years before? +</P> + +<P> +It was not without effort that I rose in time next morning to continue +on the 6:37 from Corozal across another bit of the Zone. Exactly thus +should one first see the Great Work, piece-meal, slowly; unless he will +go home with it all in an undigested lump. The train rolled across a +stretch of almost uninhabited country, with a vast plain of broken rock +on the right, plunged unexpectedly through a short tunnel, and stopped +at a station perched on the edge of a ridge above a small Zone town +backed by some vast structure, above which here and there a huge crane +loomed against the sky of dawn. Another mile and the collectors were +announcing as brazenly as if they challenged the few "Spigs" on board +to correct them, "Peter M'Gill! Peter M'Gill!" We were already moving +on again before I had guessed that by this noise they designated none +other than the famous Pedro Miguel. The sun rose suddenly as we swung +sharply to the left and rumbled across a girderless bridge. Barely had +I time to discover that we were crossing the great canal itself and to +catch a brief glimpse of the jagged gulf in either direction, before +the train had left it behind, as if the sight of the world-famous +channel were not worth a pause, and was roaring on through a hilly +country of perpetual summer. A peculiarly shaped reservoir sped past on +the left, twice or thrice more the green horizon rose and fell, and at +7:30 we drew up at the base of Culebra, the Zone capital. +</P> + +<P> +On the screened veranda of a somewhat sooty and dismal building high up +near the summit of the town, another and I were pacing anxiously back +and forth when, well on in the morning, an abrupt and rather +gloomy-faced American dashed into the building and one of the rooms +thereof, snapping over his shoulder as he disappeared, "One of you!" +The other had precedence. Then soon from behind the wooden shutters +came a growl of "Next!" and two moments later I was standing in the +reputed costume of Adam on the scales within. At about ten-second +intervals a monosyllable fell from the lips of the morose American as +he delved into my personal make-up from crown to toe with all the +instrumental circumspection known to his secret-discovering profession. +Then with a gruff "Dress!" he sat down at a table to scratch a few +fantastic marks on the blank I had brought, and hand it to me as I +caught up my last garment and turned to the door. But, alas—tight +sealed! and all the day, though carrying the information in my pocket, +I must live in complete ignorance of whether I had been found lacking +an eye or a lung. For sooner would one have asked his future of the +scowling Parques than venture to invoke a hint thereof from that +furrow-browed being from the Land of Bruskness. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile, as if it had been thus planned to give me such opportunity, +I stood at the very vortex of canal interest and fame, with nearly an +entire day before the evening train should carry me back to Corozal. I +descended to the "observation platform." Here at last at my very feet +was the famous "cut" known to the world by the name of Culebra; a +mighty channel a furlong wide plunging sheer through "Snake Mountain," +that rocky range of scrub-wooded hills; severing the continental +divide. At first view the scene was bewildering. Only gradually did the +eye gather details out of the mass. Before and beyond were pounding +rock drills, belching locomotives, there arose the rattle and bump of +long trains of flat-cars on many tracks, the crash of falling boulders, +the snort of the straining steam-shovels heaping the cars high with +earth and rock, everywhere were groups of little men, some working +leisurely, some scrambling down into the rocky bed of the canal or +dodging the clanging trains, all far below and stretching endless in +either direction, while over all the scene hovered a veritable +Pittsburg of smoke. +</P> + +<P> +All long-heralded sights—such is the nature of the world and man—are +at first glimpse disappointing. To this rule the great Culebra "cut" +was no exception. After all this was merely a hill, a moderate ridge, +this backbone of the Isthmus the sundering of which had sent its echoes +to all corners of the earth. The long-fed imagination had led one to +picture a towering mountain, a very Andes. +</P> + +<P> +But as I looked longer, noting how little by comparison were the trains +I knew to be of regulation U. S. size, how literally tiny were the +scores upon scores of men far down below who were doing this thing, its +significance regained bit by bit its proper proportions. Train after +train-load of the spoil of the "cut" ground away towards the Pacific; +and here man had been digging steadily, if not always earnestly, since +a year before I was born. The gigantic scene recalled to the mind the +"industrial army" of which Carlyle was prone to preach, with the same +discipline and organization as an army in the field; and every now and +then, to bear out the figure, there burst forth the mighty cannonade, +not of war, but of peace and progress in the form of earth-upheaving +and house-rocking blasts of dynamite, tearing away the solid rock below +at the very feet of the town. +</P> + +<P> +I took to the railroad and struck on further into the unknown country. +Almost before I was well started I found myself in another town, yet +larger than Culebra and with the name "Empire" in the station building; +and nearly every rod of the way between had been lined with villages of +negroes and all breeds and colors of canal workers. So on again along a +broad macadamized highway that bent and rose through low bushy ridges, +past an army encamped in wood and tin barracks on a hillside, with +khaki uniformed soldiers ahorse and afoot enlivening all the roadway +and the neighboring fields. Never a mile without its town—how +different will all this be when the canal is finished and all this +community is gone to Alaska or has scattered itself again over the face +of the earth, and dense tropical solitude has settled down once more +over the scene. +</P> + +<P> +Panama, they had said, is insupportably hot. Comparing it with other +lands I knew I could not but smile at the notion. Again it was the lack +of perspective. Sweat ran easily, yet so fresh the air and so +refreshing the breeze sweeping incessantly across from the Atlantic +that even the sweating was almost enjoyable. Hot! Yes, like June on the +Canadian border—though not like July. It is hot in St. Louis on an +August Sunday, with all the refreshment doors tight closed—to +strangers; hot in the cotton-fields of Texas, but with these plutonic +corners the heat of the Zone shows little rivalry. +</P> + +<P> +The way led round a cone-shaped hill crowned by another military camp +with the Stars and Stripes flapping far above, until I came at last in +sight of the renowned Chagres, seven miles above Culebra, to all +appearances a meek and harmless little stream spanned by a huge new +iron bridge and forbidden to come and play in the unfinished canal by a +little dam of earth that a steam-shovel will some day eat up in a few +hours. Here, where it ends and the flat country begins, I descended +into the "cut," dry and waterless, with a stone-quarry bottom. A sharp +climb out on the opposite side and I plunged into rampant jungle, half +expecting snake-bites on my exposed ankles—another pre-conceived +notion—and at length falling into a narrow jungle trail that pitched +down through a dense-grown gully, came upon a fenced compound with +several Zone buildings on the banks of the Chagres, down to which +sloped a broad green lawn. +</P> + +<P> +Here dwells hale and ruddy "Old Fritz," for long years keeper of the +fluviograph that measures and gives warning of the rampages of the +Chagres. Fritz will talk to you in almost any tongue you may choose, as +he can tell you of adventures in almost any land, all with a +captivating accent and in the vocabulary of a man who has lived long +among men and nature. Nor are Fritz' opinions those gleaned from other +men or the printed page. So we fell to fanning ourselves this January +afternoon on the screened and shaded veranda above the Chagres, and +"Old Fritz," lighting his pipe, raised his slippered feet to the screen +railing and, tossing away the charred remnant of a match, began:— +</P> + +<P> +"Vidout var dere iss no brogress. Ven all der vorld iss at peace, all +der vorld goes to shleep." +</P> + +<P> +Police headquarters looked all but deserted on Friday morning. There +had been "something doing" in Zone criminal annals the night before, +and not only "the Captain" but both "the Chief" and the Inspector were +"somewhere out along the line." I sat down in the arm-chair against the +wall. A half-hour, perhaps, had I read when "Eddie"—I am not entitled, +perhaps, to such familiarity, but the solemn title of "chief clerk" is +far too stiff and formal for that soul of good-heartedness striving in +vain to hide behind a bluff exterior—"Eddie," I say, blew a last cloud +of smoke from his lungs to the ceiling, tossed aside the butt of his +cigarette, and motioned to me to take the chair beside his desk. +</P> + +<P> +"It's all off!" said a voice within me. For the expression on "Eddie's" +face was that of a man with an unpleasant duty to perform, and his +opening words were in exactly that tone of voice in which a man begins, +"I am sorry, but—" Had I not often used it myself? +</P> + +<P> +"The Captain," is how he really did begin, "called me up from Colon +last night, and—" +</P> + +<P> +"Here's where I get my case nol prossed," I found myself whispering. In +all probability that sealed document I had sent in the day before +announced me as a physical wreck. +</P> + +<P> +"—and told me," continued "Eddie" in his sad, regretful tone, "to tell +you we will take you on the force as a first-class policeman. It +happens, however, that the department of Civil Administration is about +to begin a census of the Zone, and they are looking for any men that +can speak Spanish. If we take you on, therefore, the Captain would +assign you to the census department until that work is done—it will +probably take something over a month—and then you would be returned to +regular police duty. The Chief says he'd rather have you learn the +Isthmus on census than on police pay. +</P> + +<P> +"Or," went on "Eddie," just as I was about to break in with, "All +right, that suits me,"—"or, if you prefer, the census department will +enroll you as a regular enumerator and we'll take you on the force as +soon as that job is over. The—er—pay," added "Eddie," reaching for a +cigarette but changing his mind, "of enumerators will be five dollars a +day, and—er—five a day beats eighty a month by more than a nose." +</P> + +<P> +We descended a story and I was soon in conference with a slender, +sharp-faced young man of mobile features and penetrating eyes behind +which a smile seemed always to be lurking. On the Canal Zone, as in +British colonies, one is frequently struck by the youthfulness of men +in positions of importance. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll probably assign you to Empire district," the slender young man +was saying, "there's everything up there and almost any language will +sure be some help to us. This time we are taking a thorough, complete +census of all the Zone clear back to the Zone line. Here's a sample +card and list of instructions." +</P> + +<P> +In other words kind Uncle Sam was about to give me authority to enter +every dwelling in the most cosmopolitan and thickly populated district +of his Canal Zone, and to put questions to every dweller therein, +note-book and pencil in hand; authority to ramble around a month or +more in sunshine and jungle—and pay me for the privilege. There are +really two methods of seeing the Canal Zone; as an employee or as a +guest at the Tivoli, both of them at about five dollars a day—but at +opposite ends of the thermometer. +</P> + +<P> +There remained a week-end between that Friday morning and the last day +of January, set for the beginning of the census. Certainly I should not +regret the arrival of the day when I should become an employee, with +all the privileges and coupon-books thereunto appertained. For the Zone +is no easy dwelling-place for the non-employee. Our worthy Uncle of the +chin whiskers makes it quite plain that, while he may tolerate the mere +visitor, he does not care to have him hanging around; makes it so +plain, in fact, that a few weeks purely of sight-seeing on the Zone +implies an adamantine financial backing. In his screened and +full-provided towns, where the employee lives in such well-furnished +comfort, the tourist might beat his knuckles bare and shake yellow gold +in the other hand, and be coldly refused even a lodging for the night; +and while he may eat a meal in the employees' hotels—at near twice the +employee's price—the very attitude in which he is received says openly +that he is admitted only on suffrance—permitted to eat only because if +he starved to death our Uncle would have the bother of burying him and +his Zone Police the arduous toil of making out an accident report. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile I must change my dwelling-place. For the quartermaster of +Corozal had need of all the rooms within his domain, need so imperative +that seventeen bona fide and wrathy employees were even then bunking in +the pool-room of Corozal hotel. Work on the Zone was moving steadily +Pacificward and the accommodations refused to come with it—at least at +the same degree of speed. +</P> + +<P> +Nor was I especially averse to the transfer. The room-mate with whom +fate had cast me in House 81 was a pleasant enough fellow, a youth of +unobjectionable personal manners even though his "eight-hour graft" was +in the sooty seat of a steam-crane high above Miraflores locks. But he +had one slight idiosyncrasy that might in time have grown annoying. On +the night of our first acquaintance, after we had lain exchanging +random experiences till the evening heat had begun a retreat before the +gentle night breeze, I was awakened from the first doze by my companion +sitting suddenly up in his cot across the room. +</P> + +<P> +"Say, I hope you're not nervous?" he remarked. +</P> + +<P> +"Not immoderately." +</P> + +<P> +"One of my stunts is night-mare," he went on, rising to switch on the +electric light, "and when I get 'em I generally imagine my room-mate is +a burglar trying to go through my junk and—" +</P> + +<P> +He reached under his pillow and brought to light a "Colt's" of 45 +caliber; then crossing the room he pointed to three large irregular +splintered holes in the wall some three or four inches above me, and +which I had not already seen simply because I had not chanced to look +that way. +</P> + +<P> +"There's the last three. But I'm tryin' to break myself of 'em," he +concluded, slipping the revolver back under his pillow and turning off +the light again. +</P> + +<P> +Which is among the various reasons why it was without protest that, +with "the Captain's" telephoned consent on the ground that I was now +virtually on the force, I took up my residence in Corozal police +station. 'T is a peaceful little building of the usual Zone type on a +breezy knoll across the railroad, with a spreading tree and a little +well-tended flower plot before it, and the broad world stretching away +in all directions behind. Here lived Policeman T—— and B——. +"First-class policemen" perhaps I should take care to specify, for in +Zone parlance the unqualified noun implies African ancestry. But it +seems easier to use an adjective of color when necessary. Among their +regular duties was that of weighing down the rocking-chairs on the airy +front veranda, whence each nook and cranny of Corozal was in sight, and +of strolling across to greet the train-guard of the seven daily +passengers; though the irregular ones that might burst upon them at any +moment were not unlikely to resemble a Moro expedition in the +Philippines. B—— and I shared the big main room; for T——, being the +haughty station commander, occupied the parlor suite beside the office. +That was all, except the black Trinidadian boy who sat on the wooden +shelf that was his bed behind a huge padlocked door and gazed dreamily +out through the bars—when he was not carrying a bundle to the train +for his wardens or engaged in the janitor duties that kept Corozal +station so spick and span. Oh! To be sure there were also a couple of +negro policemen in the smaller room behind the thin wooden partition of +our own, but negro policemen scarcely count in Zone Police reckonings. +</P> + +<P> +"By Heck! They must use a lot o' mules t' haul aout all thet dirt," +observed an Arkansas farmer to his nephew, home from the Zone on +vacation. He would have thought so indeed could he have spent a day at +Corozal and watched the unbroken deafening procession of dirt-trains +scream by on their way to the Pacific,—straining Moguls dragging a +furlong of "Lidgerwood flats," swaying "Oliver dumps" with their side +chains clanking, a succession as incessant of "empties" grinding back +again into the midst of the fray. On the tail of every train lounged an +American conductor, dressed more like a miner, though his "front" and +"hind" negro brakemen were as apt to be in silk ties and +patent-leathers. To say nothing of the train-loads that go Atlanticward +and to jungle "dumps" and to many an unnoticed "fill." Then when he had +thus watched the day through it would have been of interest to go and +chat with some of the "Old Timers" who live here beside the track and +who have seen, or at least heard, this same endless stream of rock and +earth race by six days a week, fifty-two weeks a year for six years, as +constant and heavily-laden to-day as in the beginning. He might +discover, as not all his fellow-countrymen have as yet, that the little +surgical operation on Mother Earth we are engaged in is no mule job. +</P> + +<P> +The week-end gave me time to get back in touch with affairs in the +States among the newspaper files at the Y. M. C. A. building. Uncle Sam +surely makes life comfortable for his children wherever he takes hold. +It is not enough that he shall clean up and set in order these tropical +pest-holes; he will have the employee fancy himself completely at home. +Here I sat in one of the dozen big airy recreation halls, well stocked +with man's playthings, which the government has erected on the Zone; I, +who two weeks before had been thankful for lodging on the earth floor +of a Honduranean hut. The Y. M. C. A. is the chief social center on the +Isthmus, the rendezvous and leisure-hour headquarters of the thousands +that inhabit bachelor quarters—except the few of the purely barroom +type. "Everybody's Association" it might perhaps more properly be +called, for ladies find welcome and the laughter of children over the +parlor games is rarely lacking. It is not the circumspect place that +are many of its type in the States, but a real man's place where he can +buy his cigarettes and smoke his pipe in peace, a place for men as men +are, not as the fashion plates that mama's fond imagination pictures +them. With all its excellences it would be unjust to complain that the +Zone "Y. M." is a trifle "low-brow" in its tastes, that the books on +its shelves are apt to be "popular" novels rather than reading matter, +that its phonographs are most frequently screeching vaudeville noises +while the Slezak and Homer disks lie tucked away far down near the +bottom of the stack. +</P> + +<P> +With the new week I moved to Empire, the "Rules and Regulations" in a +pocket and the most indispensable of my possessions under an arm. Once +more we rumbled through Miraflores tunnel through a mole-hill, past her +concrete light-house among the astonished palms, and her giant hose of +water wiping away the rock hills, across the trestleless bridge with +its photographic glimpse of the canal before and behind for the +limber-necked, and again I found myself in the metropolis of the Canal +Zone. At the quartermaster's office my "application for quarters" was +duly filed without a word and a slip assigning me to Room 3, House 47, +as silently returned. I climbed by a stone-faced U. S. road to my new +home on the slope of a ridge overlooking the railway and its buildings +below. +</P> + +<P> +It was the noon-hour. My two room-mates, therefore, were on hand for +inspection, sprawlingly engrossed in a—quite innocent and legal—card +game on a table littered with tobacco, pipes, matches, dog-eared wads +of every species of literature from real estate pamphlets to locomotive +journals, and a further mass of indiscriminate matter that none but a +professional inventory man would attempt to classify. About the room +was the usual clutter of all manner of things in the usual unarranged, +"unwomaned" Zone way, which the negro janitor feels it neither his duty +nor privilege to bring to order; while on and about my cot and bureau +were helter-skeltered the sundry possessions of an absent employee, who +had left for his six-weeks' vacation without hanging up his +shirt—after the fashion of "Zoners." So when I had wiped away the dust +that had been gathering thereon since the days of de Lesseps and +chucked my odds and ends into a bureau drawer, I was settled,—a +full-fledged Zone employee in the quarters to which every man on the +"gold roll" is entitled free of charge. +</P> + +<P> +Just here it may be well to explain that the I. C. C. has very +dexterously dodged the necessity of lining the Zone with the offensive +signs "Black" and "White." 'T would not be exactly the distinction +desired anyway. Hence the line has been drawn between "Gold" and +"Silver" employees. The first division, paid in gold coin, is made up, +with a few exceptions, of white American citizens. To the second belong +any of the darker shade, and all common laborers of whatever color, +these receiving their wages in Panamanian silver. 'T is a deep and +sharp-drawn line. The story runs that Liza Lawsome, not long arrived +from Jamaica, entering the office of a Zone dentist, paused suddenly +before the announcement: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Crownwork. Gold and Silver Fillings.<BR> + Extractions wholly without Pain.<BR> +</P> + +<P> +There was deep disappointment in face and voice as she sat down with a +flounce of her starched and snow-white skirt, gasping: +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Doctah, does I HAVE to have silver fillings?" +</P> + +<P> +My room-mates, "Mitch" and "Tom," sat respectively at the throttle of a +locomotive that jerked dirt-trains out of the "cut" and straddled a +steam-shovel that ate its way into Culebra range. Whence, of course, +they were covered with the grease and grime incident to those +occupations. Which did not make them any the less companionable—though +it did promise a distinct increase in my laundry bill. When they had +descended again to the labor-train and been snatched away to their +appointed tasks, I sat a short hour in one of the black "Mission" +rocking-chairs on the screened veranda puzzling over a serious problem. +The quarters of the "gold" employee is as completely furnished as any +reasonable man could demand, his iron cot with springs and mattress +unimpeachable—but just there the maternal generosity of the government +ceases. He must furnish his own sheets and pillow—MUST because +placards on the wall sternly warn him not to sleep on the bare +mattress; and the New York Sunday edition that had served me thus far I +had carelessly left behind at Corozal police station. To be sure there +were sheets for sale in Empire, at the Commissary—where money has the +purchasing-power of cobble-stones, and coupon-books come only to those +who have worked a day or more on the Zone. Then the Jamaican janitor, +drifting in to potter about the room, evidently guessed the cause of my +perplexity, for he turned to point to the bed of the absent "Mitch" and +gurgled: +</P> + +<P> +"Jes' you make lub to dat man what got dat bed. Him got plenty ob +sheets." Which proved a wise suggestion. +</P> + +<P> +Empire hotel sat a bit down the hill. There the "gold" ranks were again +subdivided. The coatless ate and sweltered inside the great +dining-room; the formal sat in haughty state in what was virtually a +second-story veranda overlooking the railroad yards and a part of the +town, where were tables of four, electric fans, and "Ben" to serve with +butler formality. I found it worth while to climb the hill for my coat +thrice a day. As yet I was jangling down a Panamanian dollar at each +appearance, but the day was not far distant when I should receive the +"recruits" hotel-book and soon grow as accustomed as the rest to having +a coupon snatched from it by the yellow negro at the door. Uncle Sam's +boarding scale on the Zone is widely varied. Three meals cost the +non-employee $1.50, the "gold" employee $.90, the white European +laborer $.40, and negroes in general $.30. +</P> + +<P> +That afternoon, when the sun had begun to bow its head on the thither +side of the canal, I climbed to the newly labeled census office on the +knoll behind the police station, from the piazza of which all native +Empire lies within sweep of the eye. "The boss," a smiling youth only +well started on his third decade, whose regular duties were in the +sanitary department, had already moved bed, bag, and baggage into the +room that had been assigned the census, that he might be "always on the +job." +</P> + +<P> +Not till eight that evening, however, did the force gather to look +itself over. There was the commander-in-chief of the census bureau, +sent down from Washington specifically for the task in hand, under whom +as chairmen we settled down into a sort of director's meeting, a wholly +informal, coatless, cigarette-smoking meeting in which even the chief +himself did not feel it necessary to let his dignity weigh upon him. He +had been sent down alone. Hence there had been great scrambling to +gather together on the Zone men enough who spoke Spanish—and with no +striking success. Most noticeable of my fellow-enumerators, being in +uniform, were three Marines from Bas Obispo, fluent with the working +Spanish they had picked up from Mindanao to Puerto Rico, and +flush-cheeked with the prospect of a full month on "pass," to say +nothing of the $4.40 a day that would be added to their daily military +income of $.60. Then there were four of darker hue,—Panamanians and +West Indians; and how rare are Spanish-speaking, Americans on the Zone +was proved by the admittance of such complexions to the "gold" roll. +</P> + +<P> +Of native U. S. civilians there were but two of us. Of whom Barter, +speaking only his nasal New Jersey, must perforce be assigned to the +"gold" quarters, leaving me the native town of Empire. At which we were +both satisfied, Barter because he did not like to sully himself by +contact with foreigners, I because one need not travel clear to the +Canal Zone to study the ways of Americans. As for the other seven, each +was assigned his strip of land something over a mile wide and five long +running back to the western boundary of the Zone. That region of +wilderness known as "Beyond the Canal" was to be left for special +treatment later. The Zone had been divided for census purposes into +four sections, with headquarters and supervisor in Ancon, Empire, +Gorgona, and Cristobal respectively. Our district, stretching from the +trestleless bridge over the canal to a great tree near Bas Obispo, was +easily the fat of the land, the most populous, most cosmopolitan, and +embracing within its limits the greatest task on the Zone. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile we had fallen to studying the "Instructions to Enumerators," +the very first article of which was such as to give pause and +reflection; +</P> + +<P> +"When you have once signed on as an enumerator you cannot cease to +exercise your functions as such without justifiable cause under penalty +of $500 fine." Which warning was quickly followed by the hair-raising +announcement: +</P> + +<P> +"If you set down the name of a fictitious person"—what can have given +the good census department the notion of such a possibility?—"you will +be fined $2,000 or sentenced to five years' imprisonment, or both." +</P> + +<P> +From there on the injunctions grew less nerve-racking: "You must use a +medium soft black pencil (which will be furnished)"—law-breaking under +such conditions would be absurdity—"use no ditto marks and"—here I +could not but shudder as there passed before my eyes memories of +college lecture rooms and all the strange marks that have come to mean +something to me alone—"take pains to write legibly!" +</P> + +<P> +Then we arose and swarmed upstairs to an empty court-room, where Judge +G——, throwing away his cigarette and removing his Iowa feet from the +bar of justice, caused us each to raise a right hand and swear an oath +as solemn as ever president on March fourth. An oath, I repeat, not +merely to uphold and defend the constitution against all enemies, armed +or armless, but furthermore "not to share with any one any of the +information you gather as an enumerator, or show a census card, or keep +a copy of same." Yet, I trust I can spin this simple yarn of my Canal +Zone days without offense to Uncle Sam against the day when mayhap I +shall have occasion to apply to him again for occupation. For that +reason I shall take abundant care to give no information whatsoever in +the following pages. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER II +</H3> + +<P> +"The boss" and I initiated the Canal Zone Census that very night. +Legally it was to begin with the dawning of February, but there were +many labor camps in our district and the hours bordering on midnight +the only sure time to "catch 'em in." Up in House 47 I gathered +together the legion paraphernalia of this new occupation,—some two +hundred red cards a foot long and half as wide, a surveyor's field +notebook for the preservation of miscellaneous information, tags for +the tagging of canvassed buildings, tacks for the tacking of the same, +the necessary tack-hammer, the medium soft black pencil, above all the +awesome legal "Commission," impressively signed and sealed, wherein +none other than our weighty nation's chief himself did expressly +authorize me to search out, enter, and question ad libitum. All this +swung over a shoulder in a white canvas sack, that carried memory back +through the long years to my newsboy days, I descended to the town. +</P> + +<P> +"The boss" was ready. It was nearly eleven when we crossed the silent +P. R. R. tracks and, plunging away into the night past great heaps of +abandoned locomotives huddled dim and uncertain in the thin moonlight +like ghosts of the French fiasco, dashed into a camp of the laborer's +village of Cunette, pitched on the very edge of the now black and +silent void of the canal. Eighteen thick-necked negroes in undershirts +and trousers gazed up white-eyed from a suspended card game at the long +camp table. But we had no time for explanations. +</P> + +<P> +"Name?" I shouted at the coal-hued Hercules nearest at hand. +</P> + +<P> +"David Providence," he bleated in trembling voice, and the great Zone +questionnaire was on. +</P> + +<P> +We had enrolled the group before a son of wisdom among them surmised +that we were not, after all, plain-clothes men in quest of criminals; +and his announcement brought visible relief. Twice as many blacks were +sprawled in the two rows of double-sided, three-story bunks,—mere +strips of canvas on gas-pipes that could be hung up like swinging +shelves when not in use. Mere noise did not even disturb their dreams. +We roused them by pencil-jabs in the ribs, and they started up with +savage, animal-like grunts and murderous glares which instantly +subsided to sheepish grins and voiceless astonishment at sight of a +white face bending over them. Now and again open-mouthed guffaws of +laughter greeted the mumbled admission of some powerful buck that he +could not read, or did not know his age. But there was nothing even +faintly resembling insolence, for these were all British West Indians +without a corrupting "States nigger" among them. A half-hour after our +arrival we had tagged the barracks and dived into the next camp, +blacker and sleepier and more populous than the first. It was February +morning before I climbed the steps of silent 47 and stepped under the +shower-bath that is always preliminary, on the Zone, to a night's +repose. +</P> + +<P> +A dream of earthquake, holocaust, and general destruction developed +gradually into full consciousness at four-thirty. House 47 was in +riotous uproar. No, neither conflagration nor foreign invasion was +pending; it was merely the houseful of engineers in their customary +daily struggle to catch the labor-train and be away to work by +daylight. When the hour's rampage had subsided I rose to switch off the +light and turned in again. +</P> + +<P> +The rays of the impetuous Panama sun were spattering from them when I +passed again the jumbled rows of invalided locomotives and machinery, +reddish with rust and bound, like Gulliver, by green jungle strands and +tropical creepers. By day the arch-roofed labor-camps were silent and +empty, but for a lonely janitor languidly mopping a floor. Before the +buildings a black gang was dipping the canvas and gas-pipe bunks one by +one into a great kettle of scalding water. But there are also "married +quarters" at Cunette. A row of six government houses tops the ridge, +with six families in each house, and—no, I dare not risk nomination to +an ever expanding though unpopular club by stating how many in a +family. I will venture merely to assert that when noon-time came I was +not well started on the second house, yet carried away more than sixty +filled-out cards. +</P> + +<P> +More than two days that single row of houses endured, varied by nights +spent with "the boss" in the labor-camps of Lirio, Culebra way. Then +one morning I tramped far out the highway to the old Scotchman's +farm-house that bounds Empire on the north and began the long intricate +journey through the private-owned town itself. It was like attending a +congress of the nations, a museum exhibition of all the shapes and hues +in which the human vegetable grows. Tenements and wobbly-kneed shanties +swarming with exhibits monopolized the landscape; strange the room that +did not yield up at least a man and woman and three or four children. +Day after blazing day I sat on rickety chairs, wash-tubs, +ironing-boards, veranda railings, climbing creaking stairways, now and +again descending a treacherous one in unintentional haste and +ungraceful posture, burrowing into blind but inhabited cubby-holes, +hunting out squatters' nests of tin cans and dry-goods boxes hidden +away behind the legitimate buildings, shouting questions into +dilapidated ear-drums, delving into the past of every human being who +fell in my way. West Indian negroes easily kept the lead of all other +nationalities combined; negroes blacker than the obsidian cutlery of +the Aztecs, blonde negroes with yellow hair and blue eyes whose race +was betrayed only by eyelids and the dead whiteness of skin, and whom +one could not set down as such after enrolling swarthy Spaniards as +"white" without a smile. +</P> + +<P> +They lived chiefly in windowless, six-by-eight rooms, always a cheap, +dirty calico curtain dividing the three-foot parlor in front from the +five-foot bedroom behind, the former cluttered with a van-load of +useless junk, dirty blankets, decrepit furniture, glittering gewgaws, a +black baby squirming naked in a basket of rags with an Episcopal +prayerbook under its pillow—relic of the old demon-scaring +superstitions of Voodoo worship. Every inch of the walls was +"decorated," after the artistic temperament of the race, with pages of +illustrated magazines or newspapers, half-tones of all things +conceivable with no small amount of text in sundry languages, many a +page purely of advertising matter, the muscular, imbruted likeness of a +certain black champion rarely missing, frequently with a Bible laid +reverently beneath it. Outside, before each room, a tin fireplace for +cooking precariously bestrided the veranda rail. +</P> + +<P> +Often a tumble-down hovel where three would seem a crowd yielded up +more than a dozen inmates, many of whom, being at work, must be looked +for later—the "back-calls" that is the bete-noire of the census +enumerator. West Indians, however, are for the most part well +acquainted with the affairs of friends and room-mates, and enrolment of +the absent was often possible. Occasionally I ran into a den of +impertinence that must be frowned down, notably a notorious swarming +tenement over a lumber-yard. But on the whole the courtesy of British +West Indians, even among themselves, was noteworthy. Of the two great +divisions among them, Barbadians seemed more well-mannered than +Jamaicans—or was it merely more subtle hypocrisy? Among them all the +most unspoiled children of nature appeared to be those from the little +island of Nevis. +</P> + +<P> +"You ain't no American?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, ah is." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, you de bery furst American ah eber see dat was perlite." +</P> + +<P> +Which spoke badly indeed for the others, that not being one of the +virtues I strive particularly to cultivate. +</P> + +<P> +But "perlite" or not, there can be no question of the astounding +stupidity of the West Indian rank and file, a stupidity amusing if you +are in an amusable mood, unendurable if you neglect to pack your +patience among your bag of supplies in the morning. Tropical patience, +too, is at best a frail child. The dry-season sun rarely even veiled +his face, and there were those among the enumerators who complained of +the taxing labor of all-day marching up and down streets and stairs and +Zone hills beneath it; but to me, fresh from tramping over the +mountains of Central America with twenty pounds on my shoulders, this +was mere pastime. Heat had no terrors for the enumerated, however. +Often in the hottest hour of the day I came upon negroes sleeping in +tightly closed rooms, the sweat running off them in streams, yet +apparently vastly enjoying the situation. +</P> + +<P> +Sunday came and I chose to continue, though virtually all the Zone was +on holiday and even "the boss," after what I found later to be his +invariable custom, had broken away from his card-littered +dwelling-place on Saturday evening and hurried away to Panama, drawn +thither and held till Monday morning—by some irresistible attraction. +Sunday turns holiday completely on the Zone, even to hours of trains +and hotels. The frequent passengers were packed from southern white end +to northern black end with all nations in gladsome garb, bound +Panamaward to see the lottery drawing and buy a ticket for the +following Sunday, across the Isthmus to breezy Colon, or to one of a +hundred varying spots and pastimes. Others in khaki breeches fresh from +the government laundry in Cristobal and the ubiquitous leather leggings +of the "Zoner" were off to ride out the day in the jungles; still +others set resolutely forth afoot into tropical paths; a dozen or so, +gleaned one by one from all the towns along the line were even on their +way to church. Yet with all this scattering there still remained a +respectable percentage lounging on the screened verandas in pajamas and +kimonas, "Old Timers" of four or five or even six years' standing who +were convinced they had seen and heard, and smelt and tasted all that +the Zone or tropical lands have to offer. +</P> + +<P> +Well on in the morning there was a general gathering of all the +ditch-digging clans of Empire and vicinity in a broad field close under +the eaves of the town, and soon there came drifting across to me at my +labor, hoarse, frenzied screams; sounding strangely incongruous beneath +the swaying palm-trees; +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "Come on! Get down with his arm! Aaaaahrrr!"<BR> +</P> + +<P> +But my time was well chosen. In the Spanish camps above the canal, +still and silent with Sunday, men at no other time to be run to earth +were entrapped in their bunks, under their dwelling-places in the +shade, shaving, exchanging hair-cuts, washing workaday clothes, +reminiscing over far-off homes and pre-migratory days, or merely +loafing. The same cheery, friendly, quick-witted fellows they were as +in their native land, even the few Italians and rare Portuguese +scattered among them inoculated with their cheerfulness. +</P> + +<P> +Came sudden changes to camps of Martiniques, a sort of wild, untamed +creature, who spoke a distressing imitation of French which even he did +not for a moment claim to be such, but frankly dubbed patois. +Restless-eyed black men who answered to their names only at the +question "Cummun t'appelle?" and give their age only to those who open +wide their mouths and cry, "Caje-vous?" Then on again to the no less +strange, sing-song "English" of Jamaica, the whining tones of those +whose island trees the conquesting Spaniards found +bearded—"barbados"—now and again a more or less dark Costa Rican, +Guatemalteco, Venezuelan, stray islanders from St. Vincent, Trinidad, +or Guadalupe, individuals defying classification. But the chief reward +for denying myself a holiday were the "back-calls" in the town itself +which I was able to check out of my field-book. Many a long-sought +negro I roused from his holiday siesta, dashing past the tawdry calico +curtains to pound him awake—mere auricular demonstration having only +the effect of lulling him into deeper child-like slumber. The surest +and often only effective means was to tickle the slumberer gently on +the soles of the bare feet with some airy, delicate instrument such as +my tack-hammer, or a convenient broom-handle or flat-iron. Frequently I +came upon young negro men of the age and type that in white skins would +have been loafing on pool-room corners, reading to themselves in loud +and solemn voices from the Bible, with a far-away look in their eyes; +always I was surrounded by a never-broken babble of voices, for the +West Indian negro can let his face run unceasingly all the day through, +and the night, though he have never a word to say. +</P> + +<P> +Thus my "enumerated" tags spread further and wider over the city of +Empire. I reached in due time the hodge-podge shops and stores of +Railroad Avenue. Chinamen began to drift into the rolls, there appeared +such names as Carmen Wah Chang, cooks and waitresses living in darksome +back cupboards must be unearthed, negro shoemakers were caught at their +stands on the sidewalks, shiny-haired bartenders gave up their +biographies in nasal monosyllables amid the slop of "suds" and the +scrape of celluloid froth-eradicators. Rare was the land that had not +sent representatives to this great dirt-shoveling congress. A Syrian +merchant gasped for breath and fell over his counter in delight to find +that I, too, had been in his native Zakleh, five Punjabis all but died +of pleasure when I mispronounced three words of their tongue. +Occasionally there came startling contrast as I burst unexpectedly into +the ancestral home of some educated native family that had withstood +all the tides of time and change and still lived in the beloved +"Emperador" of their forefathers. Anger was usually near the surface at +my intrusion, but they quickly changed to their ingrown politeness and +chatty sociability when addressed in their own tongue and treated in +their own extravagant gestures. It was almost sure to return again, +however, at the question whether they were Panamanians. Distinctly not! +They were Colombians! There is no such country as Panama. +</P> + +<P> +Thus the enrolling of the faithful continued. Chinese laundrymen +divulged the secrets of their mysterious past between spurts of water +at steaming shirt-bosoms; Chinese merchants, of whom there are hordes +on the Zone, cueless, dressed and betailored till you must look at them +twice to tell them from "gold" employees, the flag of the new republic +flapping above their doors, the new president in their lapels, left off +selling crucifixes and breastpin medallions of Christ to negro women, +to answer my questions. One evening I stumbled into a nest of eleven +Bengali peddlers with the bare floor of their single room as bed, +table, and chairs; in one corner, surmounted by their little +embroidered skull-caps, were stacked the bundles with which they pester +Zone housewives, and in another their god wrapped in a dirty rag +against profaning eyes. +</P> + +<P> +Many days had passed before I landed the first Zone resident I could +not enroll unassisted. He was a heathen Chinee newly arrived, who spoke +neither Spanish nor English. It was "Chinese Charlie" who helped me +out. "Chinese Charlie" was a resident of the Zone before the days of de +Lesseps and at our first meeting had insisted on being enrolled under +that pseudonym, alleging it his real name. Upstairs above his store all +was sepulchral silence when I mounted to investigate—and I came +quickly and quietly down again; for the door had opened on the gaudy +Oriental splendor of a joss-house where dwelt only grinning wooden +idols not counted as Zone residents by the materialistic census +officials. On the Isthmus as elsewhere "John" is a law-abiding +citizen—within limits; never obsequious, nearly always friendly, ready +to answer questions quite cheerily so long as he considers the matter +any of your business, but closing infinitely tighter than the +maltreated bivalve when he fancies you are prying too far. +</P> + +<P> +In time I reached the Commissary—the government department store—and +enrolled it from cash-desk to cold-storage; Empire hotel, from steward +to scullions, filed by me whispering autobiography; the police station +on its knoll fell like the rest. I went to jail—and set down a large +score of black men and a pair of European whites, back from a day's +sweaty labor of road building, who lived now in unaccustomed +cleanliness in the heart of the lower story of a fresh wooden building +with light iron bars, easy to break out of were it not that policemen, +white and black, sleep on all sides of them. Crowded old Empire not +only faces her streets but even her back yards are filled with shacks +and inhabited boxes to be hunted out. On the hem of her tattered +outskirts and the jungle edges I ran into heaps of old abandoned +junk,—locomotives, cars, dredges, boilers (some with the letters "U. +S." painted upon them, which sight gave some three-day investigator +material to charge the I. C. C. with untold waste); all now soon to be +removed by a Chicago wrecking company. +</P> + +<P> +Then all the town must be done again—"back calls." By this time so +wide and varied was my acquaintance in Empire that wenches withdrew a +dripping hand from their tubs to wave at me with a sympathetic giggle, +and piccaninnies ran out to meet me as I returned in quest of one +missing inmate in a house of fifty. For the few laborers still uncaught +I took to coming after dark. But West Indians rarely own lamps, not +even the brass tax-numbers above the doors were visible, and as for a +negro in the dark— +</P> + +<P> +Absurd rumors had begun early to circulate among the darker brethren. +In all negrodom the conviction became general that this individual +detailed catechising and house-branding was really a government scheme +to get lists of persons due for deportation, either for lack of work as +the canal neared completion or for looseness of marital relations. +Hardly a tenement did I enter but laughing voices bandied back and +forth and there echoed and reechoed through the building such remarks +as: +</P> + +<P> +"Well, dey gon' sen' us home, Penelope," or "Yo an' Percival better +hurry up an' git married, Ambrosia." +</P> + +<P> +Several dusky females regularly ran away whenever I approached; one at +least I came a-seeking in vain nine times, and found her the tenth +behind a garbage barrel. Many fancied the secret marks on the +"enumerated" tag—date, and initials of the enumerator—were intimately +concerned with their fate. So strong is the fear of the law imbued by +the Zone Police that they dared not tear down the dreaded placard, but +would sometimes sit staring at it for hours striving to penetrate its +secret or exorcise away its power of evil, and now and then some bolder +spirit ventured out—at midnight—with a pencil and put tails and extra +flourishes on the penciled letters in the hope of disguising them +against the fatal day. +</P> + +<P> +Except for the chaos of nationalities and types on the Zone, +enumerating would have become more than monotonous. But the enumerated +took care to break the monotony. There was the wealth of nomenclature +for instance. What more striking than a shining-black waiter strutting +proudly about under the name of Levi McCarthy? There was no necessity +of asking Beresford Plantaganet if he were a British subject. Naturally +the mother of Hazarmaneth Cumberbath Smith, baptized that very week, +had to claw out the family Bible from among the bed-clothes and look up +the name on the fly-leaf. +</P> + +<P> +To the enumerator, who must set down concise and exact answers to each +of his questions, fifty or sixty daily scenes and replies something +like these were delightful; +</P> + +<P> +Enumerator (sitting down on the edge of a barrel): "How many living in +this room?" +</P> + +<P> +Explosive laughter from the buxom, jet-black woman addressed. +</P> + +<P> +Enumerator (on a venture): "What's the man's name?" +</P> + +<P> +"He name 'Rasmus Iggleston." +</P> + +<P> +"What's his metal-check number?" +</P> + +<P> +"Lard, mahster, ah don' know he check number." +</P> + +<P> +"Haven't you a commissary-book with it in?" +</P> + +<P> +"Lard no, mah love, commissary-book him feeneesh already befo' las' +week." +</P> + +<P> +"Is he a Jamaican?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, him a Mont-rat, mahster." (Monsterratian.) +</P> + +<P> +"What color is he?" +</P> + +<P> +"Te! He! Wha' fo' yo as' all dem questions, mahster?" +</P> + +<P> +"For instance." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, him jes' a pitch darker'n me." +</P> + +<P> +"How old is he?" +</P> + +<P> +(Loud laughter) "Law', ah don' know how ol' him are!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, about how old?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, him a ripe man, mah love, him a prime man." +</P> + +<P> +"Is he older than you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes, him older 'n me." +</P> + +<P> +"And how old are you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Te! He! 'Deed ah don' know how ol' ah is; ah gone los' mah age paper." +</P> + +<P> +"Is he married?" +</P> + +<P> +(Quickly and with very grave face) "Oh, yes indeed, mahster, Ah his +sure 'nough wife." +</P> + +<P> +"Can he read?" +</P> + +<P> +(Hesitatingly) "Er—a leetle, sir, not too much, sir." (Which generally +means he can spell out a few words of one syllable and make some sort +of mark representing his name.) +</P> + +<P> +"What kind of work does he do?" +</P> + +<P> +(Haughtily) "Him employed by de I. C. C." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, naturally. But what kind of work does he do. Is he a laborer?" +</P> + +<P> +(Quickly and very impressively) "Laborer! Oh, no, mah sweet mahster, he +jes' shovel away de dirt befo' de steam shovel." +</P> + +<P> +"All right. That 'll do for 'Rasmus. Now your name?" +</P> + +<P> +"Mah name Mistress Jane Iggleston." +</P> + +<P> +"How long have you lived on the Canal Zone?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, not too long, mah love." +</P> + +<P> +"Since when have you lived in this house?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, we don' come to dis house too long, sah." +</P> + +<P> +"Can you read and write?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, ah don' stay in Jamaica. Ah come to Panama when ah small." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you do any work besides your own housework?" +</P> + +<P> +(Evasively) "Work? If ah does any work? No, not any." +</P> + +<P> +Enumerator looks hard from her to washtub. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah—er—oh, ah washes a couple o' gentlemen's clot'es." +</P> + +<P> +"Very good. Now then, how many children?" +</P> + +<P> +"We don' git no children, sah." +</P> + +<P> +"What! How did that happen?" +</P> + +<P> +Loud, house-shaking laughter. +</P> + +<P> +Enumerator (looking at watch and finding it 12:10): "Well, good +afternoon." +</P> + +<P> +"Good evenin', sah. Thank you, sah. Te! He!" +</P> + +<P> +Variations on the above might fill many pages: +</P> + +<P> +"How old are you?" +</P> + +<P> +Self-appointed interpreter of the same shade; "He as' how old is yo?" +</P> + +<P> +"How old <I>I</I> are? Ah don rightly know mah age, mahster, mah mother +never tol' me." +</P> + +<P> +St. Lucian woman, evidently about forty-five, after deep thought, +plainly anxious to be as truthful as possible: "Er—ah's twenty, sir." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, you're older than that. About sixty, say?" +</P> + +<P> +"'Bout dat, sah." +</P> + +<P> +"Are you married?" +</P> + +<P> +(Pushing the children out of the way.) "N-not as yet, mah sweet +mahster, bu-but—but we go 'n' be soon, sah." +</P> + +<P> +To a Barbadian woman of forty: "Just you and your daughter live here?" +</P> + +<P> +"Dat's all, sir." +</P> + +<P> +"Doesn't your husband live here?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, ah don't never marry as yet, sah." +</P> + +<P> +Anent the old saying about the partnership of life and hope. +</P> + +<P> +To a Dominican woman of fifty-two, toothless and pitted with small-pox: +"Are you married?" +</P> + +<P> +(With simpering smile) "Not as yet, mah sweet mahster." +</P> + +<P> +To a Jamaican youth; +</P> + +<P> +"How many people live in this room?" +</P> + +<P> +"Three persons live here, sir." +</P> + +<P> +"I stand grammatically corrected. When did you move here?" +</P> + +<P> +"We remove here in April." +</P> + +<P> +"Again I apologize for my mere American grammar. Now, Henry, what is +your room-mate's name?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, we calls him Ethel, but I don't know his right title. +Peradventure he will not work this evening [afternoon] and you can ask +him from himself." +</P> + +<P> +"Do his parents live on the Zone?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes, sah, he has one father and one mother." +</P> + +<P> +An answer: "Why HIMSELF [emphatic subject pronoun among Barbadians] +didn't know if he'd get a job." +</P> + +<P> +To a six-foot black giant working as night-hostler of steam-shovels: +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Josiah, I suppose you're a Jamaican?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes, boss, ah work in Kingston ten years as a bar-maid." +</P> + +<P> +"Married?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, boss, ah's not 'xactly married. Ah's livin' with a person." +</P> + +<P> +A colored family: +</P> + +<P> +Sarah Green, very black, has a child named Edward White, and is now +living with Henry Brown, a light yellow negro. +</P> + +<P> +West Indian wit: +</P> + +<P> +A shop-sign in Empire: "Don't ask for credit. He is gone on vacation +since January 1, 1912." +</P> + +<P> +Laughter and carefree countenances are legion in the West Indian ranks, +children seem never to be punished, and to all appearances man and wife +live commonly in peace and harmony. Dr. O—— tells the following +story, however: +</P> + +<P> +In his rounds he came upon a negro beating his wife and had him placed +under arrest. The negro: "Why, boss, can't a man chastize his wife when +she desarves and needs it?" +</P> + +<P> +Dr. O——: "Not on the Canal Zone. It's against the law." +</P> + +<P> +Negro (in great astonishment): "Is dat so, boss. Den ah'll never do it +again, boss—on de Canal Zone." +</P> + +<P> +One morning in the heart of Empire a noise not unlike that of a rocky +waterfall began to grow upon my ear. Louder and louder it swelled as I +worked slowly forward. At last I discovered its source. In a lower room +of a tenement an old white-haired Jamaican had fitted up a private +school, to which the elite among the darker brethren sent their +children, rather than patronize the common public schools Uncle Sam +provides free to all Zone residents. The old man sat before some twenty +wide-eyed children, one of whom stood slouch-shouldered, book in hand, +in the center of the room, and at regular intervals of not more than +twenty seconds he shouted high above all other noises of the +neighborhood: +</P> + +<P> +"Yo calls dat Eng-leesh! How eber yo gon' l'arn talk proper lika dat, +yo tell me?" +</P> + +<P> +Far back in the interior of an Empire block I came upon an old, old +negro woman, parchment-skinned and doddering, living alone in a +stoop-shouldered shanty of boxes and tin cans. "Ah don' know how ol' ah +is, mahster," was one of her replies, "but ah born six years befo' de +cholera diskivered." +</P> + +<P> +"When did you come to Panama?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah don' know, but it a long time ago." +</P> + +<P> +"Before the Americans, perhaps?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, long befo'! De French ain't only jes' begin to dig. Ah's ashamed +to say how long ah been here" (just why was not evident, unless she +fancied she should long ago have made her fortune and left). "Is you a +American? Well, de Americans sure have done one thing. Dey mak' dis +country civilize. Why, chil', befo' dey come we have all de time here +revolutions. Ah couldn't count to how many revolutions we had, an' +ebery time dey steal all what we have. Dey even steal mah clothes. Ah +sure glad fo' one de Americans come." +</P> + +<P> +It was during my Empire enumerating that I was startled one morning to +burst suddenly from the tawdry, junk-jumbled rooms of negroes into a +bare-floored, freshly scrubbed room containing some very clean cots, a +small table and a hammock, and a general air of frankness and +simplicity, with no attempt to disguise the commonplace. At the table +sat a Spaniard in worn but newly washed working-clothes, book in hand. +I sat down and, falling unconsciously into the "th" pronunciation of +the Castilian, began blithely to reel off the questions that had grown +so automatic. +</P> + +<P> +"Name?"-;-Federico Malero. "Check Number?"—"Can you read?" "A little." +The barest suggestion of amusement in his voice caused me to look up +quickly. "My library," he said, with the ghost of a weird smile, +nodding his head slightly toward an unpainted shelf made of pieces of +dynamite boxes, "Mine and my room-mates." The shelf was filled with +four—REAL Barcelona paper editions of Hegel, Fichte, Spencer, Huxley, +and a half-dozen others accustomed to sit in the same company, all +dog-eared with much reading. +</P> + +<P> +"Some ambitious foreman," I mused, and went on with my queries: +</P> + +<P> +"Occupation?" +</P> + +<P> +"Pico y pala," he answered. +</P> + +<P> +"Pick and shovel!" I exclaimed—"and read those?" +</P> + +<P> +"No importa," he answered, again with that elusive shadow of a smile, +"It doesn't matter," and as I rose to leave, "Buenos dias, senor," and +he turned again to his reading. +</P> + +<P> +I plunged into the jumble of negroes next door, putting my questions +and setting down the answers without even hearing them, my thoughts +still back in the clean, bare room behind, wondering whether I should +not have been wiser after all to have ignored the sharp-drawn lines and +the prejudices of my fellow-countrymen and joined the pick and shovel +Zone world. There might have been pay dirt there. A few months before, +I remembered, a Spanish laborer killed in a dynamite explosion in the +"cut" had turned out to be one of Spain's most celebrated lawyers. I +recalled that EL UNICO, the anarchist Spanish weekly published in +Miraflores contains some crystal-clear thinking set forth in a +sharp-cut manner that shows a real inside knowledge of the "job" and +the canal workers, however little one may agree with its philosophy and +methods. +</P> + +<P> +Then it was due to the law of contrasts, I suppose, that the thought of +"Tom," my room-mate, suddenly flashed upon me; and I discovered myself +chuckling at the picture, "Tom, the Rough-neck," to whom all such as +Federico Malero with his pick and shovel were mere "silver men," on +whom "Tom" looked down from his high perch on his steam-shovel as far +less worthy of notice than the rock he was clawing out of the hillside. +How many a silent chuckle and how many a covert sneer must the Maleros +on the Zone indulge in at the pompous airs of some American ostensibly +far above them. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap03"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER III +</H3> + +<P> +Meanwhile my fellow enumerators were reporting troubles "in the bush." +I heard particularly those of two of the Marines, "Mac" and Renson, +merry, good-natured, earnest-by-spurts, even modest fellows quite +different from what I had hitherto pictured as an enlisted man. +</P> + +<P> +"Mac" was a half and half of Scotch and Italian. Naturally he was +constantly effervescing, both verbally and temperamentally, his +snapping black eyes were never still, life played across his excitable, +sunny boyish face like cloud shadows on a mountain landscape, whoever +would speak to him at any length must catch him in a vice-like grip and +hold his attention by main force. He spoke with a funny little +almost-foreign accent, was touching on forty, and was the youngest man +at that age in the length and breadth of the Canal Zone. +</P> + +<P> +At first sight you would take "Mac" for a mere roustabout, like most +who go a'soldiering. But before long you'd begin to wonder where he got +his rich and fluent vocabulary and his warehouse of information. Then +you'd run across the fact that he had once finished a course in a +middle-western university—and forgotten it. The schools had left +little of their blighting mark upon him, yet "pump" "Mac" on any +subject from rapid-fire guns to grand opera and you'd get at least a +reasonable answer. Though you wouldn't guess the knowledge was there +unless you did pump for it, for "Mac" was not of the type of those who +overwork the first person pronoun, not because of foolish diffidence +but merely because it rarely occurred to him as a subject of +conversation. Seventeen years in the marine corps—you were sure he was +"jollying" when he first said it—had taken "Mac" to most places where +warships go, from Pekin and "the Islands" to Cape Town and Buenos +Ayres, and given him not merely an acquaintance with the world +but—what is far more of an acquisition—the gift of getting acquainted +in almost any stratum of the world in the briefest possible space of +time. +</P> + +<P> +"Mac" spoke not only his English and Italian but a fluent "Islands" +Spanish; he knew enough French to talk even to Martiniques, and he +could moreover make two distinct sets of noises that were understood by +Chinese and Japanese respectively. He was a man just reckless enough in +all things to be generous and alive, yet never foolishly wasteful +either of himself or his meager substance. "Mac" first rose to fame in +the census department by appearing one afternoon at Empire police +station dragging a "bush" native by the scruff of the neck with one +hand, and carrying in the other the machete with which the bushman had +tried to prove he was a Colombian and not subject to questioning by the +agents of other powers. +</P> + +<P> +Renson—well, Renson was in some ways "Mac's" exact antithesis and in +some his twin brother. He was one of those youths who believe in +spending prodigally and in all possible haste what little nature has +given them. Wherefore, though he was younger than "Mac" appeared to be, +he already looked older than "Mac" was. In Zone parlance "he had +already laid a good share of the road to Hell behind him." Yet such a +cheery, likable chap was Renson, so large-hearted and unassuming—that +was just why you felt an itching to seize him by the collar of his +olive-drab shirt and shake him till his teeth rattled for tossing +himself so wantonly to the infernal bow-wows. +</P> + +<P> +Renson's "bush" troubles were legion. Not only were there the seducing +brown "Spigoty" women out in the wilderness to help him on his +descending trail, but when and wherever fire-water of whatever +nationality or degree of voltage showed its neck—and it is to be found +even in "the bush"—there was Renson sure to give battle—and fall. +"It's no use bein' a man unless you're a hell of a man," was Renson's +"influenced" philosophy. How different this was from his native good +sense when the influence was turned off was demonstrated when he +returned from cautiously reconnoitering a cottage far back in the wilds +one dark night and reported as his reason for postponing the +enumerating: "If you'd butt in on one o' them Martinique booze +festivals they'd crown you with a bottle." +</P> + +<P> +Already one or two enumerators had gone back to private life—by +request. Particularly sad was the case of our dainty, blue-blooded +Panamanian. As with many Panamanians, and not a few of the self-exalted +elsewhere, he was more burdened with blue corpuscles than with gray +matter. At any rate— +</P> + +<P> +On our cards, after the query "Color?" was a small space, a very small +space in which was to be written quite briefly and unceremoniously "W," +"B," or "Mx" as the case might be. Uncle Sam was in a hurry for his +census. Early one afternoon our Panamanian helpmate burst upon one of +his numerous aristocratic relatives in his royal thatched domains in +the ancestral bush. When he had embraced him the customary fifteen +times on the right side and the fifteen accustomed times on the left +side, and had performed the eighty-five gestures of greeting required +by the social manual of the bush, and asked the three hundred and +sixty-five questions de rigueur regarding the honorable health of his +honorable horde of offspring, and his eye had fallen again on the red +cards in his hand, the fact struck him that the relative was of +precisely the same shade of complexion as himself. Could he set him +down as he had many a mere red-blooded person and thereby perhaps +establish a precedent that might result in his own mortification? Yet +could he stretch a shade—or several shades—and set him down as +"white"? No, there was the oath of office, and the government that +administered it had been found long-armed and Argus-eyed. Long he sat +in deepest meditation. Being a Panamanian, he could not of course know +that Uncle Sam was in a hurry for his census. Till at length, as the +sun was firing the western jungle tree-tops, a scintillating idea +rewarded his unwonted cogitation. He caught up the medium soft pencil +and wrote in aristocratic hand down across the sheet where other +information is supposed to find place: +</P> + +<P> +"Color;—A very light mixture," and taking his leave with the requisite +seventy-five gestures and genuflexions, he drifted Empireward with the +dozen cards the day had yielded. +</P> + +<P> +Which is why I was shocked next morning by the disrespectful report of +Renson that "my friend the boss had tied a can to the Spig's tail," and +our dainty and lamented comrade went back to the more fitting +blue-blood occupation of swinging a cane in the lobbies of Panama's +famous hostelries. +</P> + +<P> +But what mattered such small losses? Had not "Scotty" been engaged to +fill the breach—or all of them, one or two breaches more or less made +small difference to "Scotty." He was a cozy little barrel of a man, +born in "Doombahrton," and for some years past had been dispensing good +old Dumbarton English in Panama's proudest educational institution. But +Panama's school vacation is during her "summer," her dry season from +February to April. What more natural then than that "Scotty" should +have concluded to pass his vacation taking census, for obviously—"a +mon must pick up a wee bit o' change wherever he can." +</P> + +<P> +I seemed to have been appointed to a purely sight-seeing job. One +February noon I reported at the office to find that passes to Gatun had +been issued to five of us, "Scotty," "Mac," Renson, and Barter among +the number. The task in the "town by the dam site" it seemed, was +proving too heavy for the regular enumerators of that district. +</P> + +<P> +We left by the 2:10 train. Cascadas and Bas Obispo rolled away behind +us, across the canal I caught a glimpse of the wilderness surrounding +the abode of "Old Fritz," then we entered a to me unknown land. I could +easily have fancied myself a tourist, especially so at Matachin when +"Mac" solemnly attempted to "spring" on me the old tourist hoax of +suicided Chinamen as the derivation of the town's name. Through +Gorgona, the Pittsburg of the Zone with its acres of machine-shops, +rumbled the train and plunged beyond into a deep, if not exactly rank, +endless jungle. The stations grew small and unimportant. Bailamonos and +San Pablo were withering and wasting away, "'Orca L'garto," or the +Hanged Alligator was barely more than a memory, Tabernilla a mere heap +of lumber being tumbled on flatcars bound for new service further +Pacificward. Of Frijoles there remained barely enough to shudder at, +with the collector's nasal bawl of "Free Holys!" and everywhere the +irrepressible tropical greenery was already rushing back to engulf the +pigmy works of man. It seemed criminally wasteful to have built these +entire towns with all the detail and machinery of a well governed and +fully furnished city from police station to salt cellars only to tear +them down again and utterly wipe them out four or five years after +their founding. A forerunner of what, in a few brief years, will have +happened to all the Zone—nay, is not this the way of life itself? +</P> + +<P> +For soon the Spillway at Gatun is to close its gates and all this vast +region will be flooded and come to be Gatun Lake. Villages that were +old when Pizarro began his swine-herding will be wiped out, even this +splendid double-tracked railroad goes the way of the rest, for on +February fifteenth, a bare few days away, it was to be abandoned and +where we were now racing northwestward through brilliant sunshine and +Atlantic breezes would soon be the bottom of a lake over which great +ocean steamers will glide, while far below will be tall palm-trees and +the spreading mangoes, the banana, king of weeds, gigantic ferns +and—well, who shall say what will become of the brilliant parrots, the +monkeys and the jaguars? +</P> + +<P> +For nearly an hour we had not a glimpse of the canal, lost in the +jungle to the right. Then suddenly we burst out upon the growing lake, +now all but licking at the rails beneath us, the Zone city of Gatun +climbing up a hillside on its edge and scattering over several more. To +the left I caught my first sight of the world-famous locks and dam, and +at 3:30 we descended at the stone station, first mile-post of +permanency, for being out of reach of the coming flood it is built to +stay and shows what Canal Zone stations will be in the years to come. +There remained for me but seven miles of the Isthmus still unseen. +</P> + +<P> +On the cement platform was a great foregathering of the census clans +from all districts, whence we climbed to the broad porch of the +administration building above. There before me, for the first time +in—well, many months, spread the Atlantic, the Caribbean perhaps I +should say, seeming very near, so near I almost fancied I could have +thrown a stone to where it began and stretched away up to the bluish +horizon, while the entrance to the canal where soon great ships will +enter poked its way inland to the locks beside us. Across the tree-tops +of the flat jungle, also seeming close at hand though the railroad +takes seven miles—and thirty-five cents if you are no employee—to +reach it, was Colon, the tops of whose low buildings were plainly +visible above the vegetation. Not many "Zoners," I reflected, catch +their first view of Colon from the veranda of the Administration +Building at Gatun. +</P> + +<P> +We had arrived with time to spare. Fully an hour we loafed and yarned +and smoked before a whistle blew and long lines of little figures began +to come up out of the depths and zigzag across the landscape until soon +a line of laborers of every shade known to humanity began to form, +pay-checks in hand; its double head at the pay-windows on the two sides +of the veranda, its tail serpentining off down the hillside and away +nearly to the edge of the mammoth locks. Packs of the yellow cards of +Cristobal district in hand—a relief to eyes that had been staring for +days at the pink ones of Empire—we lined up like birds of prey just +beyond the windows. As the first laborer passed this, one—nay, several +of us pounced upon him, for all plans we had laid to line up and take +turns were thus quickly overthrown and wild competition soon reigned. +From then on each dived in to snatch his prey and, dragging him to the +nearest free space, began in some language or other: "Where d'ye live?" +</P> + +<P> +That was the overwhelming problem,—in what language to address each +victim. Barter, speaking only his nasal New Jersey, took to picking out +negroes, and even then often turned away in disgust when he landed a +Martinique or a Haytian. West Indian "English" alternated with a black +patois that smelt at times faintly of French, muscular, bullet-headed +negroes appeared slowly and laboriously counting their money in their +hats, eagle-nosed Spaniards under the boina of the Pyrenees, Spaniards +from Castile speaking like a gatling-gun in action, now and again even +a snappy-eyed Andalusian with his s-less slurred speech, slow, +laborious Gallegos, Italians and Portuguese in numbers, Colombians of +nondescript color, a Slovak who spoke some German, a man from Palestine +with a mixture of French and Arabic noises I could guess at, and +scattered here and there among the others a Turk who jabbered the +lingua franca of Mediterranean ports. I "got" all who fell into my +hands. Once I dragged forth a Hindu, and shuddered with fear of a first +failure. But he knew a bit of a strange English and I found I recalled +six or seven words of my forgotten Hindustanee. +</P> + +<P> +Then suddenly a flood of Greeks broke upon us, growing deeper with +every moment. Above the pandemonium my companions were howling hoarsely +and imploringly for the interpreter, while clutching their trembling +victim by the slack of his labor-stained shirt lest he escape +un-enrolled. The interpreter, in accordance with a well-known law of +physics and the limitations of human nature, could not be in sixteen +places at once. I crowded close, caught his words, memorized the few +questions, and there was I with my "Poomaynes?" "Poseeton?" and +"Padremaynos?" enrolling Greeks unassisted, not only that but haughtily +acting as interpreter for my fellows—not only without having studied +the tongue of Achilles but never even having graced a Greek letter +fraternity. +</P> + +<P> +Quick tropical twilight descended, and still the labor-smeared line +wound away out of sight into the darkness, still workmen of every shade +and tongue jingled their brass-checks timidly on the edge of the +pay-window, from behind which came roaring noises that the Americans +within fancied Spaniards, or Greeks, or Roumanians must understand +because they were not English noises; still we pounced upon the paid as +upon a tackling-dummy in the early days of spring practice. +</P> + +<P> +The colossal wonder of it all was how these deep-chested, +muscle-knotted fellows endured us, how they refrained from taking us up +between a thumb and forefinger and dropping us over the veranda +railing. For our attack lacked somewhat in gentle courtesy, notably so +that of "the Rowdy." He was a chestless youth of the type that has +grown so painfully prevalent in our land since the soft-hearted +abolishment of the beech-rod of revered memory; of that all too +familiar type whose proofs of manhood are cigarettes and impudence and +discordant noise, and whose national superiority is demonstrated by the +maltreating of all other races. But the enrolled were all, black, +white, or mixed, far more gentlemen than we. Some, of brief Zone +experience, were sheepish with fear and the wonder as to what new +mandate this incomprehensible U. S. was perpetrating to match its +strange sanitary laws that forbade a man even to be uncleanly in his +habits, after the good old sacred right of his ancestors to remotest +ages. Then, too, there was a Zone policeman in dressy, new-starched +khaki treading with dangling club and the icy-eye of public appearance, +waiting all too eagerly for some one to "start something." But the +great percentage of the maltreated multitude were "Old Timers," men of +four or five years of digging who had learned to know this strange +creature, the American, and the world, too; who smiled indulgently down +upon our yelping and yanking like a St. Bernard above the snapping +puppy he well knows cannot seriously bite him. +</P> + +<P> +Dense black night had fallen. Here and there lanterns were hung, under +one of which we dragged each captive. The last passenger back to Empire +roared away into the jungle night; still we scribbled on, "backed" a +yellow card and dived again into the muscular whirlpool to emerge +dragging forth by the collar a Greek, a Pole, or a West Indian. It was +like business competition, in which I had an unfair advantage, being +able to understand any jargon in evidence. When at last the pay-windows +came down with a bang and an American curse, and the serpentining tail +squirmed for a time in distress and died away, as a snake's tail dies +after sundown, I turned in more than a hundred cards. To-morrow the +tail would revive to form the nucleus of a new serpent, and we should +return by the afternoon train to the lock city, and so on for several +days to come. +</P> + +<P> +It was after nine of a black pay-day night. We were hungry. "The +Rowdy," familiar with the lay of the land, volunteered to lead the +foraging expedition. We stumbled down the hill and away along the +railroad. A faint rumbling that grew to a confused roar fell on our +ears. We climbed a bank into a wild conglomeration of wood and tin +architecture, nationalities, colors, and noises, and across a dark, +bottomless gully from the high street we had reached lights flashed +amid a very ocean of uproar. "The Rowdy," as if to make the campaign as +real as possible, led us racing down into the black abyss, whence we +charged up the further slope and came sweating and breathless into the +rampant rough and tumble of pay-day night in New Gatun, the time and +place that is the vortex of trouble on the Isthmus. Merely a short +street of one of the half-dozen Zone towns in which liquor licenses are +granted, lined with a few saloons and pool-rooms; but such a singing, +howling, swarming multitude as is rivaled almost nowhere else, except +it be on Broadway at the passing of the old year. But this mob, +moreover, was fully seventy percent black, and rather largely +French—and when black and French and strong drink mix, trouble sprouts +like jungle seeds. Now and then Policeman G—— drifted by through the +uproar, holding his "sap" loosely as for ready use and often half +consciously hitching the heavy No. 38 "Colt" under his khaki jacket a +bit nearer the grasp of his right hand. I little knew how familiar +every corner of this scene would one day be to me. +</P> + +<P> +A Chinese grocer sold us bread and cheese. Down on the further corner +of the hubbub we entered a Spanish saloon and spread ourselves over the +"white" bar, adding beer to our humble collation. Beyond the +lattice-work that is the "color line" in Zone dispensaries, West +Indians were dancing wild, crowded "hoe-downs" and "shuffles" amid much +howling and more liquidation; on our side a few Spanish laborers +quietly sipped their liquor. The Marines of course were "busted." The +rest of us scraped up a few odd "Spigoty" dimes. The Spanish +bar-tender—who is never the "tough" his American counterpart strives +to show himself—but merely a cheery good-fellow—drifted into our +conversation, and when we found I had slept in his native village he +would have it that we accept a round of Valdepenas. Which must have +been potent, for it moved "Scotty" to unbutton an inner pocket and set +up an entire bottle of amontillado. So midnight was no great space off +when we turned out again into the howling night and, having helped +Renson to reach a sleeping-place, scattered to the bachelor quarters +that had been found for us and lay down for the few hours that remained +before the 5:51 should carry us back to Empire. +</P> + +<P> +At last I had crossed all the Isthmus and heard the wash of the +Caribbean at my feet. It was the Sunday following our Gatun days, and +nearly a month since my landing on the Zone. The morning train from +Empire left me at the lake-side city for a run over locks and dam which +the working days had not allowed, and there being no other train for +hours I set off along the railroad to walk the seven miles to Colon. On +either side lay hot, rampant jungle, low and almost swampy. It was noon +when I reached the broad railroad yards and Zone storehouses of Mt. +Hope and turned aside to Cristobal hotel. +</P> + +<P> +Cristobal is built on the very fringe of the ocean with the roll of +waves at the very edge of its windows, and a far-reaching view of the +Caribbean where the ceaseless Zone breeze is born. There stands the +famous statue of Columbus protecting the Indian maid, crude humor in +bronze; for Columbus brought Indian maids anything but protection. Near +at hand in the joyous tropical sunshine lay a great steamer that in +another week would be back in New York tying up in sleet and ice. A +western bronco and a lariat might perhaps have dragged me on board, +with a struggle. +</P> + +<P> +There is no more line of demarkation between Cristobal and Colon than +between Ancon and Panama. A khaki-clad Zone policeman patrols one +sidewalk, a black one in the sweltering dark blue uniform and heavy +wintry helmet of the Republic of Panama lounges on the other side of a +certain street; on one side are the "enumerated" tags of the census, on +the other none. Cross the street and you feel at once a foreigner. It +is distinctly unlawful to sell liquor on Sunday or to gamble at any +time on the Canal Zone; it is therefore with something approaching a +shock that one finds everything "wide open" and raging just across the +street. +</P> + +<P> +I wandered out past "Highball's" merry-go-round, where huge negro bucks +were laughing and playing and riding away their month's pay on the +wooden horses like the children they are, and so on to the edge of the +sea. Unlike Panama, Colon is flat and square-blocked, as it is +considerably darker in complexion with its large mixture of negroes +from the Caribbean shores and islands. Uncle Sam seems to have taken +the city's fine beach away from her. But then, she probably never took +any other advantage of it than to turn it into a garbage heap as bad as +once was Bottle Alley. On one end is a cement swimming pool with the +announcement, "Only for gold employees of the I. C. C. or P. R. R. and +guests of Washington Hotel." It is merely a softer way of saying, "Only +white Americans with money can bathe here." +</P> + +<P> +Then beyond are the great hospitals, second only to those of Ancon, the +"white" wards built out over the sea, and behind them the "black" where +the negroes must be content with second-hand breezes. Some of the costs +of the canal are here,—sturdy black men in a sort of bed-tick pajamas +sitting on the verandas or in wheel chairs, some with one leg gone, +some with both. One could not but wonder how it feels to be hopelessly +ruined in body early in life for helping to dig a ditch for a foreign +power that, however well it may treat you materially, cares not a +whistle-blast more for you than for its old worn-out locomotives +rusting away in the jungle. +</P> + +<P> +Under the beautiful royal palms beyond, all bent inland in the constant +breeze are park benches where one can sit with the Atlantic spreading +away to infinity before, breaking with its ages-old, mysterious roll on +the shore just as it did before the European's white sails first broke +the gleaming skyline. Out to sea runs the growing breakwater from Toro +Point, the great wireless tower, yet just across the bay on a little +jutting, dense-grown tongue of land is the jungle hut of a jungle +family as utterly untouched by civilization as was the verdant valley +of Typee on the day Melville and Toby came stumbling down into it from +the hills above. +</P> + +<P> +But meanwhile I was not getting the long hours of unbroken sleep the +heavy mental toil of enumeration requires. Free government bachelor +quarters makes strange bed-fellows—or at least room-fellows. +Quartermasters, like justice, are hopelessly blind or I might have been +assigned quarters upon the financial knoll where habits and hours were +a bit more in keeping with my own. But a bachelor is a bachelor on the +Zone, and though he be clerk to his highness "the Colonel" himself he +may find himself carelessly tossed into a "rough-neck" brotherhood. +</P> + +<P> +House 47 was distinctly an abode of "rough-necks." A "rough-neck," it +may be essential to explain to those who never ate at the same table +with one, is a bull-necked, whole-hearted, hard-headed, cast-iron +fellow who can ride the beam of a snorting, rock-tearing steam-shovel +all day, wrestle the night through with various starred Hennessey and +its rivals, and continue that round indefinitely without once failing +to turn up to straddle his beam in the morning. He seems to have been +created without the insertion of nerves, though he is never lacking in +"nerve." He is a fine fellow in his way, but you sometimes wish his way +branched off from yours for a few hours, when bed-time or a mood for +quiet musing comes. He is a man you are glad to meet in a saloon—if +you are in a mood to be there—or tearing away at the cliffs of +Culebra; but there are other places where he does not seem exactly to +fit into the landscape. +</P> + +<P> +House 47, I say, was a house of "rough-necks." That fact became +particularly evident soon after supper, when the seven phonographs were +striking up their seven kinds of ragtime on seven sides of us; and it +was the small hours before the poker games, carried on in much the same +spirit as Comanche warfare, broke up through all the house. Then, too, +many a "rough-neck" is far from silent even after he has fallen asleep; +and about the time complete quiet seemed to be settling down it was +four-thirty; and a jarring chorus of alarm-clocks wrought new upheaval. +</P> + +<P> +Then there was each individual annoyance. Let me barely mention two or +three. Of my room-mates, "Mitch" had sat at a locomotive throttle +fourteen years in the States and Mexico, besides the four years he had +been hauling dirt out of the "cut." Youthful ambition "Mitch" had left +behind, for though he could still look forward to forty, railroad rules +had so changed in the States during his absence that he would have had +to learn his trade over again to be able to "run" there. Moreover four +years on the Zone does not make a man look forward with pleasure to a +States winter. So "Mitch," like many another "Zoner," was planning to +buy with the savings of his $210 a month "when the job is done" a chunk +of land on some sunny slope of a southern state and settle down for an +easy descent through old age. There was nothing objectionable about +"Mitch"—except perhaps his preference for late-hour poker. But he had +a way of stopping with one leg out of his trousers when at last all the +house had calmed down and cots were ceasing to creak, to make some such +wholly irrelevant remark as; "By ——, that —— dispatcher give me 609 +to-day and she wouldn't pull a greased string out of a knot-hole"—and +thereby always hung a tale that was sure to range over half the track +mileage of the States and wander off somewhere into the sandy cactus +wilderness of Chihuahua at least before "Mitch" succeeded in getting +out of the other trouser leg. +</P> + +<P> +The cot directly across from my own groaned—occasionally—under the +coarse-grained bulk of Tom. Tom was a "rough-neck" par excellence, so +much so that even in a houseful of them he was known as "Tom the +Rough-neck," which to Tom was high tribute. Some preferred to call him +"Tom the Noisy." He was built like a steam caisson, or an oil-barrel, +though without fat, with a neck that reminded you of a Miura bull with +his head down just before the estoque; and when he neglected to button +his undershirt—a not infrequent oversight—he displayed the hairy +chest of a mammoth gorilla. +</P> + +<P> +Tom's philosophy of getting through life was exactly the same as his +philosophy of getting through a rocky hillside with his steam-shovel. +When it came to argument Tom was invariably right; not that he was +over-supplied with logic, but because he possessed a voice and the +bellows to work it that could rise to the roar of his own steam-shovel +on those weeks when he chose to enter the shovel competition, and would +have utterly overthrown, drowned out, and annihilated James Stewart +Mill himself. +</P> + +<P> +Tom always should have had money, for your "rough-neck" on the Zone has +decidedly the advantage over the white-collared college graduate when +the pay-car comes around. But of course being a genuine "rough-neck" +Tom was always deep in debt, except on the three days after pay-day, +when he was rolling in wealth. +</P> + +<P> +Once I fancied the bulk of my troubles was over. Tom disappeared, +leaving not a trace behind—except his working-clothes tumbled on and +about his cot. Then it turned out that he was not dead, but in Ancon +hospital taking the Keeley cure; and one summer evening he blew in +again, his "cure" effected—with a bottle in his coat pocket and two +inside his vest. So the next day there was Tom celebrating his recovery +all over House 47 and when next morning he did finally go back to his +shovel there were scattered about the room six empty quart bottles each +labeled "whiskey." Luckily Tom ran a shovel instead of a passenger +train and could claw away at his hillside as savagely as he chose +without any danger whatever, beyond that of killing himself or an odd +"nigger" or two. +</P> + +<P> +We had other treasures on exhibition in 47. There was "Shorty," for +instance. "Shorty" was a jolly, ugly open-handed, four-eyed little +snipe of a roughneck machinist who had lost "in the line of duty" two +fingers highly useful in his trade. In consequence he was now, after +the generous fashion of the I.C.C., on full pay for a year without +work, providing he did not leave the Zone. And while "Shorty," like the +great majority of us, was a very tolerable member of society under the +ordinary circumstances of having to earn his "three squares a day," +paid leisure hung most ponderously upon him. +</P> + +<P> +The amusements in Empire are few—and not especially amusing. There is +really only one unfailing one. That is slid in glass receptacles across +a yellow varnished counter down on Railroad Avenue opposite Empire +Machine Shops. So it happened that "Shorty" was gradually winning the +title of a thirty-third degree "booze-fighter," and passengers on any +afternoon train who took the trouble to glance in at a wide-open door +just Atlanticward of the station might have beheld him with his back to +the track and one foot slightly raised and resting lightly and with the +nonchalance of long practice on a gas-pipe that had missed its +legitimate mission. In fact "Shorty" had come to that point where he +would rather be caught in church than found dead without a bottle on +him, and arriving home overflowing with joy about midnight slept away +most of the day in 47 that he might spend as much of the night as the +early closing laws of the Zone permitted at the amusement headquarters +of Empire. +</P> + +<P> +With these few hints of the life that raged beneath the roof of 47 it +may perhaps be comprehensible, without going into detail, why I came to +contemplate a change of quarters. I detest a kicker. I have small use +for any but the man who will take his allotted share with the rest of +the world without either whining or snarling. Yet when an official +government census enumerator falls asleep on the edge of a tenement +washtub with a question dead on his lips, or solemnly sets down a +crow-black Jamaican as "white," it is Uncle Sam who is suffering and +time for correction. +</P> + +<P> +But it is one thing for a Canal Zone employee to resolve to move, and +quite another to carry out that resolution. Nero was a meek, +unassertive, submissive, tractable little chap, keenly sensible to the +sufferings of his fellows, compared with a Zone quartermaster. So the +first time I ventured to push open the screen door next to the post +office I was grateful to escape unmaimed. But at last, when I had done +a whole month's penance in 47, I resorted to strategy. On March first I +entered the dreaded precinct shielded behind "the boss" with his +contagious smile, and the musical quartermaster of Empire was +overthrown and defeated, and I marched forth clutching in one hand a +new "assignment to quarters." +</P> + +<P> +That night I moved. The new, or more properly the older, room was in +House 35, a one-story building of the old French type, many of which +the Americans revamped upon taking possession of the Isthmian +junk-heap, across and a bit down the graveled street. It was a single +room, with no roommate to question, which I might decorate and +otherwise embellish according to my own personal idiosyncrasies. At the +back, with a door between, dwelt the superintendent of the Zone +telephone system, with a convenient instrument on his table. In short, +fortune seemed at last to be grinning broadly upon me. +</P> + +<P> +But—the sequel. I hate to mention it. I won't. It's absurdly +commonplace. Commonplace? Not a bit of it. He was a champion, an artist +in his specialty. How can I have used that word in connection with his +incomparable performance? Or attempt to give a hint of life on the +Canal Zone without mentioning the most conspicuous factor in it? +</P> + +<P> +He lived in the next room south, a half-inch wooden partition reaching +half-way to the ceiling between his pillow and mine. By day he lay on +his back in the right hand seat of a locomotive cab with his hand on +the throttle and the soles of his shoes on the boiler plate—he was +just long enough to fit into that position without wrinkling. During +the early evening he lay on his back in a stout Mission rocking-chair +on the front porch of House 35, Empire, C.Z. And about 8 P. M. daily he +retired within to lie on his back on a regulation I.C.C. metal +cot—they are stoutly built—one pine half-inch from my own. Obviously +twenty-four hours a day of such onerous occupation had left some slight +effects on his figure. His shape was strikingly similar to that of a +push-ball. Had he fallen down at the top of Ancon or Balboa hill it +would have been an even bet whether he would have rolled down sidewise +or endwise—if his general type of build and specifications will permit +any such distinction. +</P> + +<P> +When I first came upon him, reposing serenely in the porch +rocking-chair on the cushion that upholstered his spinal column, I was +pleased. Clearly he was no "rough-neck"—he couldn't have been and kept +his figure. There was no question but that he was perfectly harmless; +his stories ought to prove cheerful and laugh-provoking and kindly. His +very presence seemed to promise to raise several degrees the merriment +in that corner of House 85. +</P> + +<P> +It did. Toward eight, as I have hinted, he transferred from +rocking-chair to cot. He was not afflicted with troublesome nerves. At +times he was an entire minute in falling asleep. Usually, however, his +time was something under the half; and he slept with the innocent, +undisturbed sleep of a babe for at least twelve unbroken hours, unless +the necessity of getting across the "cut" to his engine absolutely +prohibited. Just there was the trouble. His first gentle, slumberous +breath sounded like a small boy sliding down the sheet-iron roof of 35. +His second resembled a force of carpenters tearing out the half-grown +partitions. His third—but mere words are an absurdity. At times the +noises from his gorilla-like throat softened down till one merely +fancied himself in the hog-corral of a Chicago stockyards; at others we +prayed that we might at once be transferred there. A thousand times +during the night we were certain he was on the very point of choking to +death, and sat up in bed praying he wouldn't, and offering our month's +salary to charity if he would; and through all our fatiguing anguish he +snorted undisturbedly on. In House 35 he was known as "the Sloth." It +was a gentle and kindly title. +</P> + +<P> +There were a few inexperienced inmates who had not yet utterly given up +hope. The long hours of the night were spent in solemn conference. +Pounding on the walls with hammers, chairs, and shoe-heels was like +singing a lullaby. One genius invented a species of foghorn which +proved very effective—in waking up all Empire east of the tracks, +except "the Sloth." Some took to dropping their heavier and more +dispensable possessions over the partition. One memorable night a +fellow-sufferer cast over a young dry-goods box which, bouncing from +the snorer's figure to the floor, caused him to lose a beat—one; and +the feat is still one of the proud memories of 35. On Sundays when all +the rest of the world was up and shaved and breakfasted and off on the +8:39 of a brilliant, sunny day to Panama, "the Sloth" would be still +imperturbably snorting and choking in the depths of his cot. And in the +evening, as the train roamed back through the fresh cool jungle dusk +and deposited us at Empire station, and we crossed the wooden bridge +before the hotel and began to climb the graveled path behind, hoping +against hope that we might find crape on that door, from the night +ahead would break on our cars a sound as of a hippopotamus struggling +wildly against going down for the third and last time. +</P> + +<P> +Most annoying of all, "the Sloth" was not even a bona fide bachelor. He +proudly announced that, though he was a model of marital virtue, he had +not lived with his wife in many years. I never heard a man who knew him +by night ask why. It was close upon criminal negligence on the part of +the I.C.C. to overlook its opportunity in this matter. There were so +many, many uninhabited hilltops on the Zone where a private +Sloth-dwelling might have been slapped together from the remains of +falling towns at Gatun end; near it a grandstand might even have been +erected and admission charged. Or at least the daily climb to it would +have helped to reduce a push-ball figure, and thereby have improved the +general appearance of the Canal Zone force. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IV +</H3> + +<P> +One morning early in March "the boss" and I crossed the suspension +bridge over the canal. A handcar and six husky negroes awaited us, and +we were soon bumping away over temporary spurs through the jungle, to +strike at length the "relocation" opposite the giant tree near Bas +Obispo that marked the northern limit of our district. +</P> + +<P> +The P.R.R., you will recall, has been operating across the Isthmus +since 1855. When the United States took over the Zone in 1904 it built +a new double-tracked line of five-foot gauge for nearly the whole +forty-seven miles. Much of this, however, runs through territory soon +to be covered by Gatun Lake, nearly all the rest of it is on the wrong +side of the canal. An almost entirely new line, therefore, is being +built through the virgin jungle on the South American side of the +canal, which is to be the permanent line and is known in Zone parlance +as the "relocation." This is forty-nine miles in length from Panama to +Colon, and is single track only, as freight traffic especially is +expected, very naturally, to be lighter after the canal is opened. +Already that portion from the Chagres to the Atlantic had been put in +use—on February fifteenth, to be exact; and the time was not far off +when the section within our district—from Gamboa to Pedro +Miguel—would also be in operation. +</P> + +<P> +That portion runs through the wilderness a mile or more back from the +canal, through jungled hills so dense with vegetation one could only +make one's way through it with the ubiquitous machete of the native +jungle-dweller, except where tiny trails appear that lead to squatters' +thatched huts thrown together of tin, dynamite and dry-goods boxes and +jungle reeds in little scattered patches of clearing. Some of these +hills have been cut half away for the new line—great generous "cuts," +for to the giant 90-ton steam-shovels a few hundred cubic yards of +earth more or less is of slight importance. All else is virtually +impenetrable jungle. Travelers by rail across the Isthmus, as no doubt +many ships' passengers will be in the years to come while their steamer +is being slowly raised and lowered to and from the eighty-five-foot +lake, will see little of the canal,—a glimpse of the Bas Obispo "cut" +at Gamboa and little else from the time they leave Gatun till they +return to the present line at Pedro Miguel station. But in compensation +they will see some wondrous jungle scenery,—a tangled tropical +wilderness with great masses of bush flowers of brilliant hues, +gigantic ferns, countless palm and banana trees, wonderfully slender +arrow-straight trees rising smooth and branchless more than a hundred +feet to end in an immense bouquet of brilliant purplish-hue blossoms. +</P> + +<P> +"The boss" barely noticed these things. One quickly grows accustomed to +them. Why, Americans who have been down on the Zone for a year don't +know there's a palm-tree on the Isthmus—or at least they do not +remember there were no palm-trees in Keokuk, Iowa, when they left there. +</P> + +<P> +Along this new-graveled line, still unused except by work-trains, we +rode in our six negro-power car, dropping off in the gravel each time +we caught sight of any species of human being. Every little way was a +gang, averaging some thirty men, distinct in nationality,—Antiguans +shoveling gravel, Martiniques snarling and quarreling as they wallowed +thigh-deep in swamps and pools, a company of Greeks unloading +train-loads of ties, Spaniards leisurely but steadily grading and +surfacing, track bands of "Spigoties" chopping away the aggressive +jungle with their machetes—the one task at which the native Panamanian +(or Colombian, as many still call themselves) is worth his brass-check. +Every here and there we caught labor's odds and ends, diminutive +"water-boys," likewise of varying nationality, a negro switch-boy +dozing under the bit of shelter he had rigged up of jungle ferns, +frightening many a black laborer speechless as we pounced upon him +emerging from his "soldiering" in the jungle; occasionally even a +native bushman on his way to market from his palm-thatched home +generations old back in the bush, who has scarcely noticed yet that the +canal is being dug, fell into our hands and was inexorably set down in +spite of all protest unless he could prove beyond question that he had +already been "taken" or lived beyond the Zone line. +</P> + +<P> +Thus we scribbled incessantly on, even through the noon hour, dragging +gangs one by one away from their tasks, shaking laborers out of the +brief after-lunch siesta in a patch of shade. "The boss" was hampered +by having only two languages where ten were needed. In the early +afternoon he went on to Paraiso to feed himself and the traction power, +while I held the fort. Soon after rain fell, a sort of advance agent of +the rainy season, a sudden tropical downpour that ran in rivulets down +across the pink card-boards and my victims. Yet strange to note, the +writing of the medium soft pencil remained as clear and unsmudged as in +the driest weather, and so clean a rain was it that it did not even +soil my white cotton shirt. I continued unheeding, only to note with +surprise a few minutes later that the sun was shining on the dense +green jungle about me as brilliantly as ever and that I was dry again +as when I had set out in the morning. +</P> + +<P> +"The boss" returned, and when I had eaten the crackers and the bottle +of pink lemonade he brought, we pushed on toward the Pacific. Till at +length in mid-afternoon we came to the top of the descent to Pedro +Miguel and knew that the end of our district was at hand. So powerful +was the breeze from the Atlantic that our six man-power engine sweated +profusely as they toiled against it, even on the downgrade of the +return to Empire. +</P> + +<P> +To "Scotty" had been assigned my Empire "recalls" and I had been given +a new and virgin territory,—namely, the town of Paraiso. It lies +"somewhat back from the village street," that is, the P.R.R. Indeed, +trains do not deign to notice its existence except on Sundays. But +there is the temporary bridge over the canal which few engineers +venture to "snake her across" at any great speed, and the enumerator +housed in Empire need not even be a graduate "hobo" to be able to drop +off there a bit after seven in the morning and prance away up the +chamois path into the town. +</P> + +<P> +Wherever on the Zone you espy a town of two-story skeleton screened +buildings scattered over hills, with winding gravel roads and trees and +flowers between there you may be sure live American "gold" employees. +Yet somehow the Canal Commission had dodged the monotony you expected, +somehow they have broken up the grim lines that make so dismal the +best-intentioned factory town. There are hints that the builders have +heard somewhere of the science of landscape gardening. At times these +same houses are deceiving, for all I. C. C. buildings bear a strong +family resemblance, and it is only at the door that you know whether it +is bachelors' quarters, a family residence, or the supreme court. +</P> + +<P> +From the outside world "P'reeso" scarcely draws a glance of attention; +but once in it you find a whole Zone town with all the accustomed +paraphernalia of I. C. C. hotel and commissary, hospital and police +station, all ruled over and held in check by the famous "Colonel" in +command of the latter. Moreover Paraiso will some day come again into +her own, when the "relocation" opens and brings her back on the main +line, while proud Culebra and haughty Empire, stranded on a railless +shore of the canal, will wither and waste away and even their broad +macadamed roads will sink beneath a second-growth jungle. +</P> + +<P> +Renson had come to lend assistance. He set to work among the negro +cabins, the upper gallery seats of Paraiso's amphitheater of hills, for +Renson had been a free agent for more than a month now and was not +exactly in a condition to interview American housewives. My own task +began down at the row of inhabited box-cars, and so on through shacks +and tenements with many Spanish laborers' wives. Then toward noon the +labor-train screamed in, with two "gold" coaches and many open +cattle-cars with long benches jammed with sweaty workmen, easily six +hundred men in the six cars, who swept in upon the town like a flood +through a suddenly opened sluiceway as the train barely paused and +shrieked away again. +</P> + +<P> +Renson and I dashed for the laborers' mess-halls, where hundreds of +sun-bronzed foreigners, divided only as to color, packed pell-mell +around a score of wooden tables heavily stocked with rough and tumble +food—yet so different from the old French catch as catch can days when +each man owned his black pot and toiled all through the noon-hour to +cook himself an unsanitary lunch. We jotted them down at express speed, +with changes of tongue so abrupt that our heads were soon reeling, and +in the place where our minds should have been sounded only a confused +chaotic uproar like a wrangling within the covers of a polyglot +dictionary. Then suddenly I landed a Russian! It was the final straw. I +like to speak Spanish, I can endure the creaking of Turks attempting to +talk Italian, I can bend an ear to the excruciating "French" of +Martinique negroes, I have boldly faced sputtering Arabs, but I will +NOT run the risk of talking Russian. It was the second and last case +during my census days when I was forced to call for interpretative +assistance. +</P> + +<P> +At best we caught only a small percentage at each table before the +crowd had wolfed and melted away. An odd half dozen more, perhaps, we +found stretched out in the shade under the mess-hall and neighboring +quarters before the imperative screech of the labor-train whistle ended +a scene that must be several times repeated, and now left us silent and +alone, to wander wet and weary to the nearest white bachelor quarters, +there to lie on our backs an hour or more till the polyglot jumble of +words in the back of our heads had each climbed again to its proper +shelf. +</P> + +<P> +Speaking of white bachelor quarters, therein lay the enumerator's +greatest problem. The Spaniard or the Jamaican is in nine cases out of +ten fluently familiar with his companion's antecedents and pedigree. He +can generally furnish all the information the census department calls +for. But it is quite otherwise with the American bachelor. He may know +his room-mate's exact degree of skill at poker, he probably knows his +private opinion of "the Colonel," he is sure to know his degree of +enmity to the prohibition movement; but he is not at all certain to +know his name and rarely indeed has he the shadow of a notion when and +in what particular corner of the States he began the game of existence. +So loose are ties down on the Zone that a man's room-mate might go off +into the jungle and die and the former not dream of inquiring for him +for a week. Especially we world-wanderers, as are a large percentage of +"Zoners," with virtually no fixed roots in any soil, floating wherever +the job suggests or the spirit moves, have the facts of our past in our +own heads only. No wanderer of experience would dream of asking his +fellow where he came from. The answer would be too apt to be, "from the +last place." So difficult did this matter become that I gave up rushing +for the bus to Pedro Miguel each evening and the even more distressing +necessity of catching that premature 6:30 train each morning in Empire +and, packing a sheet and pillow and tooth-brush, moved down to Paraiso +that I might spend the first half of the night in quest of these +elusive bits of bachelor information. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile the enrolling by day continued unabated. I had my first +experience enumerating "gold" married quarters—white American +families; just enough for experience and not enough to suffer severely. +The enrolling of West Indians was pleasanter. The wives of locomotive +engineers and steam-shovel cranemen were not infrequently supercilious +ladies who resented being disturbed during their "social functions" and +lacked the training in politeness of Jamaican "mammies." Living in +Paradise now under a paternal all-providing government, they seemed to +have forgotten the rolling-pin days of the past. It was here in Paraiso +that I first encountered that strange, that wondrous strange custom of +lying about one's age. Negro women never did. What more absurd, +uncalled-for piece of dishonesty! Does Mrs. Smith fear that Mrs. Jones +next door will succeed in pumping out of me that capital bit of +information? Little does she know the long prison sentence at "hard +labor" that stares me in the face for any such slip; to say nothing of +my naturally incommunicative disposition. Or is she ashamed to let ME +know the truth?—unaware that all such information goes in at my ears +and down my pencil to the pink card before me like a message over the +wires, leaving no more trace behind. Surely she must know that I care +not a pencil-point whether she is eighteen or fifty-two, nor remember +which one minute after her screen door has slammed behind me—unless +she has caused me to glance up in wonder at her silvering temples of +thirty-five when she simpers "twenty-two"—and to set her down as forty +to be on the safe side. Oh now, please, ladies, do not understand me as +accusing the American wives of Paraiso in general of this weakness. The +large majority were quite pleasant, frank, and overflowing with cheery +good sense. But the percentage who were not was far larger than I, who +am also an American, was pleased to find it. +</P> + +<P> +But doubly astonishing were the few cases of lying by proxy. A +"clean-cut," college-graduated civil engineer of thirty-two whom one +would have cited as an example of the best type of American, gave all +data concerning himself in an unimpeachable manner. His wife was +absent. When the question of her age arose he gave it, with the +slightest catch in his voice, as twenty. Now that might be all very +well. Men of thirty-two are occasionally so fortunate as to marry girls +of twenty. But a moment later the gentleman in question finds himself +announcing that his wife has been living on the Zone with him since +1907; and that she was born in New England! Thus is he tripped over his +own clothes-line. For New England girls do not marry at fifteen; mother +would not let them even if they would. +</P> + +<P> +I, too, had gradually worked my way high up among the nondescript +cabins on the upper rim of Paraiso that seem on the very verge of +pitching headlong into the noisy, smoky canal far below with the jar of +the next explosion, when one sunny mid-afternoon I caught sight of +Renson dejectedly trudging down across what might be called the +"Maiden" of Paraiso, back of the two-story lodge-hall. I took leave of +my ebony hostess and descended. Renson's troubles were indeed +disheartening. Back in the jungled fringe of the town he had fallen +into a swarm of Martiniques, and Renson's French being nothing more +than an unstudied mixture of English and Spanish, he had not gathered +much information. Moreover negro women from the French isles are enough +to frighten any virtuous young Marine. +</P> + +<P> +"What's the sense o' me tryin' to chew the fat in French?" asked +Renson, with tears in his voice. "I ain't in no condition to work at +this census business any longer anyway. I ain't got to bed before three +in the morning this week"—in his air was open suggestion that it was +some one else's fault—"Some day I'll be gettin' in bad, too. This +mornin' a fool nigger woman asked me if I didn't want her black +pickaninny I was enumeratin', thinkin' it was a good joke. You know how +these bush kids is runnin' around all over the country before a white +man's brat could walk on its hind legs. 'Yes,' I says, 'if I was goin' +alligator huntin' an' needed bait!' I come near catchin' the brat up by +the feet an' beatin' its can off. I'm out o' luck any way, an'—" +</P> + +<P> +The fact is Renson was aching to be "fired." More than thirty days had +he been subject only to his own will, and it was high time he returned +to the nursery discipline of camp. Moreover he was out of cigarettes. I +slipped him one and smoothed him down as its fumes grew—for Renson was +as tractable as a child, rightly treated—and set him to taking +Jamaican tenements in the center of town, while I struck off into the +jungled Martinique hills myself. +</P> + +<P> +There were signs abroad that the census job was drawing to a close. My +first pay-day had already come and gone and I had strolled up the +gravel walk one noon-day to the Disembursing Office with my yellow pay +certificate duly initialed by the examiner of accounts, and was handed +my first four twenty-dollar gold pieces—for hotel and commissary books +sadly reduce a good paycheck. Already one evening I had entered the +census office to find "the boss" just peeling off his sweat-dripping +undershirt and dotted with skin-pricking jungle life after a day +mule-back on the thither side of the canal; an utterly fruitless day, +for not only had he failed during eight hours of plunging through the +wilderness to find a single hut not already decorated with the +"enumerated" tag, but not even a banana could he lay hands on when the +noon-hour overhauled him far from the ministrations of "Ben" and the +breeze-swept veranda of Empire hotel. +</P> + +<P> +It was, I believe, the afternoon following Renson's linguistic troubles +that "the boss" came jogging into Paraiso on his sturdy mule. In his +eagerness to "clean up" the territory we fell to corraling negroes +everywhere, in the streets, at work, buying their supplies at the +commissary, sleeping in the shade of wayside trees, anywhere and +everywhere, until at last in his excitement "the boss" let his medium +soft pencil slip by the column for color and dashed down the +abbreviation for "mixed" after the question, "Married or Single?" Which +may have been near enough the truth of the case, but suggested it was +time to quit. So we marked Paraiso "finished except for recalls" and +returned to Empire. +</P> + +<P> +One by one our fellow-enumerators had dropped by the wayside, some by +mutual agreement, some without any agreement whatever. Renson was now +relieved from census duty, to his great joy, there remained but four of +us,—"the boss" and "Mac" in the office, "Scotty" and I outside. A deep +conference ensued and, as if I had not had good luck enough already, it +was decided that we two should go through the "cut" itself. It was like +offering us a salary to view all the Great Work in detail, for +virtually all the excavation of any importance on the Zone lay within +the confines of our district. +</P> + +<P> +So one day "Scotty" and I descended at the girderless railroad bridge +and, taking each one side of the canal, set out to canvass its every +nook and cranny. The canal as it then stood was about the width of two +city blocks, an immense chasm piled and tumbled with broken rock and +earth, in the center a ditch already filled with grimy water, on either +side several levels of rough rock ledges with sheer rugged stone faces; +for the hills were being cut away in layers each far above the other. +High above us rose the jagged walls of the "cut" with towns hanging by +their fingernails all along its edge, and ahead in the abysmal, smoky +distance the great channel gashed through Culebra mountain. +</P> + +<P> +The different levels varied from ten to twenty feet one above the +other, each with a railroad on it, back and forth along which +incessantly rumbled and screeched dirt-trains full or empty, halting +before the steam-shovels, that shivered and spouted thick black smoke +as they ate away the rocky hills and cast them in great giant handsful +on the train of one-sided flat-cars that moved forward bit by bit at +the flourish of the conductor's yellow flag. Steam-shovels that seemed +human in all except their mammoth fearless strength tore up the solid +rock with snorts of rage and the panting of industry, now and then +flinging some troublesome, stubborn boulder angrily upon the cars. Yet +they could be dainty as human fingers too, could pick up a railroad +spike or push a rock gently an inch further across the car. Each was +run by two white Americans, or at least what would prove such when they +reached the shower-bath in their quarters—the craneman far out on the +shovel arm, the engineer within the machine itself with a labyrinth of +levers demanding his unbroken attention. Then there was of course a +gang of negroes, firemen and the like, attached to each shovel. +</P> + +<P> +All the day through I climbed and scrambled back and forth between the +different levels, dodging from one track to another and along the rocky +floor of the canal, needing eyes and ears both in front and behind, not +merely for trains but for a hundred hidden and unknown dangers to keep +the nerves taut. Now and then a palatial motorcar, like some rail-road +breed of taxi, sped by with its musical insistent jingling bells, +usually with one of the countless parties of government guests or +tourists in spotless white which the dry season brings. Dirt-trains +kept the right of way, however, for the Work always comes first at +Panama. Or it might be the famous "yellow car" itself with members of +the Commission. Once it came all but empty and there dropped off +inconspicuously a man in baggy duck trousers, a black alpaca coat of +many wrinkles; and an unassuming straw hat, a white-haired man with +blue—almost babyish blue-eyes, a cigarette dangling from his lips as +he strolled about with restless yet quiet energy. There has been no +flash and glitter of military uniforms on the Zone since the French +sailed for home, but every one knew "the Colonel" for all that, the +soldier who has never "seen service," who has never heard the shrapnel +scream by overhead, yet to whom the world owes more thanks than six +conquering generals rolled into one. +</P> + +<P> +Scores of "trypod" and "Star" drills, whole battalions of deafening +machines run by compressed air brought from miles away, are pounding +and grinding and jamming holes in the living rock. After them will +presently come nonchalantly strolling along gangs of the ubiquitous +black "powder-men" and carelessly throw down boxes of dynamite and +pound the drill-holes full thereof and tamp them down ready to "blow" +at 11:30 and 5:30 when the workmen are out of range,—those mighty +explosions that twelve times a week set the porch chairs of every +I.C.C. house on the Isthmus to rocking, and are heard far out at sea. +</P> + +<P> +Anywhere near the drills is such a roaring and jangling that I must +bellow at the top of my voice to be heard at all. The entire gamut of +sound-waves surrounds and enfolds me, and with it all the powerful +Atlantic breeze sweeps deafeningly through the channel. Down in the +bottom of the canal if one step behind anything that shuts off the +breeze it is tropically hot; yet up on the edge of the chasm above, the +trees are always nodding and bowing before the ceaseless wind from off +the Caribbean. Scores of "switcheros" drowse under their sheet-iron +wigwams, erected not so much as protection from the sun, for the +drowsers are mostly negroes and immune to that, as from young rocks +that the dynamite blasts frequently toss a quarter-mile. Then over it +all hang heavy clouds of soft-coal dust from trains and shovels, +shifting down upon the black, white and mixed, and the enumerator +alike; a dirty, noisy, perilous, enjoyable job. +</P> + +<P> +Everywhere are gangs of men, sometimes two or three gangs working +together at the same task. Shovel gangs, track gangs, surfacing gangs, +dynamite gangs, gangs doing everything imaginable with shovel and pick +and crowbar, gangs down on the floor of the canal, gangs far up the +steep walls of cut rock, gangs stretching away in either direction till +those far off look like upright bands of the leaf-cutting ants of +Panamanian jungles; gangs nearly all, whatever their nationality, in +the blue shirts and khaki trousers of the Zone commissary, giving a +peculiar color scheme to all the scene. +</P> + +<P> +Now and then the boss is a stony-eyed American with a black cigar +clamped between his teeth. More often he is of the same nationality as +the workers, quite likely from the same town, who jabbers a little +imitation English. Which is one of the reasons why a force of "time +inspectors" is constantly dodging in and out over the job, time-book +and pencil in hand, lest some fellow-townsman of the boss be earning +his $1.50 a day under the shade of a tree back in the jungle. Here are +Basques in their boinas, preferring their native "Euscarra" to Spanish; +French "niggers" and English "niggers" whom it is to the interest of +peace and order to keep as far apart as possible; occasionally a few +sunburned blond men in a shovel gang, but they prove to be Teutons or +Scandinavians; laborers of every color and degree—except American +laborers, more than conspicuous by their absence. For the American +negro is an untractable creature in large numbers, and the caste system +that forbids white Americans from engaging in common labor side by side +with negroes is to be expected in an enterprise of which the leaders +are not only military men but largely southerners, however many may be +shivering in the streets of Chicago or roaming hungrily through the +byways of St. Louis. It is well so, perhaps. None of us who feels an +affection for the Zone would wish to see its atmosphere lowered from +what it is to the brutal depths of our railroad construction camps in +the States. +</P> + +<P> +The attention of certain state legislatures might advantageously be +called to the Zone Spaniard's drinking-cup. It is really a tin can on +the end of a long stick, cover and all. The top is punched sieve-like +that the water may enter as it is dipped in the bucket with which the +water-boy strains along. In the bottom is a single small hole out of +which spurts into the drinker's mouth a little stream of water as he +holds it high above his head, as once he drank wine from his leather +bota in far-off Spain. Many a Spanish gang comes entirely from the same +town, notably Salamanca or Avila. I set them to staring and chattering +by some simple remark about their birthplace: "Fine view from the Paseo +del Rastro, eh?" "Does the puente romano still cross the river?" But I +had soon to cease such personalities, for picks and shovels lay idle as +long as I remained in sight and Uncle Sam was the loser. +</P> + +<P> +So many were the gangs that I advanced barely a half-mile during this +first day and, lost in my work, forgot the hour until it was suddenly +recalled by the insistent, strident tooting of whistles that forewarns +the setting-off of the dynamite charges from the little red electric +boxes along the edge of the "cut." I turned back toward Paraiso and, +all but stumbling over little red-wound wires everywhere on the ground, +dodging in and out, running forward, halting or suddenly retreating, I +worked my way gradually forward, while all the world about me was +upheaving and spouting and belching forth to the heavens, as if I had +been caught in the crater of a volcano as it suddenly erupted without +warning. The history of Panama is strewn with "dynamite stories." Even +the French had theirs in their sixteen per cent, of the excavation of +Culebra; in American annals there is one for every week. Three days +before, one of my Empire friends set off one afternoon for a stroll +through the "cut" he had not seen for a year. In a retired spot he came +upon two negroes pounding an irregular bundle. "What you doing, boys?" +he inquired with idle curiosity. "Jes' a brealdn' up dis yere dynamite, +boss," languidly answered one of the blacks. My friend was one of those +apprehensive, over-cautious fellows so rare on the Zone. Without so +much as taking his leave he set off at a run. Some two car-lengths +beyond an explosion pitched him forward and all but lifted him off his +feet. When he looked back the negroes had left. Indeed neither of them +has reported for work since. +</P> + +<P> +Then there was "Mac's" case. In his ambition for census efficiency +"Mac" was in the habit of stopping workmen wherever he met them. One +day he encountered a Jamaican carrying a box of dynamite on his head +and, according to his custom, shouted: +</P> + +<P> +"Hey, boy! Had your census taken yet?" +</P> + +<P> +"What dat, boss?" cried the Jamaican with wide-open eyes, as he threw +the box at "Mac's" feet and stood at respectful attention. +</P> + +<P> +Somehow "Mac" lacked a bit of his old zealousness thereafter. +</P> + +<P> +On the second day I pushed past Cucaracha, scene of the greatest +"slide" in the history of the canal when forty-seven acres went into +the "cut," burying under untold tons of earth and rock steam-shovels +and railroads, "Star" and "trypod" drills, and all else in +sight—except the "rough-necks," who are far too fast on their feet to +be buried against their will. One by one I dragged shovel gangs away to +a distance where my shouting could be heard, one by one I commanded +drillmen to shut off their deafening machines, all day I dodged +switching, snorting trains, clambered by steep rocky paths, or ladders +from one level to another, howling above the roar of the "cut" the +time-worn questions, straining my ear to catch the answer. Many a negro +did not know the meaning of the word "census," and must have it +explained to him in words of one syllable. Many a time I climbed to +some lofty rock ledge lined with drills and, gesticulating like a +semaphore in signal practice, caught at last the wandering attention of +a negro, to shout sore-throated above the incessant pounding of +machines and the roaring of the Atlantic breeze: +</P> + +<P> +"Hello, boy! Census taken yet?" +</P> + +<P> +A long vacant stare, then at last, perhaps, the answer: +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes sah, boss." +</P> + +<P> +"When and where?" +</P> + +<P> +"In Spanish Town, Jamaica, three year ago, sah." +</P> + +<P> +Which was not an attempt to be facetious but an answer in all +seriousness. Why should not one census, like one baptism, suffice for a +life-time? It was fortunate that enumerators were not accustomed to +carry deadly weapons. +</P> + +<P> +Quick changes from negro to Spanish gangs demonstrated beyond all +future question how much more native intelligence has the white man. +Rarely did I need to ask a Spaniard a question twice, still less ask +him to repeat the answer. His replies came back sharp and swift as a +pelota from a cesta. West Indians not only must hear the question an +average of three times but could seldom give the simplest information +clearly enough to be intelligible, though ostensibly speaking English. +A Spanish card one might fill out and be gone in less time than the +negro could be roused from his racial torpor. Yet of the Spaniards on +the Zone surely seventy per cent, were wholly illiterate, while the +negroes from the British Weat Indies, thanks to their good fortune in +being ruled over by the world's best colonist, could almost invariably +read and write; many of those shoveling in the "cut" have been trained +in trigonometry. +</P> + +<P> +Few are the "Zoners" now who do not consider the Spaniard the best +workman ever imported in all the sixty-five years from the railroad +surveying to the completion of the canal. The stocky, muscle-bound +little fellows come no longer to America as conquistadores, but to +shovel dirt. And yet more cheery, willing workers, more law-abiding +subjects are scarcely to be found. It is unfortunate we could not have +imported Spaniards for all the canal work; even they have naturally +learned some "soldiering" from the example of lazy negroes who, where +laborers must be had, are a bit better than no labor—though not much. +</P> + +<P> +The third day came, and high above me towered the rock cliffs of +Culebra's palm-crowned hill, steam-shovels approaching the summit in +echelon, here and there an incipient earth and rock "slide" dribbling +warningly down. He who still fancies the digging of the canal an +ordinary task should have tramped with us through just our section, +halting to speak to every man in it, climbing out of this man-made +canon twice a day, a strenuous climb even near its ends, while at +Culebra one looks up at all but unscalable mountain walls on either +side. +</P> + +<P> +From time to time we hear murmurs from abroad that Americans are making +light of catastrophies on the Isthmus, that they cover up their great +disasters by a strict censorship of news. The latter is mere absurdity. +As to catastrophies, a great "slide" or a premature dynamite explosion +are serious disaster to Americans on the job just as they would be to +Europeans. But whereas the continental European would sit down before +the misfortune and weep, the American swears a round oath, spits on his +hands, and pitches in to shovel the "slide" out again. He isn't +belittling the disasters; it is merely that he knows the canal has got +to be dug and goes ahead and digs it. That is the greatest thing on the +Zone. Amid all the childish snarling of "Spigoties," the back-biting of +Europe, the congressional wrangles, the Cabinet politics, the man on +the job,—"the Colonel," the average American, the "rough-neck"—goes +right on digging the canal day by day as if he had never heard a rumor +of all this outside noise. +</P> + +<P> +Mighty is the job from one point of view; yet tiny from another. With +all his enormous equipment, his peerless ingenuity, and his feverish +activity all little man has succeeded in doing is to scratch a little +surface wound in Mother Earth, cutting open a few superficial veins, of +water, that trickle down the rocky face of the "cut." +</P> + +<P> +By March twelfth we had carried our task past and under Empire +suspension bridge, and the end of the "cut" was almost in sight. That +day I clawed and scrambled a score of times up the face of rock walls. +I zigzagged through long rows of negroes pounding holes in rock ledges. +I stumbled and splashed my way through gangs of Martinique "muckers." I +slid down the face of government-made cliffs on the seat of my +commissary breeches. I fought my way up again to stalk through long +lines of men picking away at the dizzy edge of sheer precipices. I +rolled down in the sand and rubble of what threatened to develop into +"slides." I crawled under snorting steam-shovels to drag out besooted +negroes—negroes so besooted I had to ask them their color—while +dodging the gigantic swinging shovel itself, to say nothing of "dhobie" +blasts and rocks of the size of drummers' trunks that spilled from it +as it swung. I climbed up into the quivering monster itself to +interrupt the engineer at his levers, to shout at the craneman on his +beam. I sprang aboard every train that was not running at full speed, +walking along the running-board into the cab; if not to "get" the +engineer at least to gain new life from his private ice-water tank. I +scrambled over tenders and quarter-miles of "Lidgerwood flats" piled +high with broken rock and earth, to scream at the American conductor +and his black brakemen, often to find myself, by the time I had set +down one of them, carried entirely out of my district, to Pedro Miguel +or beyond the Chagres, and have to "hit the grit" in "hobo" fashion and +catch something back to the spot where I left off. In short I poked +into every corner of the "cut" known to man, bawling in the +November-first voice of a presidential candidate to everything in +trousers: +</P> + +<P> +"Eh! 'Ad yer census taken yet?" +</P> + +<P> +And what was my reward? From the northern edge of Empire to where the +"cut" sinks away into the Chagres and the low, flat country beyond, I +enrolled—just thirteen persons. It was then and there, though it still +lacked an hour of noon, that I ceased to be a census enumerator. With +slow and deliberate step I climbed out of the canal and across a pathed +field to Bas Obispo and, sitting down in the shade of her station, +patiently awaited the train that would carry me back to Empire. +</P> + +<P> +Four thousand, six hundred and seventy-seven Zone residents had I +enrolled during those six weeks. Something over half of these were +Jamaicans. Of the states Pennsylvania was best represented. Martinique +negroes, Greeks, Spaniards, and Panamanians were some eighty per cent +illiterate; of some three hundred of the first only a half dozen even +claimed to read and write; and non-wedlock was virtually universal +among them. +</P> + +<P> +Rumor has it that there are seventy-two separate states and +dependencies represented on the Isthmus. My own cards showed a few +less. Most conspicuous absences, besides American negroes, were natives +of Honduras, of four countries of South America, of most of Africa, and +of entire Australia. That this was largely due to chance was shown by +the fact that my fellow-enumerators found persons from all these +countries. +</P> + +<P> +I had enrolled persons born in the following places: All the United +States except three or four states in the far northwest; Canada, +Mexico, Guatemala, Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Canal Zone, +Colombia, Venezuela, British Guiana (Demarara), French and Dutch +Guiana, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Chile, Cuba, Hayti and Santo +Domingo, Jamaica, Barbados, St. Vincent, Trinidad, Saint Lucia, +Montserrat, Dominica, Nevis, Nassau, Eleuthera and Inagua, Martinique, +Guadalupe, Saint Thomas (Danish West Indies), Curacao and Tobago, +England, Ireland, Scotland, Holland, Finland, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, +Norway, Russia, France, Spain, Andorra, Portugal, Switzerland, Germany, +Italy, Austria, Hungary, Greece, Servia, Turkey, Canary Islands, Syria, +Palestine, Arabia, India (from Tuticorin to Lahore), China, Japan, +Egypt, Sierra Leone, South Africa and—the High Seas. +</P> + +<P> +"Where you born, boy?" I had run across a wrinkled old negro who had +worked more than thirty years for the P.R.R. +</P> + +<P> +"'Deed ah don' know, boss," +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, come! Don't know where you were born?" "Fo' Gawd, boss, ah's +tellin' yo de truff. Ah don know, 'cause ah born to sea." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, what country are you a subject of?" +</P> + +<P> +"Truly ah cahn't say, boss." +</P> + +<P> +"Well what nationality was your father?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah neveh see him, sah." "Well then where the devil did you first land +after you were born?" +</P> + +<P> +"'Deed ah cahn't say, boss. T'ink it were one o' dem islands. Reckon +ah's a subjec' o' de' worl', boss." +</P> + +<P> +Weeks afterward the population of Uncle Sam's ten by fifty-mile strip +of tropics was found to have been on February first, 1912, 62,810. No, +anxious reader, I am not giving away inside information; the source of +my remarks is the public prints. Of these about 25,000 were British +subjects (West Indian negroes with very few exceptions). Of the entire +population 37,428 were employed by the U. S. government. Of white +Americans, of the Brahmin caste of the "gold" roll, there were employed +on the Zone but 5,228. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap05"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER V +</H3> + +<P> +Police headquarters presented an unusual air of preoccupation next +morning. In the corner office the telephone rang often and +imperatively, several times erect figures in khaki and broad "Texas" +hats flashed by the doorway, the drone of earnest conference sounded a +few minutes, and the figures flashed as suddenly out again into the +world. In the inner office I glanced once more in review through the +"Rules and Regulations." The Zone, too, was now familiar ground, and as +for the third requirement for a policeman—to know the Zone residents +by sight—a strange face brought me a start of surprise, unless it +beamed above the garb that shouted "tourist." Now all I needed was a +few hours of conference and explanation on the duties, rights, and +privileges of policemen; and that of course would come as soon as +leisure again settled down over headquarters. +</P> + +<P> +Musing which I was suddenly startled to my feet by "the Captain" +appearing in the doorway. +</P> + +<P> +"Catch the next train to Balboa;" he said. "You've got four minutes. +You'll find Lieutenant Long on board. Here are the people to look out +for." +</P> + +<P> +He thrust into my hands a slip of paper, from another direction there +was tossed at me a new brass-check and "First-Class Private" police +badge No. 88, and I was racing down through Ancon. In the meadow below +the Tivoli I risked time to glance at the slip of paper. On it were the +names of an ex-president and two ministers of a frowsy little South +American republic during whose rule a former president and his henchmen +had been brutally murdered by a popular uprising in the very capital +itself. +</P> + +<P> +In the first-class coach I found Lieutenant Long, towering so far above +all his surroundings as to have been easily recognized even had he not +been in uniform. Beside him sat Corporal Castillo of the +"plain-clothes" squad, a young man of forty, with a high forehead, a +stubby black mustache, and a chin that was decisive without being +aggressive. +</P> + +<P> +"Now here's the Captain's idea," explained the Lieutenant, as the train +swung away around Ancon hill, "We'll have to take turns mounting guard +over them, of course. I'll have to talk Spanish, and nobody'd have to +look at Castillo more than once to know he was born up in some crack in +the Andes."—Which was one of the Lieutenant's jokes, for the Corporal, +though a Colombian, was as white, sharp-witted, and energetic as any +American on the Zone.—"But no one to look at him would suspect that +Fr—French, is it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Franck." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes, that Franck could speak Spanish. We 'll do our best to +inflate that impression, and when it comes your turn at guard-mount you +can probably let several little things of interest drift in at your +ears." +</P> + +<P> +"I left headquarters before the Captain had time to explain," I +suggested. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" said the Lieutenant. "Well, here it is in a spectacle-case, as +our friend Kipling would put it. We're on our way to Culebra Island. +There are now in quarantine there three men who arrived yesterday from +South America. They are members of the party of the murdered president. +To-day there will arrive and also be put in hock the three gents whose +names you have there. Now we have a private inside hunch that the three +already here have come up particularly and specifically to prepare for +the funeral of the three who are arriving. Which is no hair off our +brows, except it's up to us to see they don't pull off any little +stunts of that kind on Zone territory." +</P> + +<P> +At least this police business was starting well; if this was a sample +it would be a real job. +</P> + +<P> +The train had stopped and we were climbing the steps of Balboa police +station; for without the co-operation of the "Admiral of the Pacific +Fleet" we could not reach Culebra Island. +</P> + +<P> +"By the way, I suppose you're well armed?" asked the Lieutenant in his +high querulous voice, as we drank a last round of ice-water preparatory +to setting out again. +</P> + +<P> +"Em—I've got a fountain pen," I replied. "I haven't been a policeman +twenty minutes yet, and I was appointed in a hurry." +</P> + +<P> +"Fine!" cried "the Admiral" sarcastically, snatching open the door of a +closet beside the desk. "With a warm job like this on hand! You know +what these South Americans are—" with a wink at the Lieutenant that +was meant also for Castillo, who stood with his felt hat on the back of +his head and a far-away look in his eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Yah, mighty dangerous—around meal time," said the Corporal; though at +the same time he drew from a hip pocket a worn leather holster +containing a revolver, and examined it intently. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile "the Admiral" had handed me a massive No. 88 "Colt" with +holster, a box of cartridges, and a belt that might easily have served +as a horse's saddle-girth. When I had buckled it on under my coat the +armament felt like a small boy clinging about my waist. +</P> + +<P> +We trooped on down a sort of railroad junction with a score of +abandoned wooden houses. It was here I had first landed on the Zone one +blazing Sunday nearly two months before and tramped away for some miles +on a rusty sandy track along a canal already filled with water till a +short jungle path led me into my first Zone town. Already that seemed +ancient history. +</P> + +<P> +The police launch, manned by negro prisoners, with "the Admiral" in a +cushioned arm-chair at the wheel, was soon scudding away across the +sunlit harbor, the breakwater building of the spoil of Culebra "cut" on +our left, ahead the cluster of small islands being torn to pieces for +Uncle Sam's fortifications. The steamer being not yet sighted, we put +in at Naos Island, where the bulky policeman in charge led us to dinner +at the I. C. C. hotel, during which the noonday blasting on the Zone +came dully across to us. Soon after we were landing at the cement +sidewalk of the island—where I had been a prisoner for a day in +January as my welcome to U. S. territory—and were being greeted by the +pocket edition doctor and the bay-windowed German who had been my +wardens on that occasion. +</P> + +<P> +We found the conspirators at a table in a corridor of the first-class +quarantine station. In the words of Lieutenant Long "they fully looked +the part," being of distinctly merciless cut of jib. They were roughly +dressed and without collars, convincing proof of some nefarious design, +for when the Latin-American entitled to wear them leaves off his white +collar and his cane he must be desperate indeed. +</P> + +<P> +We "braced" them at once, marching down upon them as they were +murmuring with heads together over a mass of typewritten sheets. The +Corporal was delegated to inform them in his most urbane and +hidalguezco Castilian that we were well acquainted with their errand +and that we were come to frustrate by any legitimate means in our power +the consummation of any such project on American territory. When the +first paralyzed stare of astonishment that plans they had fancied +locked in their own breasts were known to others had somewhat subsided, +one of them assumed the spokesmanship. In just as courtly and +superabundant language he replied that they were only too well aware of +the inadvisability of carrying out any act against its sovereignty on +U. S. soil; that so long as they were on American territory they would +conduct themselves in a most circumspect and caballeroso manner—"but," +he concluded, "in the most public street of Panama city the first time +we meet those three dogs—we shall spit in their faces—that's all, +nada mas," and the blazing eyes announced all too plainly what he meant +by that figure of speech. +</P> + +<P> +That was all very well, was our smiling and urbane reply, but to be on +the safe side and merely as a matter of custom we were under the +unfortunate necessity of requesting them to submit to the annoyance of +having their baggage and persons examined with a view to discovering +what weapons— +</P> + +<P> +"Como no senores? All the examination you desire." Which was +exceedingly kind of them. Whereupon, when the Lieutenant had +interpreted to me their permission, we fell upon them and amid +countless expressions of mutual esteem gave them and their baggage such +a "frisking" as befalls a Kaffir leaving a South African diamond mine, +and found them armed with—a receipt from the quarantine doctor for +"one pearl-handled Smill and Wilson No. 32." Either they really +intended to postpone their little affair until they reached Panama, or +they had succeeded in concealing their weapons elsewhere. +</P> + +<P> +The doctor and his assistant were already being rowed out to the +steamer that was to bring the victims. They were to be lodged in a room +across the corridor from the conspirators, which corridor it would be +our simple duty to patrol with a view to intercepting any exchange of +stray lead. We fell to planning such division of the twenty-four hours +as should give me the most talkative period. The Lieutenant took the +trouble further to convince the trio of my total ignorance of Spanish +by a distinct and elaborate explanation, in English, of the difference +between the words "muchacho" and "muchacha." Then we wandered down past +the grimy steerage station to the shore end of the little wharf to +await the doctor and our proteges. +</P> + +<P> +The ocean breeze swept unhampered across the island; on its rocky shore +sounded the dull rumble of waves, for the sea was rolling a bit now. +The swelling tide covered inch by inch a sandy ridge that connected us +with another island, gradually drowning beneath its waters several +rusty old hulls. A little rocky wooded isle to the left cut off the +future entrance to the canal. Some miles away across the bay on the +lower slope of a long hill drowsed the city of Panama in brilliant +sunshine; and beyond, the hazy mountainous country stretched +southwestward to be lost in the molten horizon. On a distant hill some +Indian was burning off a patch of jungle to plant his corn. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile the Lieutenant and the Corporal had settled some Lombroso +proposition and fallen to reciting poetry. The former, who was +evidently a lover of melancholy, mouth-filling verse, was declaiming +"The Raven" to the open sea. I listened in wonder. Was this then police +talk? I had expected rough, untaught fellows whose conversation at best +would be pornographic rather than poetic. My astonishment swelled to +the bursting point when the Colombian not only caught up the poem where +the Lieutenant left off but topped it off with that peerless +translation by Bonalde the Venezuelan, beginning: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Una fosca media noche, cuando en tristes reflexiones<BR> + Sobre mas de un raro infolio de olvidados cronicones—<BR> +</P> + +<P> +And just then the quarantine launch swung around the neighboring +island. I tightened my horse belt and dragged the "Colt" around within +easy reach; and a moment later the doctor and his bulking understudy +stepped ashore—alone. +</P> + +<P> +"They didn't come," said the former; "they were not allowed to leave +their own country." +</P> + +<P> +"Hell and damnation," said the Lieutenant at length in a calm, +conversational tone of voice, with the air of a small boy who has been +wantonly robbed of a long-promised holiday but who is determined not to +make a scene over it. The Corporal seemed indifferent, and stood with +the far-away look in his eyes as if he were already busy with some +other plans or worries. But then, the Corporal was married. As for +myself, I had somehow felt from the first that it was too good to be +true. Adventure has steadily dodged me all my days. +</P> + +<P> +A half-hour later we were pitching across the bay toward Ancon hill, +scaled bare on one end by the work of fortification like a Hindu +hair-cut. The water came spitting inboard now and then, and dejected +silence reigned within the craft. But spirits gradually revived and +before we could make out the details of the wharf the Corporal's hearty +genuine laughter and the Lieutenant's rousing carcajada were again +drifting across the water. At Balboa I unburdened myself of my shooting +hardware and, catching the labor-train, was soon mounting the graveled +walk to Ancon police station. In the second-story squad-room of the +bungalow were eight beds. But there were more than enough policemen to +go round, and the legal occupant of the bunk I fell asleep in returned +from duty at midnight and I transferred to the still warm nest of a man +on the "grave-yard" shift. +</P> + +<P> +"It's customary to put a man in uniform for a while first before +assigning him to plain-clothes duty," the Inspector was saying next +morning when I finished the oath of office that had been omitted in the +haste of my appointment, "but we have waived that in your case because +of the knowledge of the Zone the census must have given you." +</P> + +<P> +Thus casually was I robbed of the opportunity to display my manly form +in uniform to tourists of trains and the Tivoli—tourists, I say, +because the "Zoners" would never have noticed it. But we must all +accept the decrees of fate. +</P> + +<P> +That was the full extent of the Inspector's remarks; no mention +whatever of the sundry little points the recruit is anxious to be +enlightened upon. In government jobs one learns those details by +experience. For the time being there was nothing for me to do but to +descend to the "gum-shoe" desk in Ancon station and sit in the +swivel-chair opposite Lieutenant Long "waiting for orders." +</P> + +<P> +Toward noon a thought struck me. I swung the telephone around and "got" +the Inspector. +</P> + +<P> +"All my junk is up in Empire yet," I remarked. +</P> + +<P> +"All right, tell the desk-man down there to make you out a pass. +Or—hold the wire! As long as you're going out, there's a prisoner over +in Panama that belongs up in Empire. Go over and tell the Chief you +want Tal Fulano." +</P> + +<P> +I wormed my way through the fawning, neck-craning, many-shaded mob of +political henchmen and obsequious petitioners into the sacred hushed +precincts of Panama police headquarters. A paunched "Spigoty" with a +shifty eye behind large bowed glasses, vainly striving to exude dignity +and wisdom, received me with the oily smirk of the Panamanian +office-holder who feels the painful necessity of keeping on outwardly +good terms with all Americans. I flashed my badge and mentioned a name. +A few moments later there was presented to me a sturdy, if somewhat +flabby, young Spaniard carefully dressed and perfumed. We bowed like +life-long acquaintances and, stepping down to the street, entered a +cab. The prisoner, which he was now only in name, was a muscular fellow +with whom I should have fared badly in personal combat. I was wholly +unarmed, and in a foreign land. All those sundry little unexplained +points of a policeman's duty were bubbling up within me. When the +prisoner turned to remark it was a warm day should I warn him that +anything he said would be used against him? When he ordered the driver +to halt before the "Panazone" that he might speak to some friends +should I fiercely countermand the order? What was my duty when the +friends handed him some money and a package of cigars? Suppose he +should start to follow his friends inside to have a drink—but he +didn't. We drove languidly on down the avenue and up into Ancon, where +I heaved a genuine sigh of relief as we crossed the unmarked street +that made my badge good again. The prisoner was soon behind padlocks +and the money and cigars in the station safe. These and him and the +transfer card I took again with me into the foreign Republic in time +for the evening train. But he seemed even more anxious than I to +attract no attention, and once in Empire requested that we take the +shortest and most inconspicuous route to the police station; and my +responsibility was soon over. +</P> + +<P> +Many were the Z.P. facts I picked up during the next few days in the +swivel-chair. The Zone Police force of 1912 consisted of a Chief of +Police, an Assistant Chief, two Inspectors, four Lieutenants, eight +sergeants, twenty corporals, one hundred and seventeen "first-class +policemen," and one hundred and sixteen "policemen" (West Indian +negroes without exception, though none but an American citizen could +aspire to any white position); not to mention five clerks at +headquarters, who are quite worth the mentioning. "Policemen" wore the +same uniform as "first-class" officers, with khaki-covered helmet +instead of "Texas" hat and canvas instead of leather leggings, drew +one-half the pay of a white private, were not eligible for advancement, +and with some few notable exceptions were noted for what they did know +and the facility with which they could not learn. One Inspector was in +charge of detective work and the other an overseer of the uniformed +force. Each of the Lieutenants was in charge of one-fourth of the Zone +with headquarters respectively at Ancon, Empire, Gorgona, and +Cristobal, and the sub-stations within these districts in charge of +sergeants, corporals, or experienced privates, according to importance. +</P> + +<P> +Years ago when things were yet in primeval chaos and the memorable +sixth of February of 1904 was still well above the western horizon +there was gathered together for the protection of the newly-born Canal +Strip a band of "bad men" from our ferocious Southwest, warranted to +feed on criminals each breakfast time, and in command of a man-eating +rough-rider. But somehow the bad men seemed unable to transplant to +this new and richer soil the banefulness that had thrived so +successfully in the land of sage-brush and cactus. The gourmandizing +promised to be chiefly at the criminal tables; and before long it was +noted that the noxious gentlemen were gradually drifting back to their +native sand dunes, and the rough-riding gave way to a more orderly +style of horsemanship. Then bit by bit some men—just men without any +qualifying adjective whatever—began to get mixed up in the matter; one +after another army lieutenants were detailed to help the thing along, +until by and by they got the right army lieutenant and the right men +and the Z. P. grew to what it is to-day,—not the love, perhaps, but +the pride of every "Zoner" whose name cannot be found on some old +"blotter." +</P> + +<P> +There are a number of ways of getting on the force. There is the broad +and general high-way of being appointed in Washington and shipped down +like a nice fresh vegetable in the original package and delivered just +as it left the garden without the pollution of alien hands. Then +there's the big, impressive, broad-shouldered fellow with some life and +military service behind him, and the papers to prove it, who turns up +on the Zone and can't help getting on if he takes the trouble to climb +to headquarters. Or there are the special cases, like Marley for +instance. Marley blew in one summer day from some uncharted point of +the compass with nothing but his hat and a winning smile on his brassy +features, and naturally soon drifted up the "Thousand Stairs." But +Marley wasn't exactly of that manly build that takes "the Chief" and +"the Captain" by storm; and there were suggestions on his young-old +face that he had seen perhaps a trifle too much of life. So he wiped +the sweat from his brow several times at the third-story landing only +to find as often that the expected vacancy was not yet. Meanwhile the +tropical days slipped idly by and Marley's "standin" with the owners of +I. C. C. hotel-books began to strain and threaten to break away, and +everything sort of gave up the ghost and died. Everything, that is, +except the winning smile. 'Til one afternoon with only that asset left +Marley met the department head on the grass-bordered path in front of +the Episcopal chapel, just where the long descent ends and a man begins +to regain his tractable mood, and said Marley: +</P> + +<P> +"Say, looka here, Chief. It's a question of eats with me. We can't put +this thing off much longer or—" +</P> + +<P> +Which is why that evening's train carried Marley, with a police badge +and the little flat volume bound in imitation leather in his pocket, +out to some substation commander along the line for the corporal in +charge to break in and hammer down into that finished product, a Zone +Policeman. +</P> + +<P> +Incidentally Marley also illustrated some months later one of the +special ways of getting off the force. It was still simpler. Going "on +pass" to Colon to spend a little evening, Marley neglected to leave his +No. 38 behind in the squad-room, according to Z. P. rules. Which was +careless of him. For when his spirits reached that stage where he +recognized what sport it would be to see the "Spigoty" policemen of +Bottle Alley dance a western cancan he bethought him of the No. 38. +Which accounts for the fact that the name of Marley can no longer be +found on the rolls of the Z. P. But all this is sadly anticipating. +</P> + +<P> +Obviously, you will say, a force recruited from such dissimilar sources +must be a thing of wide and sundry experience. And obviously you are +right. Could a man catch up the Z. P. by the slack of the khaki riding +breeches and shake out their stories as a giant in need of carfare +might shake out their loose change, then might he retire to some sunny +hillside of his own and build him a sound-proof house with a swimming +pool and a revolving bookcase and a stable of riding horses, and cause +to be erected on the front lawn a kneeling-place where publishers might +come and bow down and beat their foreheads on the pavement. +</P> + +<P> +There are men in the Z. P. who in former years have played horse with +the startled markets of great American cities; men whose voices will +boom forth in the pulpit and whisper sage councils in the professional +in years to come; men whom doting parents have sent to Harvard—on whom +it failed to take, except on their clothes—men who have gone down into +the Valley of the Shadow of Death and crawled on hands and knees +through the brackish red brook that runs at the bottom and come out +again smiling on the brink above. Careers more varied than Mexican +sombreros one might hear in any Z. P. squad-room—were not the Z. P. so +much more given to action than to autobiography. +</P> + +<P> +They bore little resemblance to what I had expected. My mental picture +of an American policeman was that conglomerate average one +unconsciously imbibes from a distant view of our city forces, and by +comparison with foreign,—a heavy-footed, discourteous, half-fanatical, +half-irreligious clubber whose wits are as slow as his judgment is +honest. Instead of which I found the Z. P. composed almost without +exception of good-hearted, well set up young Americans almost all of +military training. I had anticipated, from other experiences, a +constant bickering and a general striving to make life unendurable for +a new-comer. Instead I was constantly surprised at the good fellowship +that existed throughout the force. There were of course some healthy +rivalries; there were no angels among them—or I should have fled the +Isthmus much earlier; but for the most part the Z. P. resembled nothing +so much as a big happy family. Above all I had expected early to make +the acquaintance of "graft," that shifty-eyed monster which we who have +lived in large American cities think of as sitting down to dinner with +the force in every mess-hall. Graft? Why a Zone Policeman could not +ride on a P. R. R. train in full uniform when off duty without paying +his fare, though he was expected to make arrests if necessary and stop +behind with his prisoner. Compared indeed with almost any other spot on +the broad earth's surface "graft" eats slim meals on the Canal Zone. +</P> + +<P> +The average Zone Policeman would arrest his own brother—which is after +all about the supreme test of good policehood. He is not a man who +likes to keep "blotters," make out accident reports and such things, +that can be of interest only to those with clerks' and bookkeepers' +souls. +</P> + +<P> +He would far rather be battling with sun, man, and vegetation in the +jungle. He is of those who genuinely and frankly have no desire to +become rich, and "successful," a lack of ambition that formal society +cannot understand and fancies a weakness. +</P> + +<P> +I had still another police surprise during these swivel-chair days. I +discovered there was on the Zone a yellow tailor who made Beau Brummel +uniforms at $7.50, compared with which the $5 ready-made ones were mere +clothes. All my life long I had been laboring under the delusion that a +uniform is merely a uniform. But one lives and learns. +</P> + +<P> +There are few left, I suppose, who have not heard that gray-bearded +story of the American in the Philippines who called his native servant +and commanded: +</P> + +<P> +"Juan, va fetch the caballo from the prado and—and—oh, saddle and +bridle him. Damn such a language anyway! I'm sorry I ever learned it." +</P> + +<P> +This is capped on the Zone by another that is not only true but +strikingly typical. An American boss who had been much annoyed by +unforeseen absences of his workmen pounced upon one of his Spaniards +one morning crying: +</P> + +<P> +"When you know por la noche that you're not going to trabaja por la +manana why in—don't you habla?" +</P> + +<P> +"Si, senor," replied the Spaniard. +</P> + +<P> +By which it may be gathered that linguistic ability on the Zone is on a +par with that in other U. S. possessions. Of the seven of us assigned +to plain-clothes duty on this strip of seventy-two nationalities there +was a Colombian, a gentleman of Swedish birth, a Chinaman from +Martinique, and a Greek, all of whom spoke English, Spanish, and at +least one other language. Of the three native Americans two spoke only +their mother tongue. In the entire white uniformed force I met only +Lieutenant Long and the Corporal in charge of Miraflores who could +seriously be said to speak Spanish, though I am informed there were one +or two others. +</P> + +<P> +This was not for a moment any fault of the Z. P. It comes back to our +government and beyond that to the American people. With all our +expanding over the surface of the earth in the past fourteen years +there still hangs over us that old provincial back-woods bogie, +"English is good enough for me." We have only to recall what England +does for those of her colonial servants who want seriously to study the +language of some portion of her subjects to have something very like +the blush of shame creep up the back of our necks. Child's task as is +the learning of a foreign language, provincial old Uncle Sam just +flat-foots along in the same old way, expecting to govern and judge and +lead along the path of civilization his foreign colonies by bellowing +at them in his own nasal drawl and treating their tongue as if it were +some purely animal sound. He is well personified by Corporal ——, late +of the Z. P. The Corporal had served three years in the Philippines and +five on the Zone, and could not ask for bread in the Spanish tongue. +"Why don't you learn it?" some one asked one day. +</P> + +<P> +"Awe," drawled the Corporal, "what's the use o' goin' t' all that +trouble? If you have t' have any interpretin' done all you got t' do is +t' call in a nigger." +</P> + +<P> +Uncle Sam not merely lends his servants no assistance to learn the +tongues of his colonies, but should one of his subjects appear bearing +that extraordinary accomplishment he gives him no preference whatever, +no better position, not a copper cent more salary; and if things get to +a pass where a linguist must be hired he gives the job to the first +citizen that comes along who can make a noise that is evidently not +English, or more likely still to some foreigner who talks English like +a mouthful of Hungarian goulash. It is not the least of the reasons why +foreign nations do not take us as seriously as they ought, why our +colonials do not love us and, what is of far greater importance, do not +advance under our rule as they should. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile there had gradually been reaching me "through the proper +channels," as everything does on the Zone even to our ice-water, the +various coupon-books and the like indispensable to Zone life and the +proper pursuit of plain-clothes duty. Distressing as are statistics the +full comprehension of what might follow requires the enumeration of the +odds and ends I was soon carrying about with me. +</P> + +<P> +A brass-check; police badge; I. C. C. hotel coupon-book; Commissary +coupon-book; "120-Trip Ticket" (a booklet containing blank passes +between any stations on the P. R. R., to be filled out by holder) +Mileage book (purchased by employees at half rates of 2 1/2 cents a +mile for use when traveling on personal business) "24-Trip Ticket" (a +free courtesy pass to all "gold" employees allowing one monthly round +trip excursion over any portion of the line) Freight-train pass for the +P. R. R.; Dirt-train and locomotive pass for the Pacific division; +ditto for the Central division; likewise for the Atlantic division; (in +short about everything on wheels was free to the "gum-shoe" except the +"yellow car") Passes admitting to docks and steamers at either end of +the Zone; note-book; pencil or pen; report cards and envelopes (one of +which the plain-clothes man must fill out and forward to headquarters +"via train-guard" wherever night may overtake him—"the gum-shoe's +day's work," as the idle uniformed man facetiously dubs it). +</P> + +<P> +Furthermore the man out of uniform is popularly supposed never to +venture forth among the populace without: +</P> + +<P> +Belt, holster, cartridges, and the No. 38 "Colt" that reminds you of a +drowning man trying to drag you down; handcuffs; police whistle; +blackjack (officially he never carries this; theoretically there is not +one on the Isthmus. But the "gum-shoe" naturally cannot twirl a police +club, and it is not always policy to shoot every refractory prisoner). +Then if he chances to be addicted to the weed there is the +cigarette-case and matches; a watch is frequently convenient; and +incidentally a few articles of clothing are more or less indispensable +even in the dry season. Now and again, too, a bit of money does not +come amiss. For though the Canal Zone is a Utopia where man lives by +work-coupons alone, the detective can never know at what moment his +all-embracing duties may carry him away into the foreign land of +Panama; and even were that possibility not always staring him in the +face, in the words of "Gorgona Red," "You've got t' have money fer yer +booze, ain't ye?" +</P> + +<P> +Which seems also to be Uncle Sam's view of the matter. Far and away +more important than any of the plain-clothes equipment thus far +mentioned is the "expense account." It is unlike the others in that it +is not visible and tangible but a mere condition, a pleasant sensation +like the consciousness of a good appetite or a youthful fullness of +life. The only reality is a form signed by the czar of the Zone himself +tucked away among I. C. C. financial archives. That authorizes the man +assigned to special duty in plain clothes to be reimbursed money +expended in the pursuance of duty up to the sum of $60 per month; +though it is said that the interpretation of this privilege to the full +limit is not unlikely to cause flames of light, thunderous rumblings, +and other natural phenomena in the vicinity of Empire and Culebra. But +please note further; these expenditures may be only "for cab or boat +hire, meals away from home, and LIQUOR and CIGARS!" Plainly the +"gum-shoe" should be a bachelor. +</P> + +<P> +Fortunately, however, the proprietor of the expense account is not +required personally to consume it each month. It is designed rather to +win the esteem of bar-tenders, loosen the tongues of suspects, libate +the thirsty stool-pigeon, and prime other accepted sources of +information. But beware! Exceeding care in filling out the account of +such expenditures at the month's end. Carelessness leads a hunted life +on the Canal Zone. Take, for instance, the slight error of my +friend—who, having made such expenditure in Colon, by a slip of the +pen, or to be nice, of the typewriter, sent in among three score and +ten items the following: +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> + Feb. 4/ 2 bots beer; Cristobal........50c<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +and in the course of time found said voucher again on his desk with a +marginal note of mild-eyed wonder and more than idle curiosity, in the +handwriting of a man very high up indeed; +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> + WHERE can you buy beer in Cristobal?<BR> +</P> + +<P> +All this and more I learned in the swivel-chair waiting for orders, +reading the latest novel that had found its way to Ancon station, and +receiving frequent assurances that I should be quite busy enough once I +got started. Opposite sat Lieutenant Long pouring choice bits of +sub-station orders into the 'phone: +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you believe it. That was no accident. He didn't lose everything +he had in every pocket rolling around drunk in the street. He's been +systematically frisked. Sabe frisked? Get on the job and look into it." +</P> + +<P> +For the Lieutenant was one of those scarce and enviable beings who can +live with his subordinates as man to man, yet never find an ounce of +his authority missing when authority is needed. +</P> + +<P> +Now and then a Z. P. story whiled away the time. There was the sad case +of Corporal —— in charge of —— station. Early one Sunday afternoon +the Corporal saw a Spaniard leading a goat along the railroad. +Naturally the day was hot. The Corporal sent a policeman to arrest the +inhuman wretch for cruelty to animals. When he had left the culprit +weeping behind padlocks he went to inspect the goat, tied in the shade +under the police station. +</P> + +<P> +"Poor little beast," said the sympathetic Corporal, as he set before it +a generous pan of ice-water fresh from the police station tank. The +goat took one long, eager, grateful draught, turned over on its back, +curled up like the sensitive-plants of Panama jungles when a finger +touches them, and departed this vale of tears. But Corporal —— was an +artist of the first rank. Not only did he "get away with it" under the +very frowning battlements of the judge, but sent the Spaniard up for +ten days on the charge against him. Z. P.'s who tell the story assert +that the Spaniard did not so much mind the sentence as the fact that +the Corporal got his goat. +</P> + +<P> +Then there was "the Mystery of the Knocked-out Niggers." Day after day +there came reports from a spot out along the line that some negro +laborer strolling along in a perfectly reasonable manner suddenly lay +down, threw a fit, and went into a comatose state from which he +recovered only after a day or two in Ancon or Colon hospitals. The +doctors gave it up in despair. As a last resort the case was turned +over to a Z. P. sleuth. He chose him a hiding-place as near as possible +to the locality of the strange manifestation. For half the morning he +sweltered and swore without having seen or heard the slightest thing of +interest to an old "Zoner." A dirt-train rumbled by now and then. He +strove to amuse himself by watching the innocent games of two little +Spanish switch-boys not far away. They were enjoying themselves, as +guileless childhood will, between their duties of letting a train in +and out of the switch. Well on in the second half of the morning +another diminutive Iberian, a water-boy, brought his compatriots a pail +of water and carried off the empty bucket. The boys hung over the edge +of the pail a sort of wire hook, the handle of their home-made +drinking-can, no doubt, and went on playing. +</P> + +<P> +By and by a burly black Jamaican in shirt-sleeves loomed up in the +distance. Now and then as he advanced he sang a snatch of West Indian +ballad. As he espied the "switcheros" a smile broke out on his features +and he hastened forward his eyes fixed on the water-pail. In a working +species of Spanish he made some request of the boys, the while wiping +his ebony brow with his sleeve. The boys protested. Evidently they had +lived on the Zone so long they had developed a color line. The negro +pleaded. The boys, sitting in the shade of their wigwam, still shook +their heads. One of them was idly tapping the ground with a +broom-handle that had lain beside him. The negro glanced up and down +the track, snatched up the boys' drinking vessel, of which the wire +hooked over the pail was not after all the handle, and stooped to dip +up a can of water. The little fellow with the broom-stick, ceasing a +useless protest, reached a bit forward and tapped dreamily the rail in +front of him. The Jamaican suddenly sent the can of water some rods +down the track, danced an artistic buck-and-wing shuffle on the thin +air above his head, sat down on the back of his neck, and after trying +a moment in vain to kick the railroad out by the roots, lay still. +</P> + +<P> +By this time the sleuth was examining the broom-handle. From its split +end protruded an inch of telegraph wire, which chanced also to be the +same wire that hung over the edge of the galvanized bucket. Close in +front of the innocent little fellows ran a "third rail!" +</P> + +<P> +Then suddenly this life of anecdote and leisure ended. There was thrust +into my hands a typewritten-sheet and I caught the next thing on wheels +out to Corozal for my first investigation. It was one of the most +commonplace cases on the Zone. Two residents of my first dwelling-place +on the Isthmus had reported the loss of $150 in U. S. gold. +</P> + +<P> +Easier burglary than this the world does not offer. Every bachelor +quarters on the Isthmus, completely screened in, is entered by two or +three screen-doors, none of which is or can be locked. In the building +are from twelve to twenty-four wide-open rooms of two or three +occupants each, no three of whom know one another's full names or +anything else, except that they are white Americans and ipso facto (so +runs Zone philosophy) above dishonesty. The quarters are virtually +abandoned during the day. Two negro janitors dawdle about the building, +but they, too, leave it for two hours at mid-day. Moreover each of the +forty-eight or more occupants probably has several friends or +acquaintances or enemies who may drift in looking for him at any hour +of the day or night. No negro janitor would venture to question a white +American's errand in a house; Panama is below the Mason and Dixon line. +In practice any white American is welcome in any bachelor quarters and +even to a bed, if there is one unoccupied, though he be a total +stranger to all the community. Add to this that the negro tailor's +runner often has permission to come while the owner is away for suits +in need of pressing, that John Chinaman must come and claw the week's +washing out from under the bed where the "rough-neck" kicked it on +Saturday night, that there are a dozen other legitimate errands that +bring persons of varying shades into the building, and above all that +the bachelors themselves, after the open-hearted old American fashion, +have the all but universal habit of tossing gold and silver, railroad +watches and real-estate bonds, or anything else of whatever value, +indifferently on the first clear corner that presents itself. +Precaution is troublesome and un-American. It seems a fling at the +character of your fellow bachelors—and in the vast majority of Zone +cases it would be. But it is in no sense surprising that among the many +thousands that swarm upon the Isthmus there should be some not averse +to increasing their income by taking advantage of these guileless +habits and bucolic conditions. There are suggestions that a few—not +necessarily whites—make a profession of it. No wonder "our chief +trouble is burglary" and has been ever since the Z. P. can remember. +Summed up, the pay-day gold that has thus faded away is perhaps no +small amount; compared with what it might have been under prevailing +conditions it is little. +</P> + +<P> +As for detecting such felonies, police officers the world around know +that theft of coin of the realm in not too great quantities is +virtually as safe a profession as the ministry. The Z. P. plain-clothes +man, like his fellows elsewhere, must usually be content in such cases +with impressing on the victim his Sherlockian astuteness, gathering the +available facts of the case, and return to typewrite his report thereof +to be carefully filed away among headquarters archives. Which is +exactly what I had to do in the case in question, diving out the door, +notebook in hand, to catch the evening train to Panama. +</P> + +<P> +I was growing accustomed to Ancon and even to Ancon police-mess when I +strolled into headquarters on Saturday, the sixteenth, and the +Inspector flung a casual remark over his shoulder: +</P> + +<P> +"Better get your stuff together. You're transferred to Gatun." +</P> + +<P> +I was already stepping into a cab en route for the evening train when +the Inspector chanced down the hill. +</P> + +<P> +"New Gatun is pretty bad on Saturday nights," he remarked. (All too +well I remembered it.) "The first time a nigger starts anything run him +in, and take all the witnesses in sight along." +</P> + +<P> +"That reminds me; I haven't been issued a gun or handcuffs yet," I +hinted. +</P> + +<P> +"Hell's fire, no?" queried the Inspector. "Tell the station commander +at Gatun to fix you up." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap06"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VI +</H3> + +<P> +I scribbled myself a ticket and was soon rolling northward, greeting +acquaintances at every station. The Zone is like Egypt; whoever moves +must travel by the same route. At Pedro Miguel and Cascadas armies of +locomotives—the "mules" of the man from Arkansas—stood steaming and +panting in the twilight after their day's labor and the wild race +homeward under hungry engineers. As far as Bas Obispo this busy, +teeming Isthmus seemed a native land; beyond, was like entering into +foreign exile. It is a common Zone experience that only the locality +one lives in during his first weeks ever feels like "home." +</P> + +<P> +The route, too, was a new one. From Gorgona the train returned +crab-wise through Matachin and across the sand dyke that still holds +the Chagres out of the "cut," and halted at Gamboa cabin. Day was dying +as we rumbled on across the iron bridge above the river and away into +the fresh jungle night along the rock-ballasted "relocation." The +stillness of this less inhabited half of the Zone settled down inside +the car and out, the evening air of summer caressing almost roughly +through the open windows. The train continued its steady way almost +uninterruptedly, for though new villages were springing up to take the +place of the old sinking into desuetude and the flood along with the +abandoned line, there were but two where once were eight. We paused at +the new Frijoles and the box-car town of Monte Lirio and, skirting on a +higher level with a wide detour on the flanks of thick jungled and +forested hills what is some day to be Gatun Lake, drew up at 7:30 at +Gatun. +</P> + +<P> +I wandered and inquired for some time in a black night—for the moon +was on the graveyard shift that week—before I found Gatun police +station on the nose of a breezy knoll. But for "Davie," the desk-man, +who it turned out was also to be my room-mate, and a few wistful-eyed +negroes in the steel-barred room in the center of the building, the +station was deserted. "Circus," said the desk-man briefly. When I +mentioned the matter of weapons he merely repeated the word with the +further information that only the station commander could issue them. +</P> + +<P> +There was nothing to do therefore but to ramble out armed with a lead +pencil into a virtually unknown town riotous with liquor and negroes +and the combination of Saturday night, circus time, and the aftermath +of pay-day, and to strut back and forth in a way to suggest that I was +a perambulating arsenal. But though I wandered a long two hours into +every hole and corner where trouble might have its breeding-place, +nothing but noise took place in my sight and hearing. I turned +disgustedly away toward the tents pitched in a grassy valley between +the two Gatuns. At least there was a faint hope that the equestrienne +might assault the ring-master. +</P> + +<P> +I approached the tent flap with a slightly quickening pulse. World-wide +and centuries old as is the experience, personally I was about to +"spring my badge" for the first time. Suppose the doortender should +refuse to honor it and force me to impress upon him the importance of +the Z. P.—without a gun? Outwardly nonchalant I strolled in between +the two ropes. Proprietor Shipp looked up from counting his winnings +and opened his mouth to shout "ticket!" I flung back my coat, and with +a nod and a half-wink of wisdom he fell back again to computing his +lawful gains. +</P> + +<P> +By the way, are not you who read curious to know, even as I for long +years wondered, where a detective wears his badge? Know then that long +and profound investigation among the Z. P. seems to prove conclusively +that as a general and all but invariable rule he wears it pinned to the +lining of his coat, or under his lapel, or on the band of his trousers, +or on the breast of his shirt, or in his hip pocket, or up his sleeve, +or at home on the piano, or riding around at the end of a string in the +baby's nursery; though as in the case of all rules this one too has its +exceptions. +</P> + +<P> +Entertainments come rarely to Gatun. The one-ringed circus was packed +with every grade of society from gaping Spanish laborers to haughty +wives of dirt-train conductors, among whom it was not hard to +distinguish in a far corner the uniformed sergeant in command of Gatun +and the long lean corporal tied in a bow-line knot at the alleged wit +of the versatile but solitary clown who changed his tongue every other +moment from English to Spanish. But the end was already near; +excitement was rising to the finale of the performance, a wrestling +match between a circus man and "Andy" of Pedro Miguel locks. By the +time I had found a leaning-place it was on—and the circus man of +course was conquered, amid the gleeful howling of "rough-necks," who +collected considerable sums of money and went off shouting into the +black night, in quest of a place where it might be spent quickly. It +would be strange indeed if among all the thousands of men in the prime +of life who are digging the canal at least one could not be found who +could subjugate any champion a wandering circus could carry among its +properties. I took up again the random tramping in the dark unknown +night; till it was two o'clock of a Sunday morning when at last I +dropped my report-card in the train-guard box and climbed upstairs to +the cot opposite "Davie," sleeping the silent, untroubled sleep of a +babe. +</P> + +<P> +I was barely settled in Gatun when the train-guard handed me one of +those frequent typewritten orders calling for the arrest of some +straggler or deserter from the marine camp of the Tenth Infantry. That +very morning I had seen "the boss" of census days off on his vacation +to the States—from which he might not return—and here I was coldly +and peremptorily called upon to go forth and arrest and deliver to Camp +Elliott on its hill "Mac," the pride of the census, with a promise of +$25 reward for the trouble. "Mac" desert? It was to laugh. But +naturally after six weeks of unceasing repetition of that pink set of +questions "Mac's" throat was a bit dry and he could scarcely be +expected to return at once to the humdrum life of camp without spending +a bit of that $5 a day in slaking a tropical thirst. Indeed I question +whether any but the prudish will loudly blame "Mac" even because he +spent it a bit too freely and brought up in Empire dispensary. Word of +his presence there soon drifted down to the wily plain-clothes man of +Empire district. But it was a hot noonday, the dispensary lies somewhat +up hill, and the uniformless officer of the Zone metropolis is rather +thickly built. Wherefore, stowing away this private bit of information +under his hat, he told himself with a yawn, "Oh, I'll drag him in later +in the day," and drifted down to a wide-open door on Railroad Avenue to +spend a bit of the $25 reward in off-setting the heat. Meanwhile "Mac," +feeling somewhat recovered from his financial extravagance, came +sauntering out of the dispensary and, seeing his curly-headed friend +strolling a beat not far away, naturally cried out, "Hello, Eck!" And +what could Eck say, being a reputable Zone policeman, but: +</P> + +<P> +"Why, hello, Mac! How they framin' up? Consider yourself pinched." +</P> + +<P> +Which was lucky for "Mac." For Eck had once worn a marine hat over his +own right eye and, he knew from melancholy experience that the $25 was +no government generosity, but "Mac's" own involuntary contribution to +his finding and delivery; so managed to slip most of it back into +"Mac's" hands. +</P> + +<P> +Long, long after, more than six weeks after in fact, I chanced to be in +Bas Obispo with a half-hour to spare, and climbed to the flowered and +many-roaded camp on its far-viewing hilltop that falls sheer away on +the east into the canal. In one of the airy barracks I found Renson, +cards in hand, clear-skinned and "fit" now, thanks to the regular life +of this adult nursery, though his lost youth was gone for good. And +"Mac"? Yes, I saw "Mac" too—or at least the back of his head and +shoulders through the screen of the guard-house where Renson pointed +him out to me as he was being locked up again after a day of shoveling +sand. +</P> + +<P> +The first days in Gatun called for little else than patrol duty, +without fixed hours, interspersed with an occasional loaf on the +second-story veranda of the police-station overlooking the giant locks; +close at hand was the entrance to the canal, up which came slowly +barges loaded with crushed stone from Porto Bello quarry twenty miles +east along the coast or sand from Nombre de Dios, twice as distant, +while further still, spread Limon Bay from which swept a never-ending +breeze one could wipe dry on as on a towel. So long as he has in his +pocket no typewritten report with the Inspector's scrawl across it, +"For investigation and report," the plain-clothes man is virtually his +own commander, with few duties beside trying to be in as many parts of +his district at once as possible and the ubiquitous duty of "keeping in +touch with headquarters." So I wandered and mingled with all the life +of the vicinity, exactly as I should have done had I not been paid a +salary to do so. By day one could watch the growth of the great locks, +the gradual drowning of little green, new-made islands beneath the +muddy still waters of Gatun Lake, tramp out along jungle-flanked +country roads, through the Mindi hills, or down below the old railroad +to where the cayucas that floated down the Chagres laden with fruit +came to land on the ever advancing edge of the waters. With night +things grew more compact. From twilight till after midnight I prowled +in and out through New Gatun, spilled far and wide over its several +hills, watching the antics of negroes, pausing to listen to their +guitars and their boisterous merriment, with an eye and ear ever open +for the unlawful. When I drifted into a saloon to see who might be +spending the evening out, the bar-tender proved he had the advantage of +me in acquaintance by crying: "Hello, Franck! What ye having?" and +showing great solicitude that I get it. After which I took up the +starlit tramp again, to run perhaps into some such perilous scene as on +that third evening. A riot of contending voices rose from a building +back in the center of a block, with now and then the sickening thump of +a falling body. I approached noiselessly, likewise weaponless, peeped +in and found—four negro bakers stripped to the waist industriously +kneading to-morrow's bread and discussing in profoundest earnest the +object of the Lord in creating mosquitoes. Beyond the native town, as +an escape from all this, there was the back country road that wound for +a mile through the fresh night and the droning jungle, yet instead of +leading off into the wilderness of the interior swung around to +American Gatun on its close-cropped hills. +</P> + +<P> +I awoke one morning to find my name bulletined among those ordered to +report for target test. A fine piece of luck was this for a man who had +scarcely fired a shot since, aged ten, he brought down with an air-gun +an occasional sparrow at three cents a head. We took the afternoon +train to Mt. Hope on the edge of Colon and trooped away to a little +plain behind "Monkey Hill," the last resting-place of many a "Zoner." +The Cristobal Lieutenant, father of Z. P., was in charge, and here +again was that same Z. P. absence of false dignity and the genuine +good-fellowship that makes the success of your neighbor as pleasing as +your own. +</P> + +<P> +"Shall I borrow a gun, Lieutenant?" I asked when I found myself "on +deck." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, you'll have to use your own judgment as to that," replied the +Lieutenant, busy pasting stickers over holes in the target. +</P> + +<P> +The test was really very simple. All you had to do was to cling to one +end of a No. 38 horse-pistol, point it at the bull's-eye of a target, +hold it in that position until you had put five bullets into said +bull's-eye, repeat that twice at growing distances, mortally wound ten +times the image of a Martinique negro running back and forth across the +field, and you had a perfect score. Only, simple as it was, none did +it, not even old soldiers with two or three "hitches" in the army. So I +had to be content with creeping in on the second page of a seven-page +list of all the tested force from "the Chief" to the latest negro +recruit. +</P> + +<P> +The next evening I drifted into the police station to find a group of +laborers from the adjoining camps awaiting me on the veranda bench, +because the desk-man "didn't sabe their lingo." They proved upon +examination to be two Italians and a Turk, and their story short, sad, +but by no means unusual. Upon returning from work one of the Italians +had found the lock hinges of his ponderously padlocked tin trunk +hanging limp and screwless, and his pay-day roll of some $30 missing +from the crown of a hat stuffed with a shirt securely packed away in +the deepest corner thereof. The Turk was similarly unable to account +for the absence of his $33 savings safely locked the night before +inside a pasteboard suitcase; unless the fact that, thanks to some sort +of surgical operation, one entire side of the grip now swung open like +a barn-door might prove to have something to do with the case. The $33 +had been, for further safety's sake, in Panamanian silver, suggesting a +burglar with a wheelbarrow. +</P> + +<P> +The mysterious detective work began at once. Without so much as putting +on a false beard I repaired to the scene of the nefarious crime. It was +the usual Zone type of laborers' barracks. A screened building of one +huge room, it contained two double rows of three-tier "standee" canvas +bunks on gas-pipes. Around the entire room, close under the sheet-iron +roof, ran a wooden platform or shelf reached by a ladder and stacked +high with the tin trunks, misshapen bundles, and pressed-paper +suitcases containing the worldly possessions of the fifty or more +workmen around the rough table below. +</P> + +<P> +Theoretically not even an inmate thereof may enter a Zone labor-camp +during working hours. Practically the West Indian janitors to whom is +left the enforcement of this rule are nothing if not fallible. In the +course of the second day I unearthed a second Turk who, having chanced +the morning before to climb to the baggage shelf for his razor and soap +preparatory to welcoming a fellow countryman to the Isthmus, had been +mildly startled to step on the shoulder-blade of a negro of given +length and proportions lying prone behind the stacked-up impedimenta. +The latter explained both his presence in a white labor-camp and his +unconventional posture by asserting that he was the "mosquito man," and +shortly thereafter went away from there without leaving either card or +address. +</P> + +<P> +By all my library training in detective work the next move obviously +was to find what color of cigarette ashes the Turk smoked. Instead I +blundered upon the absurdly simple notion of trying to locate the negro +of given length and proportions. The real "mosquito man"—one of that +dark band that spends its Zone years with a wire hook and a screened +bucket gathering evidence against the defenseless mosquito for the +sanitary department to gloat over—was found not to fit the model even +in hue. Moreover, "mosquito men" are not accustomed to carry their +devotion to duty to the point of crawling under trunks in their quest. +</P> + +<P> +For a few days following, the hunt led me through all Gatun and +vicinity. Now I found myself racing across the narrow plank bridges +above the yawning gulf of the locks, with far below tiny men and toy +trains, now in and out among the cathedral-like flying buttresses, +under the giant arches past staring signs of "DANGER!" on every +hand—as if one could not plainly hear its presence without the +posting. I descended to the very floor of the locks, far below the +earth, and tramped the long half-mile of the three flights between +soaring concrete walls. Above me rose the great steel gates, standing +ajar and giving one the impression of an opening in the Great Wall of +China or of a sky-scraper about to be swung lightly aside. On them +resounded the roar of the compressed-air riveters and all the way up +the sheer faces, growing smaller and smaller as they neared the sky, +were McClintic-Marshall men driving into place red-hot rivets, thrown +at them viciously by negroes at the forges and glaring like comets' +tails against the twilight void. +</P> + +<P> +The chase sent me more than once stumbling away across rock-tumbled +Gatun dam that squats its vast bulk where for long centuries, +eighty-five feet below, was the village of Old Gatun with its proud +church and its checkered history, where Morgan and Peruvian viceroys +and "Forty-niners" were wont to pause from their arduous journeyings. +They call it a dam. It is rather a range of hills, a part and portion +of the highlands that, east and west, enclose the valley of the +Chagres, its summit resembling the terminal yards of some great city. +There was one day when I sought a negro brakeman attached to a given +locomotive. I climbed to a yard-master's tower above the Spillway and +the yard-master, taking up his powerful field-glasses, swept the +horizon, or rather the dam, and discovered the engine for me as a +mariner discovers an island at sea. +</P> + +<P> +"Er—would you be kind enough to tell us where we can find this Gatun +dam we've heard so much about?" asked a party of four tourists, half +and half as to sex, who had been wandering about on it for an hour or +so with puzzled expressions of countenance. They addressed themselves +to a busy civil engineer in leather leggings and rolled up shirt +sleeves. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sorry I haven't time to use the instrument," replied the engineer +over his shoulder, while he wig-wagged his orders to his negro helpers +scattered over the landscape, "but as nearly as I can tell with the +naked eye, you are now standing in the exact center of it." +</P> + +<P> +The result of all this sweating and sight-seeing was that some days +later there was gathered in a young Barbadian who had been living for +months in and about Gatun without any visible source of income +whatever—not even a wife. The Turk and the camp janitor identified him +as the culprit. But the primer lesson the police recruit learns is that +it is one thing to believe a man guilty and quite another to convince a +judge—the most skeptical being known to zoology—of that perfectly +apparent fact. With the suspect behind bars, therefore, I continued my +underground activities, with the result that when at length I took the +train at New Gatun one morning for the court-room in Cristobal I loaded +into a second-class coach six witnesses aggregating five nationalities, +ready to testify among other things to the interesting little point +that the defendant had a long prison record in Barbados. +</P> + +<P> +When the echo of the black policeman's "Oye! Oye!" had died away and +the little white-haired judge had taken his "bench," I made the +discovery that I was present not in one, but in four capacities,—as +arresting officer, complainant, interpreter, and to a large extent +prosecuting attorney. To swear a Turk who spoke only Turkish through +another Turk, who mangled a little Spanish, for a judge who would not +recognize a non-American word from the voice of a steam-shovel, with a +solemn "So Help Me God!" to clinch and strengthen it when the witness +was a follower of the prophet of Medina—or nobody—was not without its +possibilities of humor. The trial proceeded; the witnesses witnessed in +their various tongues, the perspiring arresting officer reduced their +statements to the common denominator of the judge's single tongue, and +the smirking bullet-headed defendant was hopelessly buried under the +evidence. Wherefore, when the shining black face of his lawyer, +retained during the two minutes between the "Oye!" and the opening of +the case, rose above the scene to purr: +</P> + +<P> +"Your Honor, the prosecution has shown no case. I move the charge +against my client be quashed." +</P> + +<P> +I choked myself just in time to keep from gasping aloud, "Well, of all +the nerve!" Never will I learn that the lawyer's profession admits +lying on the same footing with truth in the defense of a culprit. +</P> + +<P> +"Cause shown," mumbled the Judge without looking up from his writing, +"defendant bound over for trial in the circuit court." +</P> + +<P> +A week later, therefore, there was a similar scene a story higher in +the same building. Here on Thursdays sits one of the three members of +the Zone Supreme Court. Jury trial is rare on the Isthmus—which makes +possibly for surer justice. This time there was all the machinery of +court and I appeared only in my legal capacity. The judge, a man still +young, with an astonishingly mobile face that changed at least once a +minute from a furrowy scowl with great pouting lips to a smile so broad +it startled, sat in state in the middle of three judicial arm-chairs, +and the case proceeded. Within an hour the defendant was standing up, +the cheery grin still on his black countenance, to be sentenced to two +years and eight months in the Zone penitentiary at Culebra. A deaf man +would have fancied he was being awarded some prize. One of the +never-ending surprises on the Zone is the apparent indifference of +negro prisoners whether they get years or go free. Even if they testify +in their own behalf it is in a listless, detached way, as if the matter +were of no importance anyway. But the glance they throw the innocent +arresting officer as they pass out on their way to the barb-wire +enclosure on the outskirts of the Zone capital tells another story. +There are members of the Z. P. who sleep with a gun under their pillow +because of that look or a muttered word. But even were I nervous I +should have been little disturbed at the glare in this case, for it +will probably be a long walk from Culebra penitentiary to where I am +thirty-two months from that morning. +</P> + +<P> +A holiday air brooded over all Gatun and the country-side. Workmen in +freshly washed clothing lolled in the shade of labor-camps, black +Britishers were gathering in flat meadows fitted for the national game +of cricket, far and wide sounded the care-free laughter and chattering +of negroes, while even within Gatun police station leisure and peace +seemed almost in full possession. +</P> + +<P> +The morning "touch" with headquarters over, therefore, I scrambled away +across the silent yawning locks and the trainless and workless dam to +the Spillway, over which already some overflow from the lake was +escaping to the Caribbean. My friends "Dusty" and H—— had carried +their canoe to the Chagres below, and before nine we were off down the +river. It was a day that all the world north of the Tropic of Cancer +could not equal; just the weather for a perfect "day off." A +plain-clothes man, it is true, is not supposed to have days off. Some +one might run away with the Administration Building on the edge of the +Pacific and the telephone wires be buzzing for me—with the sad result +that a few days later there would be posted in Zone police stations +where all who turned the leaves might read: +</P> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> + Special Order No. ....<BR> + Having been found Guilty of charges of<BR> + Neglect of Duty<BR> + preferred against him by his commanding officer<BR> + First-class Policeman No. 88<BR> + is hereby fined $2.<BR> +<BR> + Chief of Division.<BR> +</H4> + +<P> +But shades of John Aspinwall! Should even a detective work on such a +Sunday? Surely no criminal would—least of all a black one. Moreover +these forest-walled banks were also part of my beat. +</P> + +<P> +The sun was hot, yet the air of that ozone-rich quality for which +Panama is famous. For headgear we had caps; and did not wear those, +though barely a few puffy, snow-white clouds ventured out into the vast +chartless sky all the brilliant day through. Then the river; who could +describe this lower reach of the Chagres as it curves its seven deep +and placid miles from where Uncle Sam releases it from custody, to the +ocean. Its jungled banks were without a break, for the one or two +clusters of thatch and reed huts along the way are but a part of the +living vegetation. Now and then we had glimpses across the tree-tops of +brilliant green jungle hills further inland, everywhere were huge +splendid trees, the stack-shaped mango, the soldier-erect palm heavy, +yet unburdened, with cocoanuts. Some fish resembling the porpoise rose +here and there, back and forth above the shadows winged snow-white +cranes so slender one wondered the sea breeze did not wreck them. Above +all the quiet and peace and contentment of a perfect tropical day +enfolded the landscape in a silence only occasionally disturbed by the +cry of a passing bird. Once a gasoline launch deep-laden with +Sunday-starched Americans, snorted by, bound likewise to Fort Lorenzo +at the river's mouth; and we lay back in our soft, rumpled khaki and +drowsily smiled our sympathy after them. When they had drawn on out of +earshot life began to return to the banks and nature again took +possession of the scene. Alligators abounded once on this lower +Chagres, but they have grown scarce now, or shy, and though we sat with +H——'s automatic rifle across our knees in turns we saw no more than a +carcass or a skeleton on the bank at the foot of the sheer wall of +impenetrable verdure. +</P> + +<P> +Till at length the sea opened on our sight through the alley-way of +jungle, and a broad inviting cocoanut grove nodded and beckoned on our +left. Instead we paddled out across the sandbar to play with the surf +of the Atlantic, but found it safer to return and glide across the +little bay to the drowsy straw and tin village. Here—for the mouth of +the Chagres like its source lies in a foreign land—a solitary +Panamanian policeman in the familiar Arctic uniform enticed us toward +the little thatched office, and house, and swinging hammock of the +alcalde to register our names, and our business had we had any. So +deep-rooted was the serenity of the place that even when "Dusty," in +all Zone innocence, addressed the white-haired little mulatto as +"hombre" he lost neither his dignity nor his temper. +</P> + +<P> +The policeman and a brown boy of merry breed went with us up the grassy +rise to the old fort. In its musty vaulted dungeons were still the +massive, rust-corroded irons for feet, waist and neck of prisoners of +the old brutal days; blind owls stared upon us; once the boy brought +down with his honda, or slung-shot, one of the bats that circled +uncannily above our heads. In dank corners were mounds of worthless +powder; the bakery that once fed the miserable dungeon dwellers had +crumbled in upon itself. Outside great trees straddled and split the +massive stone walls that once commanded the entrance to the Chagres, +jungle waved in undisputed possession in its earth-filled moat, even +the old cannon and heaped up cannon-balls lay rust-eaten and dejected, +like decrepit old men who have long since given up the struggle. +</P> + +<P> +We came out on the nose of the fort bluff and had before and below us +and underfoot all the old famous scene, for centuries the beginning of +all trans-Isthmian travel,—the scalloped surf-washed shore with its +dwindling palm groves curving away into the west, the Chagres pushing +off into the jungled land. We descended to the beach of the outer bay +and swam in the salt sea, and the policeman, scorning the launch party, +squatted a long hour in the shade of a tree above in tropical patience. +Then with "sour" oranges for thirst and nothing for hunger—for Lorenzo +has no restaurant—we turned to paddle our way homeward up the Chagres, +that bears the salt taste of the sea clear to the Spillway. Whence one +verse only of a stanza by the late bard of the Isthmus struck a false +note on our ears; +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Then go away if you have to,<BR> + Then go away if you will!<BR> + To again return you will always yearn<BR> + While the lamp is burning still.<BR> + You've drunk the Chagres water<BR> + And the mango eaten free,<BR> + And, strange though it seems,<BR> + It will haunt your dreams<BR> + This Land of the Cocoanut Tree.<BR> +</P> + +<P> +No catastrophe had befallen during my absence. The same peaceful sunny +Sunday reigned in Gatun; new-laundered laborers were still lolling in +the shade of the camps, West Indians were still batting at interminable +balls with their elongated paddles in the faint hope of deciding the +national game before darkness settled down. Then twilight fell and I +set off through the rambling town already boisterous with church +services. Before the little sub-station a swarm of negroes was pounding +tamborines and bawling lustily: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Oh, yo mus' be a lover of de Lard<BR> + Or yo cahn't go t' Heaven when yo di-ie.<BR> +</P> + +<P> +Further on a lady who would have made ebony seem light-gray bowed over +an organ, while a burly Jamaican blacker than the night outside stood +in the vestments of the Church of England, telling his version of the +case in a voice that echoed back from the town across the gully, as if +he would drown out all rival sects and arguments by volume of sound. +The meeting-house on the next corner was thronged with a singing +multitude, tamborines scattered among them and all clapping hands to +keep time, even to the pastor, who let the momentum carry on and on +into verse after verse as if he had not the self-sacrifice to stop it, +while outside in the warm night another crowd was gathered at the edge +of the shadows gazing as at a vaudeville performance. How well-fitted +are the various brands of Christianity to the particular likings of +their "flocks." The strongest outward manifestation of the religion of +the West Indian black is this boisterous singing. All over town were +dusky throngs exercising their strong untrained voices "in de Lard's +sarvice"; though the West Indian is not noted as being musical. Here a +preacher wanting suddenly to emphasize a point or clinch an argument +swung an arm like a college cheer leader and the entire congregation +roared forth with him some well-known hymn that settled the question +for all time. +</P> + +<P> +I strolled on into darker High street. Suddenly on a veranda above +there broke out a wild unearthly screaming. Two negroes were engaged in +savage, sanguinary combat. Around them in the dim light thrown by a +cheap tenement lamp I could make out their murderous weapons—machetes +or great bars of iron—slashing wildly, while above the din rose +screams and curses: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Yo —— Badgyan, ah kill yo!<BR> +</P> + +<P> +I sped stealthily yet swiftly up the long steps, drawing my No. 38 (for +at last I had been issued one) as I ran and dashed into the heart of +the turmoil swallowing my tendency to shout "Unhand him, villain!" and +crying instead: +</P> + +<P> +"Here, what the devil is going on here?" +</P> + +<P> +Whereupon two negroes let fall at once two pine sticks and turned upon +me their broad childish grins with: +</P> + +<P> +"We only playin', sar. Playin' single-sticks which we larn to de army +in Bahbaydos, sahgeant." +</P> + +<P> +Thus I wandered on, in and out, till the night lost its youth and the +last train from Colon had dumped its merry crowd at the station, then +wound away along the still and deserted back road through the +night-chirping jungle between the two surviving Gatuns. There was a +spot behind the Division Engineer's hill that I rarely succeeded in +passing without pausing to drink in the scene, a scallop in the hills +where several trees stood out singly and alone against the myriad +starlit sky, below and beyond the indistinct valleys and ravines from +which came up out of the night the chorus of the jungle. Further on, in +American Gatun there was a seat on the steps before a bungalow that +offered more than a good view in both directions. A broad, U. S.-tamed +ravine sank away in front, across which the Atlantic breeze wafted the +distance-softened thrum of guitar, the tones of fifes and happy negro +voices, while overhead feathery gray clouds as concealing as a dancer's +gossamer hurried leisurely by across the brilliant face of the moon; to +the right in a free space the Southern Cross, tilted a bit awry, +gleamed as it has these untold centuries while ephemeral humans come +and pass their brief way. +</P> + +<P> +It was somewhere near here that Gatun's dry-season mosquito had his +hiding-place. Rumor whispers of some such letter as the following +received by the Colonel—not the blue-eyed czar at Culebra this time; +for you must know there is another Colonel on the Zone every whit as +indispensable in his sphere: +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +GATUN, ... 26, 1912. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Dear Colonel:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +I am writing to call your attention to a gross violation of Sanitary +Ordinance No. 3621, to an apparent loop-hole in your otherwise +excellent department. The circumstances are as follows; +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +On the evening of ... 24, as I was sitting at the roadside between +Gatun and New Gatun (some 63 paces beyond house No. 226) there appeared +a MOSQUITO, which buzzed openly and for some time about my ears. It was +probably merely a male of the species, as it showed no tendency to +bite; but a mosquito nevertheless. I trust you will take fitting +measures to punish so bold and insolent a violation of the rules of +your department. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +I am, sir, very truly yours, +<BR> +(Mrs.) HENRY PECK. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +P. S. The mosquito may be easily recognized by a peculiarly triumphant, +defiant note in his song, +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +I cannot personally vouch for the above, but if it was received any +"Zoner" will assure you that prompt action was taken. It is well so. +The French failed to dig the canal because they could not down the +mosquito. Of course there was the champagne and the other things that +come with it—later in the night. But after all it was the little +songful mosquito that drove them in disgrace back across the Atlantic. +</P> + +<P> +Still further on toward the hotel and a midnight lunch there was one +house that was usually worth lingering before, though good music is +rare on the Zone. Then there was the naughty poker game in bachelor +quarters number—well, never mind that detail—to keep an ear on in +case the pot grew large enough to make a worth-while violation of the +law that would warrant the summoning of the mounted patrolman. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile "cases" stacked up about me. Now one took me out the hard U. +S. highway that, once out of sight of the last negro shanty, rambles +erratically off like the reminiscences of an old man through the +half-cleared, mostly uninhabited wilderness, rampant green with rooted +life and almost noisy with the songs of birds. Eventually within a +couple of hours it crossed Fox River with its little settlement and +descended to Mt. Hope police station, where there is a 'phone with +which to "get in touch" again and then a Mission rocker on the screened +veranda where the breezes of the near-by Atlantic will have you well +cooled off before you can catch the shuttle-train back to Gatun. +</P> + +<P> +Or another led out across the lake by the old abandoned line that was +the main line when first I saw Gatun. It drops down beyond the station +and charges across the lake by a causeway that steam-shovels were +already devouring, toward forsaken Bohio. Picking its way across the +rotting spiles of culverts, it pushed on through the unpeopled jungle, +all the old railroad gone, rails, ties, the very spikes torn up and +carried away, while already the parrots screamed again in derision as +if it were they who had driven out the hated civilization and taken +possession again of their own. A few short months and the devouring +jungle will have swallowed up even the place where it has been. +</P> + +<P> +If it was only the little typewritten slip reporting the disappearance +of a half-dozen jacks from the dam, every case called for full +investigation. For days to come I might fight my way through the +encircling wilderness by tunnels of vegetation to every native hut for +miles around to see if by any chance the lost property could have +rolled thither. More than once such a hunt brought me out on the +water-tank knoll at the far end of the dam, overlooking miles of +impenetrable jungle behind and above chanting with invisible life, to +the right the filling lake stretching across to low blue ranges dimly +outlined against the horizon and crowned by fantastic trees, and all +Gatun and its immense works and workers below and before me. +</P> + +<P> +Times were when duty called me into the squalid red-lighted district of +Colon and kept me there till the last train was gone. Then there was +nothing left but to pick my way through the night out along the P.R.R. +tracks to shout in at the yard-master's window, "How soon y' got +anything goin' up the line?" and, according to the answer, return to +read an hour or two in Cristobal Y.M.C.A. or push on at once into the +forest of box-cars to hunt out the lighted caboose. Night freights do +not stop at Gatun, nor anywhere merely to let off a "gum-shoe." But +just beyond New Gatun station is a grade that sets the negro fireman to +sweating even at midnight and the big Mogul to straining every nerve +and sinew, and I did not meet the engineer that could drag his long +load by so swiftly but that one could easily swing off on the road that +leads to the police station. +</P> + +<P> +Even on the rare days when "cases" gave out there was generally +something to while away the monotony. As, one morning an American +widely known in Gatun was arrested on a warrant and, chatting merrily +with his friend, Policeman ——, strolled over to the station. There +his friend Corporal Macey subdued his broad Irish smile and ordered the +deskman to "book him up." The latter was reaching for the keys to a +cell when the American broke off his pleasant flow of conversation to +remark; +</P> + +<P> +"All right, Corporal, I'm going over to the house to get a few things +and write a few letters. I'll be back inside of an hour." +</P> + +<P> +Whereupon Corporal Macey, being a man of iron self-control, refrained +from turning a double back sommersault and mildly called the prisoner's +attention to a little point of Zone police rules he had overlooked. +</P> + +<P> +If every other known form of amusement absolutely failed it was still +the dry, or tourist season, and poured down from the States hordes of +unconscious comedians, or investigators who rushed two whole days about +the Isthmus, taking care not to get into any dirty places, and rushed +home again to tell an eager public all about it. Sometimes the +sight-seers came from the opposite end of the earth, a little band of +South Americans in tongueless awe at the undreamed monster of work +about them, yet struggling to keep their fancied despite of the +"yanqui," to which the "yanqui" is so serenely indifferent. Priests +from this southland were especially numerous. The week never passed +that a group of them might not be seen peering over the dizzy precipice +of Gatun locks and crossing themselves ostentatiously as they turned +away. +</P> + +<P> +One does not, at least in a few months, feel the "sameness" of climate +at Panama and "long again to see spring grow out of winter." Yet there +is something, perhaps, in the popular belief that even northern energy +evaporates in this tropical land. It is not exactly that; but certainly +many a "Zoner" wakes up day by day with ambitious plans, and just +drifts the day through with the fine weather. He fancies himself as +strong and energetic as in the north, yet when the time comes for doing +he is apt to say, "Oh, I guess I'll loaf here in the shade half an hour +longer," and before he knows it another whole day is charged up against +his meager credit column with Father Time. +</P> + +<P> +There came the day early in April when the Inspector must go north on +his forty-two days' vacation. I bade him bon voyage on board the 8:41 +between the two Gatuns and soon afterward was throwing together my +belongings and leaving "Davie" to enjoy his room alone. For Corporal +Castillo was to be head of the subterranean department ad interim, and +how could the digging of the canal continue with no detective in all +the wilderness of morals between the Pacific and Culebra? Thus it was +that the afternoon train bore me away to the southward. It was a +tourist train. A New York steamer had docked that morning, and the +first-class cars were packed with venturesome travelers in their stout +campaign outfits in which to rough it—in the Tivoli and the +sight-seeing motors—in their roof-like cork helmets and green veils +for the terrible Panama heat—which is sometimes as bad as in northern +New York. +</P> + +<P> +The P.R.R. is one of the few railroads whose passengers may drop off +for a stroll, let the train go on without them, and still take it to +their destination. They have only to descend, as I did, at Gamboa cabin +and wander down into the "cut," climb leisurely out to Bas Obispo, and +chat with their acquaintances among the Marines lolling about the +station until the trains puffs in from its shuttle-back excursion to +Gorgona. The Zone landscape had lost much of its charm. For days past +jungle fires had been sweeping over it, doing the larger growths small +harm but leaving little of the greenness and rank clinging life of +other seasons. Everywhere were fires along the way, even in the towns. +For quartermasters—to the rage of Zone house-wives were sending up in +clouds of smoke the grass and bushes that quickly turn to +breeding-places of mosquitoes and disease with the first rains. Night +closed down as we emerged from Miraflores tunnel; soon we swung around +toward the houses, row upon row and all alight, climbed the lower slope +of Ancon hill, and at seven I descended in familiar, cab-crowded, +bawling Panama. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap07"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VII +</H3> + +<P> +It might be worth the ink to say a word about socialism on the Canal +Zone. To begin with, there isn't any of course. No man would dream of +looking for socialism in an undertaking set in motion by the Republican +party and kept on the move by the regular army. But there are a number +of little points in the management of this private government strip of +earth that savors more or less faintly of the Socialist's program, and +the Zone offers perhaps as good a chance as we shall ever have to study +some phases of those theories in practice. +</P> + +<P> +Few of us now deny the Socialist's main criticisms of existing society; +most of us question his remedies. Some of us go so far as to feel a +sneaking curiosity to see railroads and similar purely public utilities +government-owned, just to find how it would work. Down on the Canal +Zone they have a sort of modified socialism where one can watch much of +this under a Bell jar. There one quickly discovers that a locomotive +with the brief and sufficient information "U.S." on her tender +flanks—or more properly the flanks of her tender—gives one a swelling +of the chest no other combination of letters could inspire. Thus far, +too, theory seems to work well. The service could hardly be better, and +recalling that under the old private system the fare for the +forty-seven miles across the Isthmus was $25 with a charge of ten cents +for every pound of baggage, the $2.40 of today does not seem +particularly exorbitant. +</P> + +<P> +The official machinery of this private government strip also seems to +run like clockwork. To be sure the wheels even of a clock grind a bit +with friction at times, but the clock goes on keeping time for all +that. The Canal Zone is the best governed district in the United +States. It is worth any American's time and sea-sickness to run down +there, if only to assure himself that Americans really can govern; +until he does he will not have a very clear notion of just what good +American government means. +</P> + +<P> +But before we go any further be it noted that the socialism of the +Canal Zone is under a benevolent despot, an Omnipotent, Omniscient, +Omnipresent ruler; which is perhaps the one way socialism would work, +at least in the present stage of human progress. The three Omnis are +combined in an inconspicuous, white-haired American popularly known on +the Zone as "the Colonel"—so popularly in fact that an attempt to +replace him would probably "start something" among all classes and +races of "Zoners." That he is omnipotent—on the Zone—not many will +deny; a few have questioned—and landed in the States a week later much +less joyous but far wiser. Omniscient—well they have even Chinese +secret-service men on the Isthmus, and soldiers and marines not +infrequently go out in civilian clothes under sealed orders; to say +nothing of "the Colonel's private gum-shoe" and probably a lot of other +underground sources of information neither you nor I shall ever hear +of. But you must get used to spies under socialism, you know, until we +all wear one of Saint Peter's halos. Look at the elaborate system of +the Incas, even with their docile and uninitiative subjects. In the +matter of Omnipresence; it would be pretty hard to find a hole on the +Canal Zone where you could pull off a stunt of any length or importance +without the I.C.C. having a weather-eye on you. When it comes to the no +less indispensable ingredient of benevolence one glimpse of those mild +blue eyes would probably reassure you in that point, even without the +pleasure of watching the despot sit in judgment on his subjects in his +castle office on Sunday mornings like old Saint Louis under his +oak—though with a tin of cigarettes beside him that old Louis had to +worry along without. +</P> + +<P> +This all-powerful government insists on and enforces many of the things +which Americans as a whole stand for,—Sunday closing, suppression of +resorts, forbidding of gambling. But the Zone is no test whether these +laws could be genuinely enforced in a whole nation. For down there +Panama and Colon serve as a sort of safety-valve, where a man can run +down in an hour or so on mileage or monthly pass and blow off steam; +get rid of the bad internal vapors that might cause explosion in a +ventless society. This we should not lose sight of when we boast that +there are few crimes and no real resorts on the Zone. "The Colonel" +himself will tell you there is no gambling. Yet it is curious how many +of the weekly prizes of the Panama lottery find their way into the +pockets of American canal builders, and in any Zone gathering of +whatever hour—or sex!—you are almost certain to hear flitting back +and forth mysterious whispers of "—have a 6 and a 4 this week." +</P> + +<P> +The Zone system is work-coupons for all; much as the Socialist would +have it. Only the legitimate members of the community—the workers—can +live in it—long. You should see the nonchalant way a clerk at the +government's Tivoli hotel charges a tourist a quarter for a cigar the +government sells for six cents in its commissaries. Mere money does not +rank high in Zone society. It's the labor-coupon that counts. They sell +cigarettes at the Y.M.C.A.; you are in that state where you would give +your ticket home for a smoke. Yet when you throw down good gold or +silver, black Sam behind the showcase looks up at you with that pitying +cold eye kept in stock for new-comers, and says wearily: +</P> + +<P> +"Cahn't take no money heah, boss." +</P> + +<P> +That surely is a sort of socialism where a slip of paper showing merely +that you have done your appointed task gets you the same meal wherever +you may drop in, a total stranger, yet without being identified, +without a word from any one, but merely thrusting your coupon-book at +the yellow West Indian at the door as you enter that he may snatch out +so many minutes of labor. Drop in anywhere there is a vacant bed and +you are perfectly at home. There is the shower-bath, the ice-water, the +veranda rocker—you knew exactly what was coming to you, just what kind +of bed, just what vegetables you would be served at dinner. It reminds +one of the Inca system of providing a home for every citizen, and +tambos along the way if he must travel. +</P> + +<P> +But it IS the same meal. That is just the point. There is where you +begin to furrow your brow and look more closely at this splendid +system, and fall to wondering if that public kitchen of socialism would +not become in time an awful bore. There are some things in which we +want variety and originality and above all personality. A meal is a +meal, I suppose, as a cat is a cat; yet there are many subtle little +things that make the same things distinctly different. When it comes to +dinner you want a rosy fat German or a bulky French madame putting +thought and pride and attention into it; which they will do only if +they get good coin of the realm or similar material emolument out of it +in proportion. No one will ever fancy he has a "mission" to serve good +meals—to the public. +</P> + +<P> +In the I.C.C. hotels we have a government steward who draws a good +salary and wears a nice white collar. But though he is sometimes a bit +different, and succeeds in making his hotel so, it is only in degree. +He is not a great frequenter of the dining-room; at times one wonders +just what his activities are. Certainly it is not the planning of +meals, for the I.C.C. menu is as fixed and automatic as if it had been +taken from a stone slab in the pyramids. A poor meal neither turns his +hair white nor cuts down his income. Frequently, especially if he is +English and certainly if he has been a ship's steward, the negro +waiters seem to run his establishment without interference. Dinner +hours, for example, are from 11 to 1. But beware the glare of the +waiter at whose table you sit down at 12:50. He slams cold rubbish at +you from the discard and snatches it away again before you have time to +find you can't eat it. You have your choice of enduring this +maltreatment or of unostentatiously slipping him a coin and a hint to +go cook you the best he can himself. For you know that as the closing +hour approaches the cooks will not have their private plans interfered +with by accepting your order. Here again is where the fat German or the +French madame is needed—with an ox-goad. +</P> + +<P> +In other words the tip system invented by Pharaoh and vitiated by +quick-rich Americans rages as fiercely in government hotels on the Zone +as in any "lobster palace" bordering Broadway—worse, for here the +non-tipper has no living being to advocate his cause. All food is +government property. Yet I have sat down opposite a man who gave the +government at the door a work-coupon identical with mine, but who +furthermore dropped into the waiter's hand "35 cents spig"—which is +half as bad as to do it in U.S. currency—and while I was gazing +tearfully at a misshapen lump of vacunal gristle there was set before +him, steaming hot from the government kitchen, a porterhouse steak +which a dollar bill would not have brought him within scenting distance +of in New York. Do not blame the waiter. If he does not slip an +occasional coin to the cook he will invariably draw the gristle, and +even occasional coins do not grow on his waist band. It would be as +absurd to charge it to the cook. He probably has a large family to +support, as he would have under socialism. There runs this story on the +Zone, vouched for by several: +</P> + +<P> +A "Zoner" called an I.C.C. steward and complained that his waiter did +not serve him reasonably: +</P> + +<P> +"Well," sneered the steward, "I guess you didn't come across?" +</P> + +<P> +"Come across! Why, damn you, I suppose you're getting your rake-off +too?" +</P> + +<P> +"I certainly am," replied the steward; "What do you think I'm down here +for, me health?" +</P> + +<P> +Surely we can't blame it all to the steward, or to any other +individual. Lay it rather to human nature, that stumbling-block of so +many varnished and upholstered systems. +</P> + +<P> +I hope I am not giving the impression that I.C.C. hotels are +unendurable. "Stay home"—which on the Zone means always eat at the +same hotel table—subsidize your waiter and you do moderately well. But +to move thither and yon, as any plain-clothes man must, is unfortunate. +The only difference then is that the next is worse than the last. +Whatever their convictions upon arrival, almost all Americans have come +down to paying their waiter the regular blackmail of a dollar a month +and setting it down as one of the unavoidable evils of life. One or two +I knew who insisted on sticking to "principles," and they grew leaner +and lanker day by day. +</P> + +<P> +Because of these things many an American employee will be found eating +in private restaurants of the ubiquitous Chinaman or the occasional +Spaniard, though here he must often pay in cash instead of in futures +on his labor—which are so much cheaper the world over. It is sad +enough to dine on the same old identical round for months. But how if +you were one of those who blew in on the heels of the last Frenchman +and have been eating it ever since? By this time even rat-tails would +be a welcome change—and with genuine socialism there would not even be +that escape. It is said to be this hotel problem as much as the +perpetual spring-time of the Zone that so frequently reduces—with the +open connivance of the government—a building housing forty-eight +quiet, harmless bachelors to a four-family residence housing eight and +gradually upwards; that wreaks such matrimonious havoc among the +white-frocked stenographers who come down to type and remain to cook. +</P> + +<P> +Besides the hotel there is the P.R.R. commissary, the government +department stores. It is likewise laundry, bakery, ice-factory; it +makes ice-cream, roasts coffee, sends out refrigerator-cars and a +morning supply train to bring your orders right to your door—oh, yes, +it strongly resembles what Bellamy dreamed years ago. Only, as in the +case of the hotel, there seems to be a fly or two in the amber. +</P> + +<P> +The laundry is tolerable—fancy turning your soiled linen over to a +railroad company—all machine done of course, as everything would be +under socialism, and no come-back for the garment that is not hardy +enough of constitution to stand the system. In the stores is little or +no shoddy material; in general the stock is the best available. If a +biscuit or a bolt of khaki is better made in England than in the United +States the commissary stocks with English goods, which is unexpected +broad-mindedness for government management. But while prices are lower +than in Panama or Colon they are every whit as high as in American +stores; and most of us know something of the exorbitant profit our +private merchants exact, particularly on manufactured goods. The +government claims to run the commissary only to cover cost. Either that +is a crude government joke or there is a colored gentleman esconced in +the coal-bin. Moreover if the commissary hasn't the stuff you want you +had better give up wanting, for it has no object in laying in a supply +of it just to oblige customers. Its clerks work in the most languid, +unexcited manner. They have no object whatever in holding your trade, +and you can wait until they are quite ready to serve you, or go home +without. True, most of them are merely negroes, and the few Americans +at the head of departments are chiefly provincial little fellows from +small towns whose notions of business are rather those of Podunk, +Mass., than of New York. But lolling about the commissary a half-hour +hoping to buy a box of matches, one cannot shake off the conviction +that it is the system more than the clerks. Poets and novelists and +politicians may work for "glory," but no man is going to show calico +and fit slippers for such remuneration. +</P> + +<P> +Nor are all the old evils of the competitive method banished from the +Zone. In the Canal Record, the government organ, the government +commissary advertised a sale of excellent $7 rain-coats at $1 each. The +"Record"! It is like reading it in the Bible. Witness the rush of +bargain hunters, who, it proves, are by no means of one gender. Yet +those splendid rain-coats, as manager, clerks, and even negro sweepers +well knew and could not refrain from snickering to themselves at +thought of, were just as rain-proof as a poor grade of cheese-cloth. I +do not speak from hear-say for I was numbered among the bargain +hunters—"recruits" are the natural victims, and there arrive enough of +them each year to get rid of worthless stock. Ten minutes after making +the purchase I set out to walk to Corozal through the first mild shower +of the rainy season—and arrived there I went and laid the bargain +gently in the waste-basket of Corozal police station. +</P> + +<P> +Thus does the government sink to the petty rascalities of shop-keepers. +Even a government manager on a fixed salary—in work-coupons—will +descend to these tricks of the trade to keep out of the clutches of the +auditor, or to make a "good record." The socialist's answer perhaps +would be that under their system government factories would make only +perfect goods. But won't the factory superintendent also be anxious to +make a "record"? And even government stock will deteriorate on the +shelves. +</P> + +<P> +All small things, to be sure; but it is the sum of small things that +make up that great complex thing—Life. Few of us would object to +living in that ideal dream world. But could it ever be? I have +anxiously asked this question and hinted at these little weaknesses +suggested by Zone experiences to several Zone socialists—who are not +hard to find. They merely answer that these things have nothing to do +with the case. But not one of them ever went so far as to demonstrate; +and though I was born a long way north of Missouri I once passed +through a corner of the state. +</P> + +<P> +As to the other side of the ledger,—equal pay for all, nowhere is man +further from socialism than on the Canal Zone. Caste lines are as +sharply drawn as in India, which should not be unexpected in an +enterprise largely in charge of graduates of our chief training-school +for caste. The Brahmins are the "gold" employees, white American +citizens with all the advantages and privileges thereto appertaining. +But—and herein we out-Hindu the Hindus—the Brahmin caste itself is +divided and subdivided into infinitesimal gradations. Every rank and +shade of man has a different salary, and exactly in accordance with +that salary is he housed, furnished, and treated down to the least +item,—number of electric lights, candle-power, style of bed, size of +bookcase. His Brahmin highness, "the Colonel," has a palace, +relatively, and all that goes with it. The high priests, the members of +the Isthmian Canal Commission, have less regal palaces. Heads of the +big departments have merely palatial residences. Bosses live in +well-furnished dwellings, conductors are assigned a furnished house—or +quarter of a house. Policemen, artisans, and the common garden variety +of bachelors have a good place to sleep. It is doubtful, to be sure, +whether one-fourth of the "Zoners" of any class ever lived as well +before or since. The shovelman's wife who gives five-o'clock teas and +keeps two servants will find life different when the canal is opened +and she moves back to the smoky little factory cottage and learns again +to do her own washing. +</P> + +<P> +At work, "on the job" there is a genuine American freedom of +wear-what-you-please and a general habit of going where you choose in +working clothes. That is one of the incomprehensible Zone things to the +little veneered Panamanian. He cannot rid himself of his racial +conviction that a man in an old khaki jacket who is building a canal +must be of inferior clay to a hotel loafer in a frock coat and a tall +hat. The real "Spig" could never do any real work for fear of soiling +his clothes. He cannot get used to the plain, brusk American type +without embroidery, who just does things in his blunt, efficient way +without wasting time on little exterior courtesies. None of these +childish countries is man enough to see through the rough surface. Even +with seven years of American example about him the Panamanian has not +yet grasped the divinity of labor. Perhaps he will eons hence when he +has grown nearer true civilization. +</P> + +<P> +But among Americans off the job reminiscences of East India flock in +again. D, who is a quartermaster at $225, may be on +"How-are-you-old-man?" terms with G, who is a station agent and draws +$175. But Mrs. D never thinks of calling on Mrs. G socially. H and J, +who are engineer and cranemen respectively on the same steam-shovel, +are probably "Hank" and "Jim" to each other, but Mrs. H would be +horrified to find herself at the same dance with Mrs. J. Mrs. X, whose +husband is a foreman at $165, and whose dining table is a full six +inches longer and whose ice-box will hold one more cold-storage +chicken, would not think of sitting in at bridge with Mrs. Y, whose +husband gets $150. As for being black, or any tint but pure "white"! +Even an Englishman, though he may eat in the same hotel if his skin is +not too tanned, is accepted on staring suffrance. As for the man whose +skin is a bit dull, he might sit on the steps of an I. C. C. hotel with +dollars dribbling out of his pockets until he starved to death—and he +would be duly buried in the particular grave to which his color +entitled him. A real American place is the Zone, with outward democracy +and inward caste, an unenthusiastic and afraid-to-break-the-conventions +place in play, and the opposite at work. +</P> + +<P> +Yet with it all it is a good place in which to live. There you have +always summer, jungled hills to look on by day and moonlight, and to +roam in on Sunday—unless you are a policeman seven days a week. It is +possible that perpetual summer would soon breed quite a different type +of American. The Isthmus is nearly always in boyish—or girlish—good +temper. Zone women and girls are noted for plump figures and care-free +faces. And there is a contentment that is more than climatic. There are +no hard times on the Zone, no hurried, worried faces, no famished, +wolfish eyes. The "Zoner" has his little troubles of course,—the +servant problem, for instance, for the Jamaican housemaid is a thorn in +any side. Now and then we hear some one wailing, "Oh, it gets +so—tiresome! Everybody's shoveling dirt or talking about the other +fellow." But he knows it isn't strictly true when he says it and that +he is kicking chiefly to keep in practice. Every one is free from +worries as to job, pay, house, provisions, and even hospital fees, and +the smoothness of it all, perhaps, gets on his nerves at times. I +question whether "the Colonel" himself loses much sleep when a chunk of +the hill that bears up his residence lets go and pitches into the +canal. It sets one to musing at times whether the rock-bound system of +the Incas was not best after all,—a place for every man and every man +in his place, each his allotted work, which he was fully able to do and +getting Hail Columbia if he failed to do it. +</P> + +<P> +Which brings up the question of results in labor under the +pseudo-socialist Zone system. Most American employees work steadily and +take their work seriously. It is as if each were individually proud of +being one of the chosen people and builders of the greatest work of +modern times. Yet the far-famed "American rush" is not especially +prevalent. The Zone point of view seems to be that no shoveling is so +important, even that of digging a ditch half the ships of the world are +waiting to cross, that a man should bring upon himself a premature +funeral. The common laborers, non-Americans, almost dawdle. There are +no contractor's Irish straw-bosses to keep them on the move. The answer +to the Socialist's scheme of having the government run all big building +enterprises is to go out and watch any city street gang for an hour. +</P> + +<P> +The bringing together into close contact of Americans from every +section of our broad land is tending to make a new amalgamated type. +Even New Englanders grow almost human here among their broader-minded +fellow-countrymen. Any northerner can say "nigger" as glibly as a +Carolinian, and growl if one of them steps on his shadow. It is not +easy to say just how much effect all this will have when the canal is +done and this handful of amalgamated and humanized Americans is +sprinkled back over all the States as a leaven to the whole. They tell +on the Zone of a man from Maine who sat four high-school years on the +same bench with two negro boys, and returning home after three years on +the Isthmus was so horrified to find one of those boys an alderman that +he packed his traps and moved to Alabama, "where a nigger IS a +nigger"—and if there isn't the "makings" of a story in that I 'll +leave it to the postmaster of Miraflores. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap08"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VIII +</H3> + +<P> +"There is much in this police business," said "the Captain," with his +slow, deliberate enunciation, "that must lead to a blank wall. Out of +ten cases to investigate it is quite possible nine will result in +nothing. This percentage could not of course be true of a thousand +cases and a man's services still be considered satisfactory. But of ten +it is quite possible. As for knowing HOW to do detective work, all I +bring to the department myself is some ordinary common sense and a +little knowledge of human nature, and with these I try to work things +out as best I can. This peeping-through-the-key-hole police work I know +nothing whatever about, and don't want to. Nor do I expect a man to." +</P> + +<P> +I had been discussing with "the Captain" my dissatisfaction at my +failure to "get results" in an important case. A few weeks on the force +had changed many a preconceived notion of police life. It had gradually +become evident, for instance, that the profession of detective is +adventurous, absorbing, heart-stopping chiefly between the covers of +popular fiction; that real detective work, like almost any other +vocation, is made up largely of the little unimportant every-day +details, with only a rare assignment bulking above the mass. As "the +Captain" said, it was just plain every-day work carried on by the +application of ordinary common sense. Such best-seller artifices as +disguise were absurd. Not only would disguise in all but the rarest +cases be impossible, but useless. The A-B-C of plain-clothes work is to +learn to know a man by his face rather than by his clothing—and at the +outset one will be astonished to find how much he has hitherto been +depending on the latter. It must be the same with criminals, too, +unless your criminal is an amateur or a fool, in which event you will +"land" him without the trouble of disguising. A detective furthermore +should not be a handsome man or a man of striking appearance in any +way; the ideal plain-clothes man is the little insignificant snipe whom +even the ladies will not notice. +</P> + +<P> +Since April tenth I had been settled in notorious House 111, Ancon, a +sort of frontiersman resort or smugglers' retreat—had there been +anything to smuggle—where to have fallen through the veranda screening +would have been to fall into a foreign land. As pay-day approached +there came the duty of standing a half-hour at the station gate before +the departure of each train to watch and discuss with the ponderous, +smiling, dark-skinned chief of Panama's plain-clothes squad, or with a +vigilante the suspicious characters and known crooks of all colors +going out along the line. On the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth the +I. C. C. pay-car, that bank on wheels guarded by a squad of Z. P., +sprinkled its half-million a day along the Zone. Then plain-clothes +duty was not merely to scan the embarking passengers but to ride out +with each train to one of the busy towns. There scores upon scores of +soil-smeared workmen swarmed over all the landscape with long +paper-wrapped rolls of Panamanian silver in their hands, while flashily +dressed touts and crooks of both sexes drifted out from Panama with +every train to worm their insidious way into wherever the scent of coin +promised another month free from labor. To add to those crowded times +the chief dissipation of the West Indian during the few days following +pay-day that his earnings last is to ride aimlessly and joyously back +and forth on the trains. +</P> + +<P> +There is one advantage, though some policemen call it by quite the +opposite name, in being stationed at Ancon. When crime takes a holiday +and do-nothing threatens tropical dementia, or a man tires of his +native land and people a short stroll down the asphalt takes him into +the city of Panama. Barely across the street where his badge becomes +mere metal, and he must take care not to arrest absent-mindedly the +first violator of Zone laws—whom he is sure to come upon within the +first block—he notes that the English tongue has suddenly almost +disappeared. On every hand, lightly sprinkled with many other dialects, +sounds Spanish, the slovenly Spanish of Panama in which bueno is +"hueno" and calle is "caye." As he swings languidly to the right into +Avenida Central he grows gradually aware that there has settled down +about him a cold indifference, an atmosphere quite different from that +on his own side of the line. Those he addresses in the tongue of the +land reply to his questions with their customary gestures and fixed +phrases of courtesy. But no more; and a cold dead silence falls sharply +upon the last word, and at times, if the experience be comparatively +new, there seems to hover in the air something that reminds him that +way back fifty-six years ago there was a "massacre" of Americans in +Panama city. For the Panamanian has little love for the United States +or its people; which is the customary thanks any man or nation gets for +lifting a dirty half-breed gamin from the gutter. +</P> + +<P> +Off in the vortex of the city lolls Panama's public market, where +Chinamen are the chief sellers and flies the chief consumers. Myriads +of fruits in every stage of development and disintegration, haggled +bits of meat, the hundred sights and sounds and smells one hurries past +suggest that Panama may even have outdone Central America before Uncle +Sam came with his garbage-cans and his switch. Further on, down at the +old harbor, lingers a hint of the picturesqueness of Panama in +pre-canal days. Clumsy boats, empty, or deep-laden with fruit from, or +freight to, the several islands that sprinkle the bay, splash and bump +against the little cement wharf. Aged wooden "windjammers" doze at +their moorings, everywhere are jabbering natives with that shifty +half-cast eye and frequent evidence of deep-rooted disease. Almost +every known race mingles in Panama city, even to Chinese coolies in +their umbrella hats and rolled up cotton trousers, delving in rich +market gardens on the edges of the town or dog-trotting through the +streets under two baskets dancing on the ends of a bamboo pole, till +one fancies oneself at times in Singapore or Shanghai. The black Zone +laborer, too, often prefers to live in Panama for the greater freedom +it affords—there he doesn't have to clean his sink so often, marry his +"wife," or banish his chickens from the bedroom. Policemen with their +clubs swarm everywhere, for no particular reason than that the little +republic is forbidden to play at army, and with the presidential +election approaching political henchmen must be kept good-humored. Not +a few of these officers are West Indians who speak not a word of +Spanish—nor any other tongue, strictly speaking. +</P> + +<P> +Rubber-tired carriages roll constantly by along Uncle Sam's macadam, +amid the jingling of their musical bells. Every one takes a carriage in +Panama. Any man can afford ten cents even if he has no expense account; +besides he runs no risk of being overcharged, which is a greater +advantage than the cost. All this may be different when Panama's +electric line, all the way from Balboa docks to Las Sabanas, is +opened—but that's another year. Meanwhile the lolling in carriages +comes to be quite second nature. +</P> + +<P> +But like any tropical Spanish town Panama seethes only by night, +especially Saturday and Sunday nights when the paternal Zone government +allows its children to spend the evening in town. Then frequent trains, +unknown during the week, begin with the setting of the sun to disgorge +Americans of all grades and sizes through the clicking turnstiles into +the arms of gesticulating hackmen, some to squirm away afoot between +the carriages, all to be swallowed up within ten minutes in the great +sea of "colored" people. So that, large as may be each train-load, +white American faces are so rare on Panama streets that one +involuntarily glances at each that passes in the throng. +</P> + +<P> +It is the "gum-shoe's" duty to know and be unknown in as many places as +possible. Wherefore on such nights, whatever his choice, he drifts +early down by the "Normandie" and on into the "Pana-zone" to see who is +out, and why. In the latter emporium he adds a bottle of beer to his +expense account, endures for a few moments the bawling above the scream +of the piano of two Americans of Palestinian antecedents, admires some +local hero, like "Baldy" for instance, who is credited with doing what +Napoleon could not do, and floats on, perhaps to screw up his courage +and venture into the thinly-clad Teatro Apolo. He who knows where to +look, or was born under a lucky star, may even see on these merry +evenings a big Marine from Bas Obispo or a burly soldier of the Tenth +howling some joyful song with six or seven little "Spig" policemen +climbing about on his frame. At such times everything but real blood, +flows in Panama. Her history runs that way. On the day she won her +independence from Spain it is said the General in Chief cut his finger +on a wine glass. The day she won it from Colombia there was a Chinaman +killed—but every one agrees that was due to the celestial's criminal +carelessness. +</P> + +<P> +Down at the quieter end of the city are "Las Bovedas," that curving +sea-wall Phillip of Spain tried to make out from his palace walls, as +many another, regal and otherwise, has strained his eyes in vain to see +where his good coin has gone. But the walls are there all right, though +Phillip never saw them; crumbling a bit, yet still a sturdy barrier to +the sea. A broad cement and grass promenade runs atop, wide as an +American street. Thirty or forty feet below the low parapet sounds the +deep, time-mellowed voice of the Pacific, as there rolls higher and +higher up the rock ledges that great tide so different from the +scarcely noticeable one at Colon. The summer breeze never dies down, +never grows boisterous. On the landward side Panama lies mumbling to +itself, down in the hollow between squats Chiriqui prison with its +American warden, once a Zone policeman; while in the round stone +watch-towers on the curving parapets lean prison guards with fixed +bayonets and incessantly blow the shrill tin whistles that is the +universal Latin-American artifice for keeping policemen awake. On the +way back to the city the elite—or befriended—may drop in at the +University Club at the end of the wall for a cooling libation. +</P> + +<P> +On Sunday night comes the band concert in the palm-ringed Cathedral +Plaza. There is one on Thursday, too, in Plaza Santa Ana, but that is +packed with all colors and considered "rather vulgah." In the square by +the cathedral the aggregate color is far lighter. Pure African blood +hangs chiefly in the outskirts. Then the haughty aristocrats of Panama, +proud of their own individual shade of color, may be seen in the same +promenade with American ladies—even a garrison widow or two—from out +along the line. Panamanian girls gaudily dressed and suggesting to the +nostrils perambulating drug-stores shuttle back and forth with their +perfumed dandies. Above the throng pass the heads and shoulders of +unemotional, self-possessed Americans, erect and soldierly. Sergeant +Jack of Ancon station was sure to be there in his faultless civilian +garb, a figure neat but not gaudy; and even busy Lieutenant Long was +known to break away from his stacked-up duties and his black +stenographer and come to overtop all else in the square save the +palm-trees whispering together in the evening breeze between the +numbers. +</P> + +<P> +There is no favoritism in Zone police work. Every crime reported +receives full investigation, be it only a Greek laborer losing a pair +of trousers or— +</P> + +<P> +There was the case that fell to me early in May, for instance. A box +billed from New York to Peru had been broken open on Balboa dock +and—one bottle of cognac stolen. Unfortunately the matter was turned +over to me so long after the perpetration of the dastardly crime that +the possible culprits among the dock hands had wholly recovered from +the probable consumption of the evidence. But I succeeded in gathering +material for a splendid typewritten report of all I had not been able +to unearth, to file away among other priceless headquarters' archives. +</P> + +<P> +Not that the Z. P. has not its big jobs. The force to a man distinctly +remembers that absorbing two months between the escape of wild black +Felix Paul and the day they dragged him back into the penitentiary. No +less fresh in memory are the expeditions against Maurice Pelote, or +Francois Barduc, the murderer of Miraflores. All Martinique negroes, be +it noted; and of all things on this earth, including greased pigs, the +hardest to catch is a Martinique criminal. After all, four or five +murders on the Zone in three years is no startling record in such a +swarm of nationalities. +</P> + +<P> +Cases large and small which it would be neither of interest nor politic +to detail poured in during the following weeks. Among them was the +counterfeit case unearthed by some Shylock Holmes on the Panamanian +force, that called for a long perspiring hunt for the "plant" in odd +corners of the Zone. Then there was—, an ex-Z. P. who lost his three +years' savings on the train, for which reason I shadowed a well-known +American—for it is a Z. P. rule that no one is above suspicion—about +Panama afoot and in carriages nearly all night, in true dime-novel +fashion. There was the day that I was given a dangerous convict to +deliver at Culebra Penitentiary. The criminal was about three feet +long, jet black, his worldly possessions comprising two more or less +garments, one reaching as far down as his knees and the other as far up +as the base of his neck. He had long been a familiar sight to "Zoners" +among the swarm of bootblacks that infest the corner near the P. R. R. +station. He claimed to be eleven, and looked it. But having already +served time for burglary and horse-stealing, his conviction for +stealing a gold necklace from a negro washerwoman of San Miguel left +the Chief Justice no choice but to send him to meditate a half-year at +Culebra. There is no reform school on the Zone. The few American minors +who have been found guilty of misdoing have been banished to their +native land. When the deputy warden had sufficiently recovered from the +shock brought upon him by the sight of his new charge to give me a +receipt for him, I raced for the noon train back to the city. +</P> + +<P> +Thereon I sat down beside Pol—First-Class Policeman X——, surprised +to find him off duty and in civilian clothes. There was a dreamy, +far-away look in his eyes, and not until the train was racing past Rio +Grande reservoir did he turn to confide to me the following +extraordinary occurrence: +</P> + +<P> +"Last night I dreamed old Judge —— had my father and my mother up +before him. On the stand he asked my mother her age—and the funny part +of it is my mother has been dead over ten years. She turned around and +wrote on the wall with a piece of chalk '1859,' the year she was born. +Then my father was called and he wrote '1853.' That's all there was to +the dream. But take it from me I know what it means. Now just add 'em +together, and multiply by five—because I could see five people in the +court-room—divide by two—father and mother—and I get—," he drew out +a crumpled "arrest" form covered with penciled figures, "—9280. And +there—" his voice dropped low, "—is your winning number for next +Sunday." +</P> + +<P> +So certain was this, that First-Class X—— had bribed another +policeman to take his eight-hour shift, dressed in his vacation best, +bought a ticket to Panama and return, with real money at tourist +prices, and would spend the blazing afternoon seeking among the scores +of vendors in the city for lottery ticket 9280. And if he did not find +it there he certainly paid his fare all the way to Colon and back to +continue his search. I believe he at length found and acquired the +whole ticket, for the customary sum of $2.50. But there must have been +a slip in the arithmetic, or mother's chalk; for the winning number +that Sunday was 8895. +</P> + +<P> +Frequent as are these melancholy errors, scores of "Zoners" cling +faithfully to their arithmetical superstitions. Many a man spends his +recreation hours working out the winning numbers by some secret recipe +of his own. There are men on the Z. P. who, if you can get them started +on the subject of lottery tickets, will keep it up until you run away, +showing you the infallibility of their various systems, believing the +drawing to be honest, yet oblivious to the fact that both the one and +the other cannot be true. Dreams are held in special favor. It is +probably safe to assert that one-half the numbers over 1,000 and under +10,000 that appear in Zone dreams are snapped up next day in lottery +tickets. Many have systems of figuring out the all-important number +from the figures on engines and cars. More than one Zone housewife has +slipped into the kitchen to find the roast burning and her West Indian +cook hiding hastily behind her ample skirt a long list of the figures +on every freight-car that has passed that morning, from which by some +Antillian miscalculation and the murmuring of certain invocations she +was to find the magic number that would bring her cooking days to an +end. +</P> + +<P> +Yet there is sometimes method in their madness. Did not "Joe" who slept +in the next room to me at Gatun "hit Duque for two pieces"—which is to +say he had $3,000 to sprinkle along with his police salary? Yet +personally the only really appealing "system" was that of Cristobal. +Upon his arrival on the Isthmus four years ago he picked out a number +at random, took out a yearly subscription to it, and thought no more +about it than one does of a newspaper delivered at the door each +morning—until one Monday during this month of May, after he had +squandered something over $500, on worthless bits of paper, he strolled +into the lottery office and was handed an inconspicuous little bag +containing $7,500 in yellow gold. +</P> + +<P> +Like all Z. P. "rookies" (recruits) I had been warned early to beware +the "sympathy dodge." But experience is the only real teacher. One +afternoon I bestraddled a crazy, stilt-legged Jamaican horse to go out +into the bush beyond the Panama line to fetch and deliver a citizen of +that sovereign republic who was wanted on the Zone for horse-stealing. +At the town of Sabanas, where those Panamanians who have bagged the +most loot since American occupation have their "summer" homes,—giddy, +brick-painted monstrosities among the great trees, deep green foliage +and brilliant flower-beds (pause a moment and think of brilliant red +houses in the tropics; it will make you better acquainted with the +"Spig") I dropped in at the police station for ice-water and +information. I found it in charge of a negro policeman who knew +nothing, and had forgotten that. When, therefore, it also chanced that +an officer of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals +stopped before the gate with a coachman of Panama, it fell upon me to +assume command. The horse was the usual emaciated rat of an animal +indigenous to Panama City. When overhauled, the driver was beating the +animal uphill on his way to Old Panama to bring back a party of +tourists visiting the ruins. How he expected the decrepit beast to +carry four more persons was a mystery. When the harness was lifted +there was disclosed the expected half-dozen large raw sores. We tied +the animal in the shade near hay and water and adjourned to the station. +</P> + +<P> +The coachman, a weary, unshaven Spaniard whose red eyelids showed lack +of sleep, was weeping copiously. He claimed to be a madrileno—which +was evident; that he had been a coachman in Spain and Panama all his +life without ever before having been arrested—which was possible. He +was merely one of many drivers for a livery-stable owner in Panama. +Ordered to go for the tourists, he had called his employer's attention +to the danger of crossing Zone territory with a horse in that +condition; but the owner had ordered him to cover up the sores with +pads and harness and drive along. +</P> + +<P> +It was a very sad case. Here was a poor, honest coachman struggling to +support a wife and I don't recall how many children, but any number +sounds quite reasonable in Panama, who was about to be punished for the +fault of another. The paradox of honest and coachman did not strike me +until later. He was certainly telling the truth—you come to recognize +it readily in all ordinary cases after a few weeks in plain clothes. +The real culprit was, of course, the employer. My righteous wrath +demanded that he and not his poor serf be punished. I could not release +the driver. But I would see that the truth was brought out in court +next morning and a warrant sworn out against the owner. With showering +tears and rib-shaking sobs the coachman promised to tell the judge the +whole story. I went through him, and locking him up with assurances of +my deepest sympathy and full assistance, stilted on toward the little +village of shacks scattered out of sight among the hills, and valleys +across the border. +</P> + +<P> +Coachman, witnesses, and arresting officer, to say nothing of horse, +carriage, and sores were on hand when court opened next morning. As I +expected, the judge failed to ask the poor fellow a single question +that would bring out the complicity of his employer; did not in fact +discover there was an employer. I asked to be sworn, and gave the true +version of the case. The judge listened earnestly. When I had ended, he +recalled the coachman. The latter expressed his astonishment that I +should have made any such statements. He denied them in toto. His +employer had nothing whatever to do with the case. The fault was +entirely his, and no one else was in the remotest degree connected with +the matter. +</P> + +<P> +"Five dollars!" snapped the judge. +</P> + +<P> +The coachman paid, hitched up the rat of a horse, and wabbled away into +Panama. +</P> + +<P> +Police business, taking me down into "the Grove" that night, I found +the driver, clean-shaven and better dressed, waiting for fares before +the principal house of that section. +</P> + +<P> +"What kind of a game—," I began. +</P> + +<P> +"Senor," he cried, and tears again seemed on the point of falling, +"every word I told you was true. But of course I couldn't testify +against the patron. He'd discharge me and blackmail me, and you know I +have a wife and innumerable children to support. Come on over and have +a drink." +</P> + +<P> +This justice business, one soon learns, is of the same infallible stuff +as the rest of life. After all it is only the personal opinion of the +judge between two persons swearing on oath to diametrically opposed +statements; and for all the impressiveness of deep furrowed brows I did +not find that the average judge had any more power of reading human +nature than the average of the rest of us. I well remember the morning +when a meek little Panamanian was testifying in his own behalf, in +Spanish of course, when the judge broke in without even asking for a +translation of the testimony: +</P> + +<P> +"That'll do! Because of your gestures I believe you are trying to bunco +this court. You are lying—tell him that," this to the negro +interpreter; and he therewith sentenced the witness to jail. +</P> + +<P> +As if any Panamanian could talk earnestly of anything without waving +his arms about him. +</P> + +<P> +The telephone-bell rang one afternoon. It was always doing that, +twenty-four hours a day; but this time it sounded especially sharp and +insistent. In the adjoining room, over the "blotter," snapped the brusk +stereotyped nasal reply: +</P> + +<P> +"Ancon! Bingham talking!" +</P> + +<P> +The instrument buzzed a moment and the deskman looked up to say: +</P> + +<P> +"'Andy' and a nigger just fell over into Pedro Miguel locks. They're +sending in his body. The nigger lit on his head and hurt his leg." +</P> + +<P> +His body! How uncanny it sounded! "Andy," that bunch of muscles who had +made such short work of the circus wrestler in Gatun and whom I had +seen not twenty-four hours before bubbling with life was now a "body." +Things happen quickly on the Zone, and he whom the fates have picked to +go generally shows no hesitation in his exit. But at least a man who +dies for the I. C. C. has the affairs he left behind him attended to in +a thorough manner. In ten minutes to a half-hour one of the Z. P. is on +the ground taking note of every detail of the accident. A special train +or engine rushes the body to the morgue in Ancon hospital grounds. A +coroner's jury is soon meeting under the chairmanship of a policeman, +long reports of everything concerning the victim or the accident are +soon flowing Administration-ward. The police accident report is +detailed and in triplicate. There is sure to be in the "personal files" +at Culebra a history of the deceased and the names of his nearest +relative or friend both on the Isthmus and in the States; for every +employee must make out his biography at the time of his engagement. +There are men whose regular duty it is to list and take care of his +possessions down to the last lead pencil, and to forward them to the +legal heirs. A year's pay goes to his family—were as much required of +every employer and his the burden of proving the accident the fault of +the employee, how the safety appliances in factories would multiply. +There is a man attached to Ancon hospital whose unenviable duty it is +to write a letter of condolence to the relatives in the States. +</P> + +<P> +And so the "Kangaroos" or the "Red Men" or whatever his lodge was filed +behind the I. C. C. casket to the church in Ancon, and "Andy" was laid +away under another of the simple white iron crosses that thickly +populate many a Zone hillside, and he was charged up to the big debit +column of the costs of the canal. On the cross is his new number; for +officially a "Zoner" is always a number; that of the brass-check he +wears as a watch-charm alive, that at the head of his grave when his +canal-digging is over. +</P> + +<P> +Late one unoccupied afternoon I picked up the path behind the +Administration Building and, skirting a Zone residence, began to climb +that famous oblong mound that dominates the Pacific end of the +landscape from every direction,—Ancon Hill. For a way a fairly steep +and stony path lead through thick undergrowth. Then this ceased, and a +far steeper trail zigzagged up the face of the bare mountain, covered +only with thin dead grass. The setting sun cast its shadow obliquely +across the summit when I reached it,—a long ridge, with groves of +trees, running off abruptly toward the sea. On the opposite side Uncle +Sam was cutting away a whole side of the hill. But the five o'clock +whistle had blown, and whole armies of little workmen swarmed across +all the landscape far below, and silence soon settled down save for the +dredges at Balboa that chug on through the night. But for myself the +hill was wholly unpeopled. A sturdy ocean breeze swept steadily across +it. The sinking sun set the jungle afire in a spot that would have +startled those who do not know that it rises in the Pacific at Panama, +crude, glaring colors glowed, fading to gentler and more delicate +tints, then the evening shadow that had climbed the hill with me spread +like a great black veil over all the world. +</P> + +<P> +But the moon nearing its full followed almost on the heels of the +setting sun and, casting its half-day over a scene rich in nature and +history, invited the eye to swing clear round the hazy circle. Below +lay Panama dully rumbling with night traffic. Silent Ancon, still +better lighted, cuddled upon the lower skirts of the hill itself. Then +beyond, the curving bay, half seen, half guessed, with its long +promontory dying away into the hazy moonlit distance, lighted up here +and there by bush fires in the jungled hills. Some way out winked the +cluster of lights that marked Las Sabanas. In front, the placid +Pacific, the "South Sea" of the Spaniards, spread dimly away into the +void of night, its several islands seen only by the darker darkness +that marked where they lay. +</P> + +<P> +On the other side of the hill the rumble of cranes and night labor came +up from Balboa dock. There, began the canal, which the eye could follow +away into the dim hilly inland distance—and come upon a great cluster +of lights that was Corozal, then another group that was Miraflores, +close followed by those of Pedro Miguel; and yet further, rising to +such height as to be almost indistinguishable from the lower stars the +lights of the negro cabins of upper Paraiso twinkled dimly above a +broad glow that was Paraiso itself. There the vista ended. For at +Paraiso the canal turns to the left for its plunge through Culebra +hill, and all that follows,—Empire, Cascadas, and far Gatun, was +visible only in the imagination. +</P> + +<P> +If only the film of time might roll back and there pass again before +our eyes all that has come to pass within sight of Ancon hilltop. +Across the bay there, where now are only jungle-tangled ruins, Pizarro +set out with his handful of vagabonds to conquer South America; there +old Buccaneer Morgan laid his bloody hand. Back in the hills there men +died by scores trying to carry a ship across the Isthmus, the Spanish +viceroys passed with their rich trains, there on some unknown knoll +Balboa reached four hundred years ago the climax of a career that began +with stowing away in a cask and ended under the headsman's ax—no end +of it, down to the "Forty-niners" going hopefully out and returning +filled with gold or disease, or leaving their bones here in the jungle +before they really were "Forty-niners"; on down to the railroad days +with men wading in swamps with survey kits, and frequently lying down +to die. Then if a bit of the future, too, could for a moment be +unveiled, and one might watch the first ship glide majestically and +silently into the canal and away into the jungle like some amphibious +monster. +</P> + +<P> +It was along in those days that we were looking for a "murderous +assaulter." At a Saturday night dance in a native shack back in +Miraflores bush the usual riot had broken out about midnight and a +revolver had come into play. As a result there was a Peruvian mulatto +up in Ancon hospital who had been shot through the mouth, the bullet +being somewhere in his neck. It became my frequent duty, among other Z. +P.'s, to take suspects up the hill for possible identification. +</P> + +<P> +One morning I strolled into the station and fell to laughing. The early +train had brought in on suspicion a Spanish laborer of twenty or +twenty-two; a pretty, girlish chap with huge blue eyes over which hung +long black lashes like those painted on Nurnberg dolls. No one with a +shadow of faith in human nature left would have believed him capable of +any crime; any one at all acquainted with Spaniards must have known he +could not shoot a hare, would in fact be afraid to fire off a gun. +</P> + +<P> +The fear in his big blue eyes struggled with his ingenuous, girlish +smile as I marched him through the long hall full of white beds and +darker inmates. The Peruvian sat bolstered up in his cot, a stoical, +revengeful glare on his reddish-brown swollen face. He gazed a long +minute at the boy's face, across which flitted the flush of fear and +embarrassment, at the big doll's eyes, then shook a raised forefinger +slowly back and forth before his nose—the negative of Spanish-speaking +peoples. Then he groaned, spat in a tin-can beside him, and called for +paper and pencil. In the note-book I handed him he wrote in atrociously +spelled Spanish: +</P> + +<P> +"The man that came to the dance with this man is the man that shot me +with a bullet." +</P> + +<P> +The blue-eyed boy promised to point out his companion of that night. We +took the 10:55 and reached Pedro Miguel during the noon hour. Down in a +box-car camp between the railroad and the canal the boy called for +"Jose" and there presented himself immediately a tall, studious, +solemn-faced Spaniard of spare frame, about forty, dressed in overalls +and working shirt. Here was even less a criminal type than the boy. +</P> + +<P> +"Senor," I asked, "did you go to the dance in Miraflores last Saturday +night with this youth?" +</P> + +<P> +"Si, senor." +</P> + +<P> +"Then I place you under arrest. We will take the one o'clock train." +</P> + +<P> +He opened his mouth to protest, but closed it again without having +uttered a sound. He opened it a second time, then sat suddenly down on +the low edge of the box-car porch. A more genuinely astonished man I +have never seen. No actor could have approached it. Still, whatever my +own conviction, it was my business to bring him before his accuser. +After a time he recovered sufficiently to ask permission to change his +clothes, and disappeared in one of the resident box-cars. The boy was +already being fed in another. Had my prisoners been of almost any one +of the other seventy-one nationalities I should not have thought of +letting them out of my sight. But the Zone Spaniard's respect for law +is proverbial. +</P> + +<P> +"Jose! Pinched Jose!" cried his American boss, when I explained that he +would find himself a man short that afternoon. "You people are sure +barking up the wrong tree this time. Why, Jose has been my engineer for +over two years, and the steadiest man on the Zone. He writes for some +Spanish paper and tells 'em the truth over there so straight that the +rest of 'em down here, the anarchists and all that bunch, are aching to +get him into trouble. But they'll never get anything on Jose. Have him +tell you about it in Spanish if you sabe the lingo." +</P> + +<P> +But Jose was a gallego, whence instead of the voluble flood of +protesting words one expects from a Spaniard on such an occasion, he +wrapped himself in a stoical silence. Not until we were on our way to +the railroad station did I get him to talk. Then he explained in quiet, +unflowery, gestureless language. +</P> + +<P> +He had come to the Canal Zone chiefly to gather literary material. Not +being a man of wealth, however, nor one satisfied with superficial +observation, he had sought employment at his trade as stationary +engineer. Besides laying in a stock for more important writing he hoped +to do in the future, he was Zone correspondent of "El Liberal" of +Madrid and other Spanish cities. In the social life of his +fellow-countrymen on the Isthmus he had taken no part, whatever. He was +too busy. He did not drink. He could not dance; he saw no sense in +squandering time in such frivolities. But ever since his arrival he had +been promising himself to attend one of these wild Saturday-night +debauches in the edge of the jungle that he might use a description of +it in some later work. So he had coaxed his one personal friend, the +boy, to go with him. It was virtually the one thing besides work that +he had ever done on the Zone. They had stayed two hours, and had left +the moment the trouble began. Yet here he was arrested. +</P> + +<P> +I bade him cheer up, to consider the trip to Ancon merely an afternoon +excursion on government pass. He remained downcast. +</P> + +<P> +"But think of the experience!" I cried. "Now you can tell exactly how +it feels to be arrested—first-hand literary material." +</P> + +<P> +But he was not philosopher enough to look at it from that point of +view. To his Spanish mind arrest, even in innocence, was a disgrace for +which no amount of "material" could compensate. It is a common failing. +How many of us set out into the world for experience, yet growl with +rage or sit downcast and silent all the way from Pedro Miguel to Panama +if one such experience gives us a rough half-hour, or robs us of ten +minutes sleep. +</P> + +<P> +At the hospital the Peruvian gurgled and spat, beckoned for paper and +wrote: +</P> + +<P> +"This is the man." +</P> + +<P> +"What man?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"The man who came with that man," he scribbled, nodding his heavy face +toward the blue-eyed boy. +</P> + +<P> +"But is this the man that shot you?" I demanded. +</P> + +<P> +"The man who came with that man is the one," he scrawled. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then this is the man that shot you?" I cried. +</P> + +<P> +But he would not answer definitely to that, but sat a long time glaring +out of his swollen, vindictive countenance propped up in his pillows at +the tall, solemn correspondent. By and by he motioned again for paper. +</P> + +<P> +"I think so. I am not sure," he miswrote. +</P> + +<P> +I did NOT think so, and as the sum total of his descriptions of his +assailant during the past several days amounted to "a tall man, rather +short, with a face and two eyes"—he was very insistent about the eyes, +which is the reason the doll-eyed boy had fallen into the drag-net—I +permitted myself to accept my own opinion as evidence. The Peruvian was +in all likelihood in no condition to recognize a man from a loup-garou +by the time the fracas started. Much ardent water had flowed that +night. I took the suspects down to Ancon station and let them cool off +in porch rocking-chairs. Then I gave them passes back to Pedro Miguel +for the evening train. The doll-eyed boy smiled girlishly upon me as he +descended the steps, but the correspondent strode slowly away with the +downcast, cheerless countenance of a man who has been hurt beyond +recovery. +</P> + +<P> +There were strangely contrasted days in the "gum-shoe's" calendar. Two +examples taken almost at random will give the idea. On May twentieth I +lolled all day in a porch rocker at Ancon station, reading a novel. +Along in the afternoon Corporal Castillo drifted in. For a time he +stood leaning against the desk-rail, his felt hat pushed far back on +his head, his eyes fixed on some point in the interior of China. Then +suddenly he snatched up a sheet of I. C. C. stationery, dropped down at +a typewriter, and wrote at express speed a letter in Spanish. Next he +grasped a telephone and, in the words of the deskman, "spit Spig into +the 'phone" for several minutes. That over he caught up an envelope, +sealed the letter and addressed it. An instant later the station was in +an uproar looking for a stamp. One was found, the Corporal stuck it on +the letter, fell suddenly motionless and stared for a long time at +vacancy. Then a new thought struck him. He jerked open a drawer of the +"gum-shoe" desk, flung the letter inside—where I found it accidentally +one day some weeks afterward—and dropping into the swivel-chair laid +his feet on the "gum-shoe" blotter and a moment later seemed to have +fallen asleep. +</P> + +<P> +By all of which signs those of us who knew him began to suspect that +the Corporal had something on his mind. Not a few considered him the +best detective on the force; at least he was different enough from a +printer's ink detective to be a real one. But naturally the strain of +heading a detective bureau for weeks was beginning to wear upon him. +</P> + +<P> +"Damn it!" said the Corporal suddenly, opening his eyes, "I can't be in +six places at once. You'll have to handle these cases," and he drew +from a pocket and handed me three typewritten sheets, then drifted away +into the dusk. I looked them over and returned to the porch rocker and +the last chapters of the novel. +</P> + +<P> +A meek touch on the leg awoke me at four next morning. I looked up to +see dimly a black face under a khaki helmet bent over me whispering, +"It de time, sah," and fade noiselessly away. It was the frontier +policeman carrying out his orders of the night before. For once there +was not a carriage in sight. I stumbled sleepily down into Panama and +for some distance along Avenida Central before I was able to hail an +all night hawk chasing a worn little wreck of a horse along the +macadam. I spread my lanky form over the worn cushions and we spavined +along the graveled boundary line, past the Chinese cemetery where John +can preserve and burn joss to his ancestors to the end of time, out +through East Balboa just awakening to life, and reached Balboa docks as +day was breaking. I was not long there, and the equine caricature +ambled the three miles back to town in what seemed reasonable time, +considering. As we turned again into Avenida Central my watch told me +there was time and to spare to catch the morning passenger. I was not a +little surprised therefore to hear just then two sharp rings on the +station gong. I dived headlong into the station and brought up against +a locked gate, caught a glimpse of two or three ladies weeping and the +tail of the passenger disappearing under the bridge. Americans have +introduced the untropical idea of starting their trains on time, to the +disgust of the "Spig" in general and the occasional discomfiture of +Americans. I dashed wildly out through the station, across Panama's +main street, down a rugged lane to the first steps descending to the +track, and tumbled joyously onto a slowly moving train—to discover +that it was the Balboa labor-train and that the Colon passenger was +already half-way to Diablo Hill. +</P> + +<P> +A Panama policeman of dusky hue, leaning against a gate-post, eyed me +drowsily as I slowly climbed the steps, mopping my brow and staring at +my watch. +</P> + +<P> +"What time does that 6:35 train leave?" I demanded. +</P> + +<P> +"Yo, senor," he said with ministerial dignity, shifting slowly to the +other shoulder, "no tengo conocimiento de esas cosas" (I have no +knowledge of those things). +</P> + +<P> +He probably did not know there is a railroad from Panama to Colon. It +has only been in operation since 1855. +</P> + +<P> +Later I found the fault lay with my brass watch. +</P> + +<P> +With a perspiration up for all day I set out along the track. Hounding +Diablo Hill the realization that I was hungry came upon me +simultaneously with the thought that unless I got through the door of +Corozal hotel by 7:30 I was likely to remain so. Breakfast over, I +caught the morning supply-train to Miraflores, there to dash through +the locks for a five-minute interview. I walked to Pedro Miguel and, +descending from the embankment of the main line, "nailed" a dirt-train +returning empty and stood up for a breezy ride down through the "cut." +It was the same old smoky, toilsome place, a perceptible bit lower. As +in the case of a small boy only those can see its growth who have been +away for a time. The train stopped with a jerk at the foot of Culebra. +I walked a half-mile and caught a loaded dirt-train to Cascadas. The +matter there to be investigated required ten minutes. That over, I "got +in touch" at the nearest telephone, and the Corporal's voice called for +my immediate presence at headquarters. There chanced to be passing +through Cascadas at that moment a Panama-bound freight, the caboose of +which caught me up on the fly; and forty minutes later I was racing up +the long stairs. +</P> + +<P> +There I learned among other things that a man I was anxious to have a +word with was coming in on the noon train, but would be unavailable +after arrival. I sprang into a cab and was soon rolling away again, +past the Chinese cemetery. At the commissary crossing in East Balboa we +were held up by an empty dirt-train returning from the dump. I tossed a +coin at the cabman and scrambled aboard. The train raced through +Corozal, down the grade and around the curve at unslacking speed. I +dropped off in front of Miraflores police station, keeping my feet, +thanks to practice and good luck, and dashing up through the village, +dragged myself breathlessly aboard the passenger train as its head and +shoulders had already disappeared in the tunnel. +</P> + +<P> +The ticket-collector pointed out my man to me in the first passenger +coach, the "ladies' car"—he is a school-teacher and tobacco smoke +distresses him—and by the time we pulled into Panama I had the desired +information. Dinner was not to be thought of; I had barely time to dash +through the second-class gate and back along the track to Balboa +labor-train. From the docks a sand-train carried me to Pedro Miguel. +</P> + +<P> +There was a craneman in Bas Obispo "cut" whose testimony was wanted. I +reached him by two short walks and a ride. His statements suggested the +advisability of questioning his room-mate, a towerman in Miraflores +freight-yards. Luck would have it that my chauffeur friend —— was +just then passing with an I. C. C. motor-car and only a photographer +for a New York weekly aboard. I found room to squeeze in. The car raced +away through the "cut," up the declivity, and dropped me at the foot of +the tower. The room-mate referred me to a locomotive engineer and, +being a towerman, gave me the exact location of his engine. I found it +at the foot of Cucaracha slide with a train nearly loaded. By the time +the engineer had added his whit of information, we were swinging around +toward the Pacific dump. I dropped off and, climbing up the flank of +Ancon hill, descended through the hospital grounds. +</P> + +<P> +Where the royal palms are finest and there opens out the broadest view +of Panama, Ancon, and the bay, I gave myself five minutes' pause, after +which a carriage bore me to a shop near Cathedral Plaza where +second-hand goods are bought—and no questions asked. On the way back +to Ancon station I visited two similar establishments. +</P> + +<P> +I had been lolling in the swivel-chair a full ten minutes, perhaps, +when the telephone rang. It was "the Captain" calling for me. When I +reached the third-story back he handed me extradition papers to the +Secretary of Foreign Affairs in Panama. A half-hour later, wholly +outstripping the manana idea, I had signed a receipt for the Jap in +question and transferred him from Panama to Ancon jail. Whereupon I +descended to the evening passenger and rode to Pedro Miguel for five +minutes' conversation, and caught the labor-train Panamaward. At +Corozal I stepped off for a word with the officer on the platform and +the labor-train plunged on again, after the fashion of labor-trains, +spilling the last half of its disembarking passengers along the way. +Ten minutes later the headlight of the last passenger swung around the +curve and carried me away to Panama. +</P> + +<P> +That might have done for the day, but I had gathered a momentum it was +hard to check. Not long after returning from the police mess to the +swivel chair a slight omission in the day's program occurred to me. I +called up Corozal police station. +</P> + +<P> +"What?" said a mashed-potato voice at the other end of the wire. +</P> + +<P> +"Who's talking?" +</P> + +<P> +"Policeman Green, sah." +</P> + +<P> +"Station commander there?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, sah. Station commander he gone just over to de Y. M. to play +billiards, sah. Dey one big match on to-night." +</P> + +<P> +Of course I could have "got" him there. But on second thoughts it would +be better to see him in person and clear up at the same time a little +matter in one of the labor camps, and not run the risk of causing the +loss of the billiard championship. Besides Corozal is cooler to sleep +in than Ancon. In a black starry night I set out along the invisible +railroad for the first station. +</P> + +<P> +An hour later, everything settled to my satisfaction, I had discovered +a vacant bed in Corozal bachelor quarters and was pulling off my coat +preparatory to the shower-bath and a well-earned night's repose. +Suddenly I heard a peculiar noise in the adjoining room, much like that +of a seal coming to the surface after being long under water. My +curiosity awakened, I sauntered a few feet along the veranda. Beside +one of the cots stood a short, roly-poly little man, the lower third of +whom showed rosy pink below his bell-shaped white nightie. As he turned +his face toward the light to switch it off I swallowed the roof of my +mouth and clawed at the clap-boarding for support. It was "the Sloth!" +He had been transferred. I slipped hastily into my coat and, turning up +the collar, plunged out into the rain and the night and stumbled +blindly away on weary legs towards Panama. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap09"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IX +</H3> + +<P> +There were four of us that Sunday. "Bish" and I always went for an +afternoon swim unless police or mess duties forbade. Then there was +Bridgley, who had also once displayed his svelte form in a Z. P. +uniform to admiring tourists, but was now a pursuer of "soldiering" +Hindus on Naos Island. I wish I could describe Bridgley for you. But if +you never knew him ten pages would give you no clearer idea, and if you +ever did, the mere mention of the name Bridgley will be full and ample +description. Still, if you must have some sort of a lay figure to hang +your imaginings on, think of a man who always reminds you of a slender, +delicate porcelain vase of great antiquity that you know a strong wind +would smash to fragments,—yet when you accidentally swat it off the +mantelpiece to the floor it bobs up without a crack. Then you grow +bolder and more curious and jump on it with both feet in your +hob-nailed boots, and to your astonishment it not only does not break +but— +</P> + +<P> +Well, Bridgley was one of us that Sunday afternoon; and then there was +"the Admiral," well-dressed as always, who turned up at the last +moment; for which we were glad, as any one would be to have "the +Admiral" along. So we descended into Panama by the train-guard +short-cut and across the bridge that humps its back over the P. R. R. +like a cat in unsocial mood, and on through Caledonia out along the +beach sands past the old iron hulls about which Panamanian laborers are +always tinkering under the impression that they are working. This time +we walked. I don't recall now whether it was quarter-cracks, or the +Lieutenant hadn't slept well—no, it couldn't have been that, for the +Lieutenant never let his personal mishaps trample on his good +nature—or whether "Bish" had decided to try to reduce weight. At any +rate we were afoot, and thereby hangs the tale—or as much of a tale as +there is to tell. +</P> + +<P> +We tramped resolutely on along the hard curving beach past the +disheveled bath-houses before which ladies from the Zone gather in some +force of a Sunday afternoon. For this time we were really out for a +swim rather than to display our figures. On past the light-brown +bathers, and the chocolate-colored bathers, and the jet black bathers +who seemed to consider that color covering enough, till we came to the +big silent saw-mill at the edge of the cocoanut grove that we had been +invited long since to make a Z. P. dressing-room. +</P> + +<P> +Before us spread the reposing, powerful, sun-shimmering Pacific. Across +the bay, clear as an etching, lay Panama backed by Ancon hill. In +regular cadence the ocean swept in with a hoarse, resistless roll on +the sands. +</P> + +<P> +We dived in, keeping an eye out for the sharks we knew never come so +far in and probably wouldn't bite if they did. The sun blazed down +white hot from a cloudless sky. This time the Lieutenant and Sergeant +Jack had not been able to come, but we arranged the races and jumps on +the sand for all that, and went into them with a will and— +</P> + +<P> +A rain-drop fell. Nor was it long lonesome. Before we had finished the +hundred-yard dash we were in the midst of —— it was undeniably +raining. Half a moment later "bucketsful" would have been a weak +simile. All the pent up four months of an extra long rainy season +seemed to have been loosed without warning. The blanket of water +blotted out Panama and Ancon hill across the bay, blotted out the +distant American bathers, then the light-brown ones, then the +chocolate-tinted, then even the jet black ones close at hand. +</P> + +<P> +We remained under water for a time to keep dry. But the rain whipped +our faces as with thousands of stinging lashes. We crawled out and +dashed blindly up the bank toward the saw-mill, the rain beating on our +all but bare skins, feeling as it might to stand naked in Miraflores +locks and let the sand pour down upon us from sixty feet above. When at +last we stumbled under cover and up the stairs to where our clothing +hung, it was as if a weight of many tons had been lifted from our +shoulders. +</P> + +<P> +The saw-mill was without side-walls; consisted only of a sheet-iron +roof and floors, on the former of which the storm pounded with a roar +that made only the sign language feasible. It was now as if we were +surrounded on all sides by solid walls of water and forever shut off +from the outer world—if indeed that had survived. Sheets of water +slashed in further and further across the floor. We took to huddling +behind beams and under saw-benches—the militant storm hunted us out +and wetted us bit by bit. "The Admiral" and I tucked ourselves away on +the 45-degree eye-beams up under the roaring roof. The angry water +gathered together in columns and swept in and up to soak us. +</P> + +<P> +At the end of an hour the downpour had increased some hundred per cent. +It was as if an express train going at full speed had gradually doubled +its rapidity. That was the day when little harmless streams tore +themselves apart into great gorges and left their pathetic little +bridges alone and deserted out in the middle of the gulf. That was the +famous May twelfth, 1912, when Ancon recorded the greatest rainfall in +her history,—7.23 inches, virtually all within three hours. Three of +us were ready to surrender and swim home through it. But there was "the +Admiral" to consider. He was dressed clear to his scarf-pin—and Panama +tailors tear horrible holes in a police salary. So we waited and dodged +and squirmed into closer holes for another hour; and grew steadily +wetter. +</P> + +<P> +Then at length dusk began to fall, and instead of slacking with the day +the fury of the storm increased. It was then that "the Admiral" +capitulated, seeing fate plainly in league with his tailor; and +wigwagging the decision to us beside him, he led the way down the +stairs and dived into the world awash. +</P> + +<P> +Wet? We had not taken the third step before we were streaming like fire +hose. There was nearly an hour of it, splashing knee-deep through what +had been when we came out little dry sandy hollows; steering by guess, +for the eye could make out nothing fifty yards ahead, even before the +cheese-thick darkness fell; bowed like nonogenarians under the burden +of water; staggering back and forth as the storm caught us crosswise or +the earth gave way under us. "The Admiral's" patent-leather shoes—but +why go into painful details? Those who were in Panama on that memorable +afternoon can picture it all for themselves, and the others will never +know. The wall of water was as thick as ever when we fought our bowed +and weary way up over the railroad bridge and, summoning up the last +strength, splurged tottering into "Angelini's." +</P> + +<P> +When our streaming had so far subsided that they recognised us for +solvent human beings, encouraging concoctions were set before us. +Bridgley, fearing the after effects, acquired a further quart bottle of +protection, and when we had gathered force for the last dash we plunged +out once more toward our several goals. As the door of 111 slammed +behind me, the downpour suddenly slackened. As I paused before my room +to drain, it stopped raining. +</P> + +<P> +I supped on bread, beer, and cheese from over the frontier—we had +arrived thirty seconds too late for Ancon police mess. Then when I had +saved what was salvable from the wreckage and reclad in such wardrobe +as had luckily remained at home, I strolled over toward the police +station to put in a serene and quiet evening. +</P> + +<P> +But it has long since been established that troubles flock together. As +I crunched up the gravel walk between the hedge-rows, wild riot broke +on my ear. Ancon police station was in eruption. From the Lieutenant to +the newest uniformless "rookie" every member of the force was swarming +in and out of the building. The Zone and Panama telephones were ringing +in their two opposing dialects, the deskman was shouting his own +peculiar brand of Spanish into one receiver and bawling English at the +other, all hands were diving into old clothes, the most apathetic of +the force were girding up their loins with the adventurous fire of the +old Moro-hunting days in their eyes, and all, some ahorse, more afoot, +were dashing one by one out into the night and the jungle. +</P> + +<P> +It was several minutes before I could catch the news. At last it was +shouted at me over a telephone. Murder! A white Greek—who ever heard +of a colored Greek?—with a white shirt on had shot a man at Pedro +Miguel at 6:35. Every road and bypath of escape to Panama was already +blocked, armed men would meet the assassin whatever way he might take. +I went down to meet the evening train, resolved after that to strike +out into the night in the random hope of having my share in the chase. +It had begun to rain again, but only moderately, as if it realized it +could never again equal the afternoon record. +</P> + +<P> +Then suddenly the excitement exploded. It was only a near-murder. Two +Colombians had been shot, but would in all probability recover. The +news reached me as I stood at the second-class gate scanning the faces +of the great multicolored river of passengers that poured out into the +city. For two hours, one by one with crestfallen mien, the manhunters +leaked back into Ancon station and, the case having dwindled to one of +regular daily routine, by eleven we were all abed. +</P> + +<P> +In the morning the "Greek chase" fell to me. More detailed description +of the culprit had come in during the night, including the bit of +information that he was a bad man from the Isle of Crete. The +belt-straining No. 38 oiled and loaded, I set off on an assignment that +was at least a relief after pursuing stolen necklaces for negro women, +or crowbars lost by the I. C. C. +</P> + +<P> +By nine I was climbing to Pedro Miguel police station on its knoll with +the young Greek who had exchanged hats with the assassin after the +crime. That afternoon a volunteer joined me. He was a friend of the +wounded men, a Peruvian black as jade, but without a suggestion of the +negro in anything but his outward appearance. He was of the size and +build of a Sampson in his prime, spoke a Spanish so clear-cut it seemed +to belie his African blood, and had the restless vigor acquired in a +youth of tramping over the Andine ranges. +</P> + +<P> +I piled him into a cab and we rolled away to East Balboa, to climb upon +an empty dirt-train and drop off as it raced through Miraflores, the +sturdy legs of the Peruvian saving him where his practice would not +have. Up in the bush between Pedro Miguel and Paraiso we found a hut +where the Greek had stopped for water and gone on up a gully. We set +out to follow, mounting partly on hands and knees, partly dragging +ourselves by grass and bushes up what had been and would soon be again +a torrential mountain stream. For hours we tore through the jungle, up +hills steeper than the path of righteousness, following now a few faint +foot-prints or trampled bushes, now a hint from some native bush +dweller. The rain outside vied with the sweat within as to which would +first soak us through. To make things merrier I had not only to wear an +arsenal but a coat atop to conceal it from the general public. +</P> + +<P> +To mention the holes I crawled into and the clues I followed during the +next few days would be more tiresome than a Puritan prayer. By day I +was dashing back and forth through all Ancon district, by night +prowling about the grimier sections of Panama city. Almost daily I got +near enough to sniff the prey. Now it was a Greek confectioner on +Avenida Central who admitted that the fugitive had called on him during +the night, now a Panamanian pesquisa whose stool-pigeon had seen him +out in the bush, then the information that he had stopped to shave and +otherwise alter his appearance in some shack half-way across the Zone +and afterward struck off for Panama by an unused route. The clues were +pendulum-like. They took me a half-dozen times at least out the winding +highway to Corozal, on to Miraflores and even further. The rainy season +and the reign of umbrellas had come. It had been formally opened on +that memorable Sunday afternoon. There was still sunshine at times, but +always a wet season heaviness to the atmosphere; and the rains were +already giving the rolling jungle hills a tinge of new green. There was +nothing to be gained by hurrying. The fugitive was as likely to crawl +forth from one place as another along the rambling road. Here I paused +to kill a lizard or to watch the clumsy march of one of the huge purple +and many-colored land-crabs, there to gaze away across a jungled valley +soft and fuzzy in the humid air like some Corot painting. +</P> + +<P> +I even sailed for San Francisco in the quest. For of course each +outgoing ship must be searched. One day I had word that a "windjammer" +was about to sail; and racing out to Balboa I was soon set aboard the +fore and aft schooner Meteor far out in the bay. When I plunged down +into the cabin the peeled-headed German captain was seated at a table +before a heap of "Spig" dollars, paying off his black shore hands. He +solemnly asserted he had no Greek aboard, and still more solemnly swore +that if he found one stowed away he would turn him over to the police +in San Francisco—which was kind of him but would not have helped +matters. There are several men running gaily about San Francisco +streets who would be very welcome in certain quarters on the Zone and +sure of lodging and food for a long time to come. +</P> + +<P> +By this time the tug Bolivar had us in tow, the captain went racing +over his ship like any of his crew, tugging at the ropes, and we were +gliding out across Panama bay, past the little greening islands, the +curving panorama of the city and Ancon hill growing smaller and smaller +behind—bound for 'Frisco. What ho! the merry "windjammer" with her +stowed sails and smell of tar awakened within me old memories, hungry +and grimy for the most part. But this was no independent, +self-respecting member of the Wind-wafted sisterhood. Far out in the +offing lay a steamer of the same line that was to TOW the Meteor to the +Golden Gate! How is the breed of sailors fallen! The few laborers +aboard would take an occasional wheel, pick oakum, and yarn their +unadventurous yarns. As we drew near, a boat was lowered to set me +aboard the steamer, to the rail-crowding surprise of her passengers, +who fancied they had hours since seen the last of Zone and "Zoners." +The captain asserted he had nothing aboard grown nearer Greece than +three Irishmen, any one of whom—facetiousness seemed to be one of the +captain's characteristics—I might have and welcome. A few moments +later I was back aboard the tug waving farewell to steamer and +"windjammer" as they pushed away into the twilight sea, and the Bolivar +turned shoreward. +</P> + +<P> +I received a "straight tip" one evening that the fugitive Greek was +hiding in a hovel on the Cruces trail. What part of the Cruces trail, +the informant did not hint; but he described the hut in some detail. So +next morning as the thick gray dawn of this tropical land was melting +into day, I descended at Bas Obispo, through the canal to Gamboa and +struck off into the dense dripping jungle. The rainy season had greened +things up and gone—temporarily, of course, for in a day or two it +would be on us again in all tropical fury. In the few days since the +first rain the landscape had changed like a theater decoration, a green +not even to be imagined in the temperate zone. +</P> + +<P> +It turned out that the ancient village of Cruces was a mere two-mile +stroll from the canal, a thatch-roofed native town of some thirty +dwellings on the rocky shore of an inner curve of the Chagres, where +travelers from Balboa to the last "Forty-niner" disembarked from their +thirty-six mile ride up the river and struck on along the ten-mile road +through the jungle to Panama—the famous Cruces trail. Except for its +associations the village was without interest—except some personal +Greek interest. Sour looks were chiefly my portion, for the villagers +have never taken kindly to Americans. +</P> + +<P> +I soon sought out the trail, here a mere path undulating through rank, +wet-hot, locust singing jungle. Here in the tangled somber mystery of +the wilderness grew every tropical thing; countless giant ferns, +draping tangles of vines, the mango tree with its rounded dome of +leaves like the mosque of Omar done in greenery, the humble pineapple +with its unproportionate fruit, everywhere the banana, king of +vegetables, clothed in its own immense leaves, the frondy zapote, now +and then in a hollow a clump of yellowish-green bamboo, though not +numerous or nearly so large as in many another tropical land, above all +else the symmetrical Gothic fronds of the palm nodding in a breeze the +more humble vegetation could not know. The constant music of insect +life sounded in my ears; everywhere were flowers of brilliant hue, +masses of bush blossoms not unlike the lilac in appearance, but like +all down on the Isthmus, odorless—or rather with a pungent scent, like +strong catsup. +</P> + +<P> +Four months earlier I should have been chary of diving back into the +Panamanian "bush" alone, above all on a criminal hunt. But it needs +only a little time on the Zone to make one laugh at the absurd stories +of danger from the bush native that are even yet appearing in many U. +S. papers. They are not over friendly to whites, it is true. But they +were all of that familiar languid Central American type, blinking at me +apathetically out of the shade of their huts, crowding to one edge of +the trail as I passed, eying me silently, a bit morosely, somewhat +frightened because their experience of Americans is of a discourteous +creature who shouts at them in a strange tongue and swears at them +because they do not understand it. The moment they heard their own +customary greetings they changed to children delighted to do anything +to oblige—even to the extent of dragging their indolent forms erect to +lead the way a quarter-mile through the bush to some isolated shack. +Far from contemplating any injury, all these wayward children of the +jungle ask is to be let alone to drift through life in their own way. +Still more absurd is the notion of danger from wild beasts—other than +the tiny wild beast that burrows its painful way under the skin. +</P> + +<P> +So I pushed on, halting at many huts to make covert inquiries. It was a +joyous, brilliant day overhead. Down in the dense, rampant, singing +jungle I sweated profusely—and enjoyed it. Choking for a drink in a +hutless section, I took one of the crooked, tunnel-like trails to the +left in the direction of the Chagres. But it squirmed off through thick +jungle, through banana groves and untended pineapple gardens to come +out at last at an astonished hut on a knoll, from which was not to be +seen a sign of the river. I crawled through another struggling +side-trail further on and this time reached the stream, but at a bank +too sheer and bush-matted to descend. The third attempt brought me to +where the river made a graceful bend at my feet and I descended an +abrupt jungle bank to drink and stroll a bit along the stony shore; +then plunged in for a swim. It was just the right temperature, with +dense jungle banks on either side like great green unscalable walls, +the water clear and a bit over waist deep in the middle of the stream. +Now and then around the one or the other bend came a cayuca, the native +dug-out made of the hollowed trunk of a tree, usually the cedro—though +to a jungle native any tree is a "cedro" if he does not happen to think +of its right name. Twenty to thirty feet long, sometimes piled high +with vegetables, sometimes with several natives seated Indian file in +the bottom, the gunwales a bare two or three inches above the water, +they needed nice management, especially in the rapids below Cruces. The +locomotive power, generally naked to the waist, stood up in the craft +and climbed his polanca, or long pike pole, hand over hand, every naked +brown muscle in play, moving in perfect rhythm and apparent ease even +up-stream against the powerful current. +</P> + +<P> +Soon after Chagres and trail parted company, the former to wind on up +through the jungle hills to its birthplace in the land of Darien and +wild Indians, the latter to strike for the Pacific. Over a mildly rough +country it led, down into tangled ravines, up over dense forested +hillocks where the jungle had been fought back by Uncle Sam and on the +brows of which I halted to drink of the fresh breeze sweeping across +from the Atlantic. All this time not a suggestion of anything Greek, +though I managed by some simple strategy to cast a sweeping glance into +every hovel along the way. +</P> + +<P> +Then came the real Cruces trail—the rest only follows the general +direction. I fell upon it unexpectedly. It is still there as it was +when the Peruvian viceroys and their glittering trains clattered along +it, surprisingly well preserved; a cobbled way some three feet wide of +that rough and bumpy variety the Spaniard even to-day fancies a real +road, broken in places but still well marked, leading away southward +through the wilderness. +</P> + +<P> +Overhead were tall spreading trees laden with blossomless orchids. +Under some of them was broad grassy shade; but the surrounding wall of +vegetation cut off all breeze. The way was intersected by many roads of +leaf-cutting ants, as level, wide and well-built in their proportion as +the old Roman highways, with such an industrious throng going and +coming upon them as one could find nowhere equaled, unless it be on the +Grand Trunk Road of India. +</P> + +<P> +Then suddenly there appeared the hut that had been described to me. I +surrounded it and, hand upon the butt of my No. 38, closed in upon the +place, then rushed it with all forces. +</P> + +<P> +There was not a sign of human life in the vicinity. The door was tied +shut with a single strand of old rope, but there was no question that +the fugitive might be hiding inside, for the reed walls had holes in +them large enough to drive a sheep through, and there was nothing +within to hide behind. I thrust an arm through an opening and dragged +the large and heavy earthenware water-jar to me for a drink, and pushed +on. +</P> + +<P> +Squatter's cabins were now appearing, as contrasted with the native +bushman's peaked hut; sleeping-places thrown together of tin cans, +boxes and jungle rubbish, many negro shanties built of I. C. C. +scraps—all of which announced the vicinity of the canal. Any hut might +be a hiding-place. I made ostensibly casual inquiries, interlarded +between stories, at several of them, and at length established that the +Greek had been there not long before, but was elsewhere now. Then about +four of the afternoon I burst out suddenly in sight of a broad modern +highway, and leaving the ancient route as it headed away toward Old +Panama, I turned aside to the modern city. +</P> + +<P> +Then I was "called off the Greek chase"; and a couple of evenings +later, along with the evening train and the evening fog, the Inspector +"blew in" from his forty-two days' vacation in the States, like a +breath from far-off Broadway. Buffalo Bill had been duly opened and +started on his season's way, the absent returned, and Corporal Castillo +suddenly dwindled again to a mere corporal. +</P> + +<P> +As everything must have its flaws, perhaps the chief one that might be +charged against the Z. P. is "red tape." Strictly speaking it is no Z. +P. fault at all, but a weakness of all government. One example will +suffice. +</P> + +<P> +During the month of May I was assigned the investigation of certain +alleged conditions in Panama's restricted district. The then head of +the plain-clothes division gave me carte blanche, but suggested that I +need not spare my expense account in libating the various +establishments until I "got acquainted" sufficiently with the inmates +to pick up indirectly the information desired. +</P> + +<P> +Which general line I followed and, the information having been gathered +and the report made up, I proceed to make out my expenditures of $45 +for the month to forward to Empire for reimbursement. Now it needs no +deep detective experience to know that in such cases you naturally +begin with, "Well, what you going to drink, girls?" and end by paying +the bill in a lump sum—a large lump sum—and go your way in peace. +What more then could I do than set down such items as: +</P> + +<P> +"May 12, Liquor, investigation, Panama—$6.50?" +</P> + +<P> +But here I began to feel the tangling strands. Was it not stated that +all applications for reimbursement required an exact itemized account +of each separate expenditure, with the price of each? It did. But in +the first place I did not know half the beverages consumed in that +investigation by sight, smell, or name. In the second place I came +ostensibly as a "rounder"; it would perhaps have been advisable at the +close of each evening's entertainment to draw out note-book and pencil +and starting the round of the table announce: +</P> + +<P> +"Now, girls, I'm a dee-tective. No, keep yer places, I ain't going to +pinch nobody. Anyhow I'm only a Zone detective. But I just want to ask +you a few questions. Now, Mamie, what's that you're drinking? Ah! A gin +ricky. And just how much does that cost—here? And you, Flossie? An +absinthe frappe? Ah! Very good. And what is the retail price of that +particular drink?"—and so on ad nauseum. +</P> + +<P> +"Very true," replied authority, "that would of course be impossible. +But to be reimbursed you must set down in detail every item of +expenditure, and its price." +</P> + +<P> +Reason and government red tape move in two parallel lines, with the +usual meeting-place. +</P> + +<P> +Nor was that all. While the black Peruvian was on my staff I gave him +money for food. It was not merely expected, it was definitely so +ordered. Yet when I set down: +</P> + +<P> +"May 27, To Peruvian for food—$.50." authority threw up its hands in +horror. Did I not know that reimbursements were ONLY for "liquor and +cigars, cab or boat hire, and meals away from home?" I did. But I also +knew that superiors had ordered me to feed the Peruvian. "To be sure!" +cried astounded authority. "But you set down such an expenditure as +follows: +</P> + +<P> +"'May 27, Two bottles of beer, Pan., investigation—$.50.' +</P> + +<P> +"And as you are allowed cab fare ONLY for yourself, when you take the +Peruvian or any one else out to Balboa in a cab you set down the item: +</P> + +<P> +"'May 26, Cab, Ancon to Balboa AND RETURN, investigation—$1.'" +</P> + +<P> +The upshot of all which was, not feeling able with all my patriotism to +"set up" $45 worth of mixed drinks for Uncle Sam, I was forced to open +another investigation and gather from all the Z. P. authorities on the +subject, from Naos Island to Paraiso, the name and price of every known +beverage. Then when I had fitted together a picture puzzle of these +that summed up to the amount I had actually spent, I was called upon to +sign a statement thereunder that "this is a true and exact account of +expenditures during the month of May. So help me God." +</P> + +<P> +But then, as I have said before, these things are not Z. P. faults, +they are the faults of government since government began. +</P> + +<P> +It had become evident soon after the Inspector's return that unless +crime began to pick up down at the Pacific end of the Zone, I should +find myself again banished to the foreign land of Gatun. For there had +been a distinct rise in the criminal commodity at that end during the +past weeks. The premonition soon fell true. +</P> + +<P> +"Take the 10:55 to Gatun," said the Inspector one morning, without +looking up from his filing case, "Corporal Macey will tell you about it +when you get there." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap10"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER X +</H3> + +<P> +"Why, the fact is," said Corporal Macey, lighting his meerschaum pipe +until the match burned down to his fingers, "several little burglary +stunts have been pulling themselves off since the sergeant went on +vacation. But the most aggrayvaatin' is this new one of twinty-two +quarts of good Canadian Club bein' maliciously extracted from St. +Martin's saloon last night." +</P> + +<P> +From which important beginning I fell quickly back into the old life +again, derelicting about Gatun and vicinity by day, wandering the +nights away in black, noisy New Gatun and along the winding back road +under the cloud-scudding sky. Yet it was a different life. Gatun had +changed. Even her concrete light-house was winking all night now up +among the I. C. C. dwellings. The breeze from off the Caribbean was +heavy and lifeless. The landscape looked wet and lush and rampant, of a +deep-seated green, and instead of the china-blue skies the dull, +leaden-gray heavens seemed to hang low and heavy overhead, like a +portending fate. On the winding back road the jungle trees still stood +out against the night sky, at times, too, there was a moon, but only a +pale silver one that peered weakly here and there through the scudding +gray clouds. The air grew more thick and sultry day by day, the heat +was sticky, the weather dripping, with the sun only an irregular +whitish blotch in the sky. Through the open windows the heavy, damp +night came miasmically floating in, the very cigarettes mildewed in my +pockets. Earth and air seemed heavy and toil-bowed by comparison with +other days. The jungle still hummed busily, yet, it seemed, a bit +mournfully as if preparing for production and unhilarious with the task +before it, like a woman first learning of her pregnancy. Life seemed to +hang more heavily even on humanity; "Zoners" looked less gay and +carefree than in the sunny dry season, though still far more so than in +the north. One could not shake off a premonition of impending disaster +in I know not what form—like that of Teufelsdroeck before he entered +the "Center of Indifference." +</P> + +<P> +Dr. O—— of the Sanitary Department had gone up into the interior +along the Trinidad river to hunt mosquitoes. Why he went so far away +for them in this season was hard to understand. There he was, however, +and the order had come to bring him back to civilization. The execution +thereof fell, of course, to my friend B——, who to the world at large +is merely Policeman No. ——, to the force "Admiral of the Inland +Fleet," and in the general scheme of things is a luckier man than +Vanderchild to have for his task in life the patrolling of Gatun Lake. +B—— invited me to go along. There was nothing particular doing in the +criminal line around Gatun just then; moreover the doctor was known to +be well armed and there was no telling just how much resistance he +might offer a single policeman. I accepted. +</P> + +<P> +I was at the appointed rendezvous promptly at seven, a pocket filled +with commissary cigars. Strict truthfulness demands the admission that +it was really eight, however, when B—— came wandering down the muddy +steps behind the railroad station, followed by a black prisoner with a +ten-gallon can of gasoline on his head. When that had been poured into +the tank, we were off across the ever-rising waters of Gatun Lake. For +Gatun police launch is one of those peculiar motor-boats that starts +the same day you had planned to. +</P> + +<P> +It was such a day as could not have been bettered had it been made to +order, with a week to think out the details,—a dry-season day even to +the Atlantic breeze that goes with it, a sort of Indian summer of the +rainy season; though the heavy battalions of gray clouds that hung all +around the horizon as if awaiting the order to charge warned the Zone +to make merry while it might, for to-morrow it would surely rain—in +deluges. The lake, much higher now than in my former Gatun days, was +licking at the 27-foot level that morning. Under the brilliant blue sky +it looked like some vast unruffled mirror—which is no figure of +speech, but plain fact. +</P> + +<P> +"Through a Forest in a Motor-boat" we might have dubbed the trip. We +had soon crossed the unbroken expanse of the lake and were moving +through a submerged forest. Splendid royal palms stood up to their +necks in the water, corpulent, century-old giants of the jungle stood +on tip-toe with their jagged noses just above the surface, gasping +their last. Great mango-trees laden with fruit were descending into the +flood. The lake was so mirror-like we could see the heads of drowning +palm-trees and the blue sky with its wisps of snow-white feathery +clouds as plainly below as above, so mirror-like the protruding stump +of a palm looked like a piece of just double that length and exactly +equal ends floating upright like a water thermometer, so reflective +that the broken end of a branch showing above the surface appeared to +be an acute angle of wood floating exactly at the angle in impossible +equilibrium. +</P> + +<P> +Our prisoner and crew were from "Bahbaydos"—only you can't pronounce +it as he did, nor make the "a" broad enough, nor show the inside of +your red throat clear back to the soft palate to contrast with the +glistening black skin of your carefree, grinning face. Theoretically he +was being punished for assault and battery. But if this is punishment +to be sentenced to cruise around on Gatun Lake I wonder crime on the +Zone is so rare and unusual. This much I am sure, if I were in that +particular "Badgyan's" shoes—no, he had none; but his tracks, say—the +day my time ran out I should pick a quarrel with a Jamaican and leave +his countenance in such a condition that the judge could find no +grounds for a reasonable doubt in the matter. +</P> + +<P> +We were mounting the river Trinidad. River, yes, but we followed it +only because it had kept back the jungle and left a way free of +tree-tops, not because there was not water enough anywhere, in any +direction, to float a boat of many times our draught. Turns so sharp we +rocked in our own wake; once we passed acres upon acres of big, +cod-like fish floating dead upon the water among the branches and the +forest rubbish. It seems the lake in rising spread over some poisonous +mineral in the soil. But life there was none, except the rampant green +dying plant life in every direction to the horizon. There were not even +birds, other than now and then a stray snow-white slender one of the +heron species that fled majestically away across the face of the +nurtureless waters as we steamed—no, gasolined down upon it. Soon +after leaving Gatun we had passed a couple of jungle families on their +way to market in their cayucas laden with mounds of produce,—plump +mangoes with a maidenly blush on either cheek, fat yellow bananas, +grass-green plantains, a duck or a chicken standing tied by one leg on +top of it all and gazing complacently around at the scene with the air +of an experienced tourist. It was two hours later that we sighted the +next human being. He was a solitary old native paddling about at the +entrance to the "grass-bird region" in a huge dugout as time-scarred as +himself. +</P> + +<P> +It was near here that weeks before I had turned with "Admiral" B—— up +a little stream now forever gone to a knoll on which sat the thatched +shelter of a negro who had "taken to the bush" and refused to move even +when notified that he was living on U. S. public domain. When we had +knocked from the trees a box of mangoes and turkey-red maranones, B—— +touched a match to the thatch roof and almost before we could regain +the launch the shack was pouring skyward in a column of smoke. Even the +squatter's old table and chair and a barrel of tumbled odds and ends +entirely outside the hut—it had no walls—caught fire, and when, we +lost sight of the knoll only the blazing stumps of the four poles that +had supported the roof remained. +</P> + +<P> +B—— had burned whole villages in this lake territory, after the +owners with legal claims had been paid condemnation damages. Long ago +the natives had been warned to move, and the banks of the lake-to-be +specified. But many of these skeptical children of nature had taken +this as a vain "yanqui" boast and either refused to move until burned +out or had rebuilt their hovels on land that in a few months more would +also be flooded. +</P> + +<P> +The rescue expedition proceeded. Once we got caught in the top-most +branches of a tree, released from which we pushed on along the sinuous +river that had no banks. It was not hot, even at noonday. We sweated a +bit in poling a thirty-foot boat out of a tree-top, but cooled again +directly we were off. My kodak was far away at the other end of the +Zone. But then, on second thought it was better for once to enjoy +nature as it was without trying to carry it away. Kodaking is a species +of covetousness, anyway, an attempt to bear away home with us and hoard +for our own the best we come upon in our travels. Whereas here, of +course, it was impossible. The greatest of artists could not have +carried away a tenth of that scene, a scene so fascinating that though +we had tossed into the bottom of the boat at the start a bundle of +fresh New York papers—and fresh New York papers are not often scorned +down on the Zone—they still lay in the bottom of the boat when the +trip ended. +</P> + +<P> +At length little thatched cottages began to appear on knolls along the +way, and as we chugged our way around the tree-tops upon them the +inhabitants slipped quickly into some clothes that were evidently kept +for just such emergencies. Then we began nearing higher land, so that +the upper and then the lower branches of the forest stood out of water, +then only the ends of the lower limbs dipped in the rising flood, +downcast, as if they knew the sentence of death was upon them also. For +though there was sunk already beneath the flood a forest greater than +ten Fontainebleaus, the lake was steadily rising a full two inches a +day. Where it touched that morning the 27-foot level, in a few months +more, says "the Colonel," it will reach the 87-foot level and spread +over one hundred and sixty-four square miles of territory—and when +"the Colonel" makes an assertion wise men hesitate to put their money +on the other horse. Then will all this vast area with more green than +in all the state of Missouri disappear forever beneath the flood and +man may dive down, down into the forest and see what the world was like +in Noah's time, and fancy the sunken cities of Holland, for many a +famous route, and villages older than the days of Pizarro will be +forever wiped out by the rising waters—a scene to be beheld today +nowhere else, and in a few years not even here. At last we were really +in a river, an overflowed river, to be sure, where it would have been +hard to find a landing-place or a bank among those tree trunks +knee-deep in water. We had long since crossed the Zone line, but our +badges were still valid. For it has pleased the Republic of Panama, at +a whispered word from "Tio Sam," to cede to the Z. P. command over all +Gatun Lake and for three miles around it, as far as ever it may spread. +</P> + +<P> +Then all at once we were startled by a hearty hail from among the trees +and I looked up to see Y——, of the Smithsonian, fully dressed, +standing waist-deep in the water at the edge of the forest, waving an +insect trap in one hand. +</P> + +<P> +"What the devil are you doing there?" I gasped. +</P> + +<P> +"Doing? I'm taking a walk along the old Gatun-Chorrera trail, and I +fancy I 'll be about the last man to travel it. Come on up to camp." +</P> + +<P> +On a mango-shaped knoll thirty miles from Gatun that will also soon be +lake bottom, we found a native shack transformed into the headquarters +of a scientific expedition. We sat down to a frontier lunch which +called for none of the excuses made for it by Y—— when he appeared in +his dripping full-dress and joined us without even bothering to change +his water-spurting shoes. In his boxes he had carefully stuck away side +by side an untold number of members of the mosquito family. Queer +vocation; but then, any vocation is good that gives an excuse to live +out in this wild tropical world. +</P> + +<P> +By one we had Dr. O—— aboard and were waving farewell to the camp. +The return, of course, was not the equal of the outward trip; even +nature cannot duplicate so perfect a thing. But two raging showers gave +us views of the drowning jungle under another aspect, and between them +we awakened vast rolling echoes across the silent flooded world by +shooting at flocks of little birds with an army rifle that would have +killed an elephant. +</P> + +<P> +It is not hard to realize why the bush native does not love the +American. Put yourself in his breechclout. Suppose a throng of +unsympathetic foreigners suddenly appeared resolved to turn all the +world you knew into a lake, just because that absurd outside world +wanted to float steamers you never knew the use of, from somewhere you +never heard of, to somewhere you did not know. Suppose a representative +of that unsympathetic government came snorting down upon you one day in +a wild fearful invention they called a motor-boat, as you were lolling +under the thatch roof your grandfather built, and cried: +</P> + +<P> +"Come on! Get out of here! We're going to burn your house and turn this +country into a lake." +</P> + +<P> +Flood the land which was your great-grand-father's, the spot where you +used to play leap-frog under the banana trees, the jungle lane where +your mother's courtship days were passed and the ceiga tree under which +she was wedded—if matters were ever carried to that ceremonious +length. What though this foreign nation gave you a bag of peculiar +pieces of metal for your trouble, when you had never seen a score of +such coins in your life and barely knew the use of them, being +acquainted with life only as it is picked from a mango-tree? The +foreigners had cried, "Take this money and go buy a farm somewhere +else," and you looked around you and saw all the world you had ever +really known the existence of sinking beneath the rising waters. Where +would you go, think you, to buy that new farm? Even if you fled and +found another unknown land high and dry, or a town, what could you do, +having not the remotest idea how to live in a town with only pieces of +metal to get food out of instead of the mango-tree that had stood +behind the house your grandfather built ever since you were born and +dropped mangoes whenever you were hungry? To say the least you would be +some peeved. +</P> + +<P> +It was midafternoon when the white bulk of Gatun locks rose on the +horizon. Then the lake opened out, the great dam, that is rather a +connecting link between two ranges of hills, spread across all the +landscape, and at four I raced up the muddy steps behind the station to +a telephone. Five minutes later I was hurrying away across locks and +dam to the marshland beyond the Spillway to inquire who, and wherefore, +had attempted to burn up the I. C. C. launch attached to dredge No. +——. +</P> + +<P> +My Canal Zone days were drawing rapidly to a close. I could have +remained longer without regret, but the world is wide and life is +short. Soon came the day, June seventeenth, when I must go back across +the Isthmus to clear up the last threads of my existence as a "Zoner." +Chiefly for old times' sake I dropped off at Empire. But it was not the +same Empire of the census. Almost all the old crowd was gone; one by +one they had "kissed the Zone good-by." "The boss" of those days had +never returned, "smiling Johnny" had been transferred, even Ben had +"done quit an' gone back to Bahbaydos." The Zone is like a small +section of life; as in other places where generations are short one +catches there a hint of what old age will be. It was like wandering +over the old campus when those who were freshmen in our day had hawked +their gowns and mortarboards and gone their way; I felt like a man in +his dotage with only the new, unknown, and indifferent generation about +him. +</P> + +<P> +I went down to the old suspension bridge. Far down below was the same +struggling energy, the same gangs of upright human ants, the "cut" with +its jangle and jar of steam-shovels and trains still stretching away +endless in either direction. Here as in the world at large generations +of us may come and pass away, but the tearing of the shovels at the +rocky earth, the racing of dirt-laden trains for the Pacific goes +unbrokenly on, as the world and its work will continue without a pause +when we are gone indeed. +</P> + +<P> +Soon the water will be turned in and nine-tenths of all this labor will +be submerged and forever hidden from view. The swift growth of the +tropics will quickly heal the scars of the steam-shovels, and +palm-trees will wave the steamer on its way through what will seem +almost a natural channel. Then blase travelers lolling in their deck +chairs will gaze about them and snort: +</P> + +<P> +"Huh! Is that all we got for nine years' work and half a billion +dollars?" They will have forgotten the scrubbing of Panama and Colon, +forgotten the vast hospitals with great surgeons and graduate nurses, +the building of hundreds of houses and the furnishing of them down to +the last center table, they will not recall the rebuilding of the +entire P. R. R., nor scores of little items like $43,000 a year merely +for oil and negroes to pump it on the pestilent mosquito, the thousand +and one little things so essential to the success of the enterprise yet +that leave not a trace behind. Greater perhaps than the building of the +canal is the accomplishment of the United States in showing the natives +how life can be lived safely and healthily in tropical jungles. Yet the +lesson will not be learned, and on the heels of the last canal builder +will return all the old slovenliness and disease, and the native will +sink back into just what he would have been had we never come. +</P> + +<P> +I caught a dirt-train to Balboa. There the very town at which I had +landed on the Zone five months before was being razed to give place to +the permanent, reenforced-concrete city that is to be the canal +headquarters. Balboa police station was only a pile of lumber, with a +band of negroes drilling away the very rock on which it had stood. I +took a last view of the Pacific and her islands to far Taboga, where +Uncle Sam sends his recuperating children to enjoy the sea baths, hill +climbs, and unrivaled pine-apples. It was never my good fortune to get +to Taboga. With thirty days' sick leave a year and countless ailments +of which I might have been cured free of charge and with the best of +care, I could not catch a thing. I had not even the luck of my +friend—who, by dint of cross-country runs in the jungle at noonday and +similar industrious efforts, worked up at last a temperature of 99 +degrees and got his week at Taboga. I stuck immovable at 98.6 degrees. +</P> + +<P> +Soon after five I had bidden Ancon farewell and set off on the last +ride across the Isthmus. There was a memory tucked away in every +corner. Corozal hotel was still rattling with dishes, Paraiso peeped +out from its lap of hills, Culebra with its penitentiary where +burglarizing negroes go, sunk away into the past. Railroad Avenue in +Empire was still lined with my "enumerated" tags; through an open door +I caught a glimpse of a familiar short figure, one foot resting lightly +and familiarly on a misapplied gas-pipe, the elbow crooked as if +something were held between the fingers. At Bas Obispo I strained my +eyes in vain to make out a familiar face in the familiar uniform, there +was a glimpse of "Old Fritz" water-gauge as we rumbled across the +Chagres, and the train churned away into the heavy green uninhabited +night. +</P> + +<P> +Only once more was I aroused, as the lights of Gatun flashed up; then +we rolled past the noisy glaring corner of New Gatun and on to Colon. +In Cristobal police station I put badge and passes into a heavy +envelope and dropped them into the train-guard's box; then turned in +for my last night on the Zone. For the steamer already had her fires up +that would bear me, and him who was the studious corporal of +Miraflores, away in the morning to South America. My police days were +ended. +</P> + +<P> +Then a last hand to you all, oh, Z. P. May you live long and continue +to do your duty frankly and unafraid. I found you men when I expected +only policemen. I reckon my days among you time well spent and I left +you regretting that I could stay no longer with you—and when I leave +any place with regret it must be possessed of some exceeding subtle +charm. But though the world is large, it is also small. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> + "So I'll meet you later on,<BR> + In the place where you have gone,<BR> + Where—"<BR> +</P> + +<P> +Well, say at San Francisco in 1915, anyway, Hasta luego. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="finis"> +THE END +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Zone Policeman 88, by Harry A. Franck + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ZONE POLICEMAN 88 *** + +***** This file should be named 4786-h.htm or 4786-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/4/7/8/4786/ + +Produced by Robert Rowe, Charles Franks and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Zone Policeman 88 + A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers + +Author: Harry A. Franck + +Posting Date: September 11, 2009 [EBook #4786] +Release Date: December, 2003 +First Posted: March 19, 2002 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ZONE POLICEMAN 88 *** + + + + +Produced by Robert Rowe, Charles Franks and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + + + + + +ZONE POLICEMAN 88 + +A CLOSE RANGE STUDY OF THE PANAMA CANAL AND ITS WORKERS + + +BY + +HARRY A. FRANCK + + +Author of "A Vagabond Journey Around the World" and "Four Months Afoot +in Spain" + + + + + +TO A HOST OF GOOD FELLOWS THE ZONE POLICE + +Quito, December 31, 1912 + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +Strip by strip there opened out before me, as I climbed the "Thousand +Stairs" to the red-roofed Administration Building, the broad panorama +of Panama and her bay; below, the city of closely packed roofs and +three-topped plazas compressed in a scallop of the sun-gleaming +Pacific, with its peaked and wooded islands to far Taboga tilting +motionless away to the curve of the earth; behind, the low, irregular +jungled hills stretching hazily off into South America. On the +third-story landing I paused to wipe the light sweat from forehead and +hatband, then pushed open the screen door of the passageway that leads +to police headquarters. + +"Emm--What military service have you had?" asked "the Captain," looking +up from the letter I had presented and swinging half round in his +swivel-chair to fix his clear eyes upon me. + +"None." + +"No?" he said slowly, in a wondering voice; and so long grew the +silence, and so plainly did there spread across "the Captain's" face +the unspoken question, "Well, then what the devil are you applying here +for?" that I felt all at once the stern necessity of putting in a word +for myself or lose the day entirely. + +"But I speak Spanish and--" + +"Ah!" cried "the Captain," with the rising inflection of awakened +interest, "That puts another face on the matter." + +Slowly his eyes wandered, with the far-away look of inner reflection, +to the vacant chair of "the Chief" on the opposite side of the broad +flat desk, then out the wide-open window and across the shimmering +roofs of Ancon to the far green ridges of the youthful Republic, ablaze +with the unbroken tropical sunshine. The whirr of a telephone bell +broke in upon his meditation. In sharp, clear-cut phrases he answered +the questions that came to him over the wire, hung up the receiver, and +pushed the apparatus away from him with a forceful gesture. + +"Inspector:" he called suddenly; but a moment having passed without +response, he went on in his sharp-cut tones, "How do you think you +would like police work?" + +"I believe I should." + +"The Captain" shuffled for a moment one of several stacks of unfolded +letters on his desk. + +"Well, it's the most thankless damned job in Creation," he went on, +almost dreamily, "but it certainly gives a man much touch with human +nature from all angles, and--well, I suppose we do some good. +Somebody's got to do it, anyway." + +"Of course I suppose it would depend on what class of police work I +got," I put in, recalling the warning of the writer of my letter of +introduction that, "You may get assigned to some dinky little station +and never see anything of the Zone,"--"I'm better at moving around than +sitting still. I notice you have policemen on your trains, or perhaps +in special duty languages would be--" + +"Yes, I was thinking along that line, too," said "the Captain." + +He rose suddenly from his chair and led the way into an adjoining room, +busy with several young Americans over desks and typewriters. + +"Inspector," he said, as a tall and slender yet muscular man of Indian +erectness and noticeably careful grooming rose to his feet, "Here's one +of those rare people, an American who speaks some foreign languages. +Have a talk with him. Perhaps we can arrange to fix him up both for his +good and our own." + +"Ever done police duty?" began the Inspector, when "the Captain" had +returned to the corner office. + +"No." + +"Military ser--" + +"Nor that either." + +"Well, we usually require it," mused the Inspector slowly, flashing his +diamond ring, "but with your special qualifications perhaps-- + +"You'd probably be of most use to us in plain clothes," he continued, +after a dozen questions as to my former activities; "We could put you +in uniform for the first month or six weeks until you know the Isthmus, +and then-- + +"Our greatest trouble is burglary," he broke off abruptly, rising to +reach a copy of the "Canal Zone Laws"; "If you have nothing else on +hand you might run these over; and the 'Police Rules and Regulations,'" +he added, handing me a small, flat volume bound in light brown +imitation leather. + +I sat down in an arm-chair against the wall and fell to reading, amid +the clickity-click of typewriters, telephone calls even from far-off +Colon on the Atlantic, and the constant going and coming of a negro +orderly in shiningly ironed khaki uniform. By and by the Inspector +drifted into the main office, where his voice blended for some time +with that of "the Captain," At length he came back bearing a copy of +the day's Star and Herald, turned back to the "Estrella de Panama" +pages so rarely opened in the Zone. + +"Just run us off a translation of that, if you don't mind," he said, +pointing to a short paragraph in Spanish. + +Some two minutes later I handed him the English version of the account +of a near-duel between two Panamanians, and took once more to reading. +It was more than an hour later that I was again interrupted. + +"You'll want to catch the 5:25 back to Corozal?" inquired the +Inspector; "Mr. ----, give him transportation to Culebra and back, and +an order for physical examination. + +"You might fill out this application blank," he added, handing me a +long legal sheet, "then in case you are appointed that much will be +done." + +The document began with the usual, "Name----, Birthplace----, and so +on." There followed the information that the appointee "must be at +least five feet eight; weigh one hundred and forty, chest at least +thirty-four inches--" Then suddenly near the bottom of the back of the +sheet my eyes caught the startling words;--"Unless you are sure you are +a man of physical appearance far above the average do not fill out this +application." + +I was suddenly aware of a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach; the +blank all but slipped from my nerveless fingers. Then all at once there +came back to me the words of some chance acquaintance of some far-off +time and place, words which were the only memory that remained to me of +the speaker, except that he had lived long and gathered much +experience, "Bluff, my boy, is what carries a man through the world. +Act as if you're sure you are and can and you'll generally make the +other fellow think so." I sat down at a desk and filled out the +application in my most self-confident flourish. + +"Go to Culebra to-morrow," said the Inspector, as I bade the room +good-day and stepped forth with my most military stride and bearing, +"and report back here Friday morning." + +I descended to the world below, not by the long perspective of stairs +that leads down and across the gully to the heart of Ancon, but by a +short-cut that took me quickly into a foreign land. The graveled +highway at the foot of the hill I might not have guessed was an +international boundary had I not chanced to notice the instant change +from the trim, screened Zone buildings, each in its green lawn, to the +featureless architecture of a city where grass is all but unknown; for +the formalities of crossing this frontier are the same as those of +crossing any village street. It was my first entrance into the land of +the panamenos, technically known on the Zone as "Spigoties," and +familiarly, with a tinge of despite, as "Spigs"; because the first +Americans to arrive in the land found a few natives and cabmen who +claimed to "Speaga dee Eng-leesh." + +To Americans direct from the States Panama city ranks still as rather a +miserable dawdling village. But that is due chiefly to lack of +perspective. Against the background of Central America it seemed almost +a great, certainly a flourishing, city. Even to-day there are many who +complain of its unpleasant odors; to those who have lived in other +tropical cities its scent is like the perfumes of Araby; and none but +those can in any degree realize what "Tio Sam" has done for the place. + +Toward sunset I passed through a gateway with scores of +fellow-countrymen, all as composedly at home as in the heart of their +native land. Across the platform stood a train distinctively American +in every feature, a bilious-yellow train divided by the baggage car +into two sections, of which the five second-class coaches behind the +engine, with their wooden benches, were densely packed in every +available space with workmen and laborer's wives, from Spaniards to +ebony negroes, with the average color decidedly dark. In the +first-class cars at the Panama end were Americans, all but exclusively +white Americans, with only here and there a "Spigoty" with his long +greased hair, his finger rings, and his effeminate gestures, and even a +negro or two. For though Uncle Sam may permit individual states to do +so, he may not himself openly abjure before the world his assertion as +to the equality of all men by enacting "Jim Crow" laws. + +We were soon off. Settled back in the ample seat of the first real +train I had boarded in months, with the roar of its length over the +smooth and solid road-bed, the deep-voiced, masculine whistle instead +of the painful, puerile screech that had recently assailed my ear, I +all but forgot I was in a foreign land. The fact was recalled by the +passing of the train-guard,--an erect and self-possessed young American +in "Texas" hat, khaki uniform, and leather leggings, striding along the +aisle with a jerking, half-arrogant swing of the shoulders. So, +perhaps, might I too soon be parading across the Isthmus! It was not, +to be sure, exactly the role I had planned to play on the Zone. I had +come rather with the hope of shouldering a shovel and descending into +the canal with other workmen, that I might some day solemnly raise my +right hand and boast, "I helped dig IT." But that was in the callow +days before I had arrived and learned the awful gulf that separates the +sacred white American from the rest of the Canal Zone world. Besides, +had I not always wanted to be a policeman and twirl a club and stalk +with heavy, law-compelling tread ever since I had first stared +speechless upon one of those noble beings on my first trip out into the +world twenty-one years before? + +It was not without effort that I rose in time next morning to continue +on the 6:37 from Corozal across another bit of the Zone. Exactly thus +should one first see the Great Work, piece-meal, slowly; unless he will +go home with it all in an undigested lump. The train rolled across a +stretch of almost uninhabited country, with a vast plain of broken rock +on the right, plunged unexpectedly through a short tunnel, and stopped +at a station perched on the edge of a ridge above a small Zone town +backed by some vast structure, above which here and there a huge crane +loomed against the sky of dawn. Another mile and the collectors were +announcing as brazenly as if they challenged the few "Spigs" on board +to correct them, "Peter M'Gill! Peter M'Gill!" We were already moving +on again before I had guessed that by this noise they designated none +other than the famous Pedro Miguel. The sun rose suddenly as we swung +sharply to the left and rumbled across a girderless bridge. Barely had +I time to discover that we were crossing the great canal itself and to +catch a brief glimpse of the jagged gulf in either direction, before +the train had left it behind, as if the sight of the world-famous +channel were not worth a pause, and was roaring on through a hilly +country of perpetual summer. A peculiarly shaped reservoir sped past on +the left, twice or thrice more the green horizon rose and fell, and at +7:30 we drew up at the base of Culebra, the Zone capital. + +On the screened veranda of a somewhat sooty and dismal building high up +near the summit of the town, another and I were pacing anxiously back +and forth when, well on in the morning, an abrupt and rather +gloomy-faced American dashed into the building and one of the rooms +thereof, snapping over his shoulder as he disappeared, "One of you!" +The other had precedence. Then soon from behind the wooden shutters +came a growl of "Next!" and two moments later I was standing in the +reputed costume of Adam on the scales within. At about ten-second +intervals a monosyllable fell from the lips of the morose American as +he delved into my personal make-up from crown to toe with all the +instrumental circumspection known to his secret-discovering profession. +Then with a gruff "Dress!" he sat down at a table to scratch a few +fantastic marks on the blank I had brought, and hand it to me as I +caught up my last garment and turned to the door. But, alas--tight +sealed! and all the day, though carrying the information in my pocket, +I must live in complete ignorance of whether I had been found lacking +an eye or a lung. For sooner would one have asked his future of the +scowling Parques than venture to invoke a hint thereof from that +furrow-browed being from the Land of Bruskness. + +Meanwhile, as if it had been thus planned to give me such opportunity, +I stood at the very vortex of canal interest and fame, with nearly an +entire day before the evening train should carry me back to Corozal. I +descended to the "observation platform." Here at last at my very feet +was the famous "cut" known to the world by the name of Culebra; a +mighty channel a furlong wide plunging sheer through "Snake Mountain," +that rocky range of scrub-wooded hills; severing the continental +divide. At first view the scene was bewildering. Only gradually did the +eye gather details out of the mass. Before and beyond were pounding +rock drills, belching locomotives, there arose the rattle and bump of +long trains of flat-cars on many tracks, the crash of falling boulders, +the snort of the straining steam-shovels heaping the cars high with +earth and rock, everywhere were groups of little men, some working +leisurely, some scrambling down into the rocky bed of the canal or +dodging the clanging trains, all far below and stretching endless in +either direction, while over all the scene hovered a veritable +Pittsburg of smoke. + +All long-heralded sights--such is the nature of the world and man--are +at first glimpse disappointing. To this rule the great Culebra "cut" +was no exception. After all this was merely a hill, a moderate ridge, +this backbone of the Isthmus the sundering of which had sent its echoes +to all corners of the earth. The long-fed imagination had led one to +picture a towering mountain, a very Andes. + +But as I looked longer, noting how little by comparison were the trains +I knew to be of regulation U. S. size, how literally tiny were the +scores upon scores of men far down below who were doing this thing, its +significance regained bit by bit its proper proportions. Train after +train-load of the spoil of the "cut" ground away towards the Pacific; +and here man had been digging steadily, if not always earnestly, since +a year before I was born. The gigantic scene recalled to the mind the +"industrial army" of which Carlyle was prone to preach, with the same +discipline and organization as an army in the field; and every now and +then, to bear out the figure, there burst forth the mighty cannonade, +not of war, but of peace and progress in the form of earth-upheaving +and house-rocking blasts of dynamite, tearing away the solid rock below +at the very feet of the town. + +I took to the railroad and struck on further into the unknown country. +Almost before I was well started I found myself in another town, yet +larger than Culebra and with the name "Empire" in the station building; +and nearly every rod of the way between had been lined with villages of +negroes and all breeds and colors of canal workers. So on again along a +broad macadamized highway that bent and rose through low bushy ridges, +past an army encamped in wood and tin barracks on a hillside, with +khaki uniformed soldiers ahorse and afoot enlivening all the roadway +and the neighboring fields. Never a mile without its town--how +different will all this be when the canal is finished and all this +community is gone to Alaska or has scattered itself again over the face +of the earth, and dense tropical solitude has settled down once more +over the scene. + +Panama, they had said, is insupportably hot. Comparing it with other +lands I knew I could not but smile at the notion. Again it was the lack +of perspective. Sweat ran easily, yet so fresh the air and so +refreshing the breeze sweeping incessantly across from the Atlantic +that even the sweating was almost enjoyable. Hot! Yes, like June on the +Canadian border--though not like July. It is hot in St. Louis on an +August Sunday, with all the refreshment doors tight closed--to +strangers; hot in the cotton-fields of Texas, but with these plutonic +corners the heat of the Zone shows little rivalry. + +The way led round a cone-shaped hill crowned by another military camp +with the Stars and Stripes flapping far above, until I came at last in +sight of the renowned Chagres, seven miles above Culebra, to all +appearances a meek and harmless little stream spanned by a huge new +iron bridge and forbidden to come and play in the unfinished canal by a +little dam of earth that a steam-shovel will some day eat up in a few +hours. Here, where it ends and the flat country begins, I descended +into the "cut," dry and waterless, with a stone-quarry bottom. A sharp +climb out on the opposite side and I plunged into rampant jungle, half +expecting snake-bites on my exposed ankles--another pre-conceived +notion--and at length falling into a narrow jungle trail that pitched +down through a dense-grown gully, came upon a fenced compound with +several Zone buildings on the banks of the Chagres, down to which +sloped a broad green lawn. + +Here dwells hale and ruddy "Old Fritz," for long years keeper of the +fluviograph that measures and gives warning of the rampages of the +Chagres. Fritz will talk to you in almost any tongue you may choose, as +he can tell you of adventures in almost any land, all with a +captivating accent and in the vocabulary of a man who has lived long +among men and nature. Nor are Fritz' opinions those gleaned from other +men or the printed page. So we fell to fanning ourselves this January +afternoon on the screened and shaded veranda above the Chagres, and +"Old Fritz," lighting his pipe, raised his slippered feet to the screen +railing and, tossing away the charred remnant of a match, began:-- + +"Vidout var dere iss no brogress. Ven all der vorld iss at peace, all +der vorld goes to shleep." + +Police headquarters looked all but deserted on Friday morning. There +had been "something doing" in Zone criminal annals the night before, +and not only "the Captain" but both "the Chief" and the Inspector were +"somewhere out along the line." I sat down in the arm-chair against the +wall. A half-hour, perhaps, had I read when "Eddie"--I am not entitled, +perhaps, to such familiarity, but the solemn title of "chief clerk" is +far too stiff and formal for that soul of good-heartedness striving in +vain to hide behind a bluff exterior--"Eddie," I say, blew a last cloud +of smoke from his lungs to the ceiling, tossed aside the butt of his +cigarette, and motioned to me to take the chair beside his desk. + +"It's all off!" said a voice within me. For the expression on "Eddie's" +face was that of a man with an unpleasant duty to perform, and his +opening words were in exactly that tone of voice in which a man begins, +"I am sorry, but--" Had I not often used it myself? + +"The Captain," is how he really did begin, "called me up from Colon +last night, and--" + +"Here's where I get my case nol prossed," I found myself whispering. In +all probability that sealed document I had sent in the day before +announced me as a physical wreck. + +"--and told me," continued "Eddie" in his sad, regretful tone, "to tell +you we will take you on the force as a first-class policeman. It +happens, however, that the department of Civil Administration is about +to begin a census of the Zone, and they are looking for any men that +can speak Spanish. If we take you on, therefore, the Captain would +assign you to the census department until that work is done--it will +probably take something over a month--and then you would be returned to +regular police duty. The Chief says he'd rather have you learn the +Isthmus on census than on police pay. + +"Or," went on "Eddie," just as I was about to break in with, "All +right, that suits me,"--"or, if you prefer, the census department will +enroll you as a regular enumerator and we'll take you on the force as +soon as that job is over. The--er--pay," added "Eddie," reaching for a +cigarette but changing his mind, "of enumerators will be five dollars a +day, and--er--five a day beats eighty a month by more than a nose." + +We descended a story and I was soon in conference with a slender, +sharp-faced young man of mobile features and penetrating eyes behind +which a smile seemed always to be lurking. On the Canal Zone, as in +British colonies, one is frequently struck by the youthfulness of men +in positions of importance. + +"I'll probably assign you to Empire district," the slender young man +was saying, "there's everything up there and almost any language will +sure be some help to us. This time we are taking a thorough, complete +census of all the Zone clear back to the Zone line. Here's a sample +card and list of instructions." + +In other words kind Uncle Sam was about to give me authority to enter +every dwelling in the most cosmopolitan and thickly populated district +of his Canal Zone, and to put questions to every dweller therein, +note-book and pencil in hand; authority to ramble around a month or +more in sunshine and jungle--and pay me for the privilege. There are +really two methods of seeing the Canal Zone; as an employee or as a +guest at the Tivoli, both of them at about five dollars a day--but at +opposite ends of the thermometer. + +There remained a week-end between that Friday morning and the last day +of January, set for the beginning of the census. Certainly I should not +regret the arrival of the day when I should become an employee, with +all the privileges and coupon-books thereunto appertained. For the Zone +is no easy dwelling-place for the non-employee. Our worthy Uncle of the +chin whiskers makes it quite plain that, while he may tolerate the mere +visitor, he does not care to have him hanging around; makes it so +plain, in fact, that a few weeks purely of sight-seeing on the Zone +implies an adamantine financial backing. In his screened and +full-provided towns, where the employee lives in such well-furnished +comfort, the tourist might beat his knuckles bare and shake yellow gold +in the other hand, and be coldly refused even a lodging for the night; +and while he may eat a meal in the employees' hotels--at near twice the +employee's price--the very attitude in which he is received says openly +that he is admitted only on suffrance--permitted to eat only because if +he starved to death our Uncle would have the bother of burying him and +his Zone Police the arduous toil of making out an accident report. + +Meanwhile I must change my dwelling-place. For the quartermaster of +Corozal had need of all the rooms within his domain, need so imperative +that seventeen bona fide and wrathy employees were even then bunking in +the pool-room of Corozal hotel. Work on the Zone was moving steadily +Pacificward and the accommodations refused to come with it--at least at +the same degree of speed. + +Nor was I especially averse to the transfer. The room-mate with whom +fate had cast me in House 81 was a pleasant enough fellow, a youth of +unobjectionable personal manners even though his "eight-hour graft" was +in the sooty seat of a steam-crane high above Miraflores locks. But he +had one slight idiosyncrasy that might in time have grown annoying. On +the night of our first acquaintance, after we had lain exchanging +random experiences till the evening heat had begun a retreat before the +gentle night breeze, I was awakened from the first doze by my companion +sitting suddenly up in his cot across the room. + +"Say, I hope you're not nervous?" he remarked. + +"Not immoderately." + +"One of my stunts is night-mare," he went on, rising to switch on the +electric light, "and when I get 'em I generally imagine my room-mate is +a burglar trying to go through my junk and--" + +He reached under his pillow and brought to light a "Colt's" of 45 +caliber; then crossing the room he pointed to three large irregular +splintered holes in the wall some three or four inches above me, and +which I had not already seen simply because I had not chanced to look +that way. + +"There's the last three. But I'm tryin' to break myself of 'em," he +concluded, slipping the revolver back under his pillow and turning off +the light again. + +Which is among the various reasons why it was without protest that, +with "the Captain's" telephoned consent on the ground that I was now +virtually on the force, I took up my residence in Corozal police +station. 'T is a peaceful little building of the usual Zone type on a +breezy knoll across the railroad, with a spreading tree and a little +well-tended flower plot before it, and the broad world stretching away +in all directions behind. Here lived Policeman T---- and B----. +"First-class policemen" perhaps I should take care to specify, for in +Zone parlance the unqualified noun implies African ancestry. But it +seems easier to use an adjective of color when necessary. Among their +regular duties was that of weighing down the rocking-chairs on the airy +front veranda, whence each nook and cranny of Corozal was in sight, and +of strolling across to greet the train-guard of the seven daily +passengers; though the irregular ones that might burst upon them at any +moment were not unlikely to resemble a Moro expedition in the +Philippines. B---- and I shared the big main room; for T----, being the +haughty station commander, occupied the parlor suite beside the office. +That was all, except the black Trinidadian boy who sat on the wooden +shelf that was his bed behind a huge padlocked door and gazed dreamily +out through the bars--when he was not carrying a bundle to the train +for his wardens or engaged in the janitor duties that kept Corozal +station so spick and span. Oh! To be sure there were also a couple of +negro policemen in the smaller room behind the thin wooden partition of +our own, but negro policemen scarcely count in Zone Police reckonings. + +"By Heck! They must use a lot o' mules t' haul aout all thet dirt," +observed an Arkansas farmer to his nephew, home from the Zone on +vacation. He would have thought so indeed could he have spent a day at +Corozal and watched the unbroken deafening procession of dirt-trains +scream by on their way to the Pacific,--straining Moguls dragging a +furlong of "Lidgerwood flats," swaying "Oliver dumps" with their side +chains clanking, a succession as incessant of "empties" grinding back +again into the midst of the fray. On the tail of every train lounged an +American conductor, dressed more like a miner, though his "front" and +"hind" negro brakemen were as apt to be in silk ties and +patent-leathers. To say nothing of the train-loads that go Atlanticward +and to jungle "dumps" and to many an unnoticed "fill." Then when he had +thus watched the day through it would have been of interest to go and +chat with some of the "Old Timers" who live here beside the track and +who have seen, or at least heard, this same endless stream of rock and +earth race by six days a week, fifty-two weeks a year for six years, as +constant and heavily-laden to-day as in the beginning. He might +discover, as not all his fellow-countrymen have as yet, that the little +surgical operation on Mother Earth we are engaged in is no mule job. + +The week-end gave me time to get back in touch with affairs in the +States among the newspaper files at the Y. M. C. A. building. Uncle Sam +surely makes life comfortable for his children wherever he takes hold. +It is not enough that he shall clean up and set in order these tropical +pest-holes; he will have the employee fancy himself completely at home. +Here I sat in one of the dozen big airy recreation halls, well stocked +with man's playthings, which the government has erected on the Zone; I, +who two weeks before had been thankful for lodging on the earth floor +of a Honduranean hut. The Y. M. C. A. is the chief social center on the +Isthmus, the rendezvous and leisure-hour headquarters of the thousands +that inhabit bachelor quarters--except the few of the purely barroom +type. "Everybody's Association" it might perhaps more properly be +called, for ladies find welcome and the laughter of children over the +parlor games is rarely lacking. It is not the circumspect place that +are many of its type in the States, but a real man's place where he can +buy his cigarettes and smoke his pipe in peace, a place for men as men +are, not as the fashion plates that mama's fond imagination pictures +them. With all its excellences it would be unjust to complain that the +Zone "Y. M." is a trifle "low-brow" in its tastes, that the books on +its shelves are apt to be "popular" novels rather than reading matter, +that its phonographs are most frequently screeching vaudeville noises +while the Slezak and Homer disks lie tucked away far down near the +bottom of the stack. + +With the new week I moved to Empire, the "Rules and Regulations" in a +pocket and the most indispensable of my possessions under an arm. Once +more we rumbled through Miraflores tunnel through a mole-hill, past her +concrete light-house among the astonished palms, and her giant hose of +water wiping away the rock hills, across the trestleless bridge with +its photographic glimpse of the canal before and behind for the +limber-necked, and again I found myself in the metropolis of the Canal +Zone. At the quartermaster's office my "application for quarters" was +duly filed without a word and a slip assigning me to Room 3, House 47, +as silently returned. I climbed by a stone-faced U. S. road to my new +home on the slope of a ridge overlooking the railway and its buildings +below. + +It was the noon-hour. My two room-mates, therefore, were on hand for +inspection, sprawlingly engrossed in a--quite innocent and legal--card +game on a table littered with tobacco, pipes, matches, dog-eared wads +of every species of literature from real estate pamphlets to locomotive +journals, and a further mass of indiscriminate matter that none but a +professional inventory man would attempt to classify. About the room +was the usual clutter of all manner of things in the usual unarranged, +"unwomaned" Zone way, which the negro janitor feels it neither his duty +nor privilege to bring to order; while on and about my cot and bureau +were helter-skeltered the sundry possessions of an absent employee, who +had left for his six-weeks' vacation without hanging up his +shirt--after the fashion of "Zoners." So when I had wiped away the dust +that had been gathering thereon since the days of de Lesseps and +chucked my odds and ends into a bureau drawer, I was settled,--a +full-fledged Zone employee in the quarters to which every man on the +"gold roll" is entitled free of charge. + +Just here it may be well to explain that the I. C. C. has very +dexterously dodged the necessity of lining the Zone with the offensive +signs "Black" and "White." 'T would not be exactly the distinction +desired anyway. Hence the line has been drawn between "Gold" and +"Silver" employees. The first division, paid in gold coin, is made up, +with a few exceptions, of white American citizens. To the second belong +any of the darker shade, and all common laborers of whatever color, +these receiving their wages in Panamanian silver. 'T is a deep and +sharp-drawn line. The story runs that Liza Lawsome, not long arrived +from Jamaica, entering the office of a Zone dentist, paused suddenly +before the announcement: + + Crownwork. Gold and Silver Fillings. + Extractions wholly without Pain. + +There was deep disappointment in face and voice as she sat down with a +flounce of her starched and snow-white skirt, gasping: + +"Oh, Doctah, does I HAVE to have silver fillings?" + +My room-mates, "Mitch" and "Tom," sat respectively at the throttle of a +locomotive that jerked dirt-trains out of the "cut" and straddled a +steam-shovel that ate its way into Culebra range. Whence, of course, +they were covered with the grease and grime incident to those +occupations. Which did not make them any the less companionable--though +it did promise a distinct increase in my laundry bill. When they had +descended again to the labor-train and been snatched away to their +appointed tasks, I sat a short hour in one of the black "Mission" +rocking-chairs on the screened veranda puzzling over a serious problem. +The quarters of the "gold" employee is as completely furnished as any +reasonable man could demand, his iron cot with springs and mattress +unimpeachable--but just there the maternal generosity of the government +ceases. He must furnish his own sheets and pillow--MUST because +placards on the wall sternly warn him not to sleep on the bare +mattress; and the New York Sunday edition that had served me thus far I +had carelessly left behind at Corozal police station. To be sure there +were sheets for sale in Empire, at the Commissary--where money has the +purchasing-power of cobble-stones, and coupon-books come only to those +who have worked a day or more on the Zone. Then the Jamaican janitor, +drifting in to potter about the room, evidently guessed the cause of my +perplexity, for he turned to point to the bed of the absent "Mitch" and +gurgled: + +"Jes' you make lub to dat man what got dat bed. Him got plenty ob +sheets." Which proved a wise suggestion. + +Empire hotel sat a bit down the hill. There the "gold" ranks were again +subdivided. The coatless ate and sweltered inside the great +dining-room; the formal sat in haughty state in what was virtually a +second-story veranda overlooking the railroad yards and a part of the +town, where were tables of four, electric fans, and "Ben" to serve with +butler formality. I found it worth while to climb the hill for my coat +thrice a day. As yet I was jangling down a Panamanian dollar at each +appearance, but the day was not far distant when I should receive the +"recruits" hotel-book and soon grow as accustomed as the rest to having +a coupon snatched from it by the yellow negro at the door. Uncle Sam's +boarding scale on the Zone is widely varied. Three meals cost the +non-employee $1.50, the "gold" employee $.90, the white European +laborer $.40, and negroes in general $.30. + +That afternoon, when the sun had begun to bow its head on the thither +side of the canal, I climbed to the newly labeled census office on the +knoll behind the police station, from the piazza of which all native +Empire lies within sweep of the eye. "The boss," a smiling youth only +well started on his third decade, whose regular duties were in the +sanitary department, had already moved bed, bag, and baggage into the +room that had been assigned the census, that he might be "always on the +job." + +Not till eight that evening, however, did the force gather to look +itself over. There was the commander-in-chief of the census bureau, +sent down from Washington specifically for the task in hand, under whom +as chairmen we settled down into a sort of director's meeting, a wholly +informal, coatless, cigarette-smoking meeting in which even the chief +himself did not feel it necessary to let his dignity weigh upon him. He +had been sent down alone. Hence there had been great scrambling to +gather together on the Zone men enough who spoke Spanish--and with no +striking success. Most noticeable of my fellow-enumerators, being in +uniform, were three Marines from Bas Obispo, fluent with the working +Spanish they had picked up from Mindanao to Puerto Rico, and +flush-cheeked with the prospect of a full month on "pass," to say +nothing of the $4.40 a day that would be added to their daily military +income of $.60. Then there were four of darker hue,--Panamanians and +West Indians; and how rare are Spanish-speaking, Americans on the Zone +was proved by the admittance of such complexions to the "gold" roll. + +Of native U. S. civilians there were but two of us. Of whom Barter, +speaking only his nasal New Jersey, must perforce be assigned to the +"gold" quarters, leaving me the native town of Empire. At which we were +both satisfied, Barter because he did not like to sully himself by +contact with foreigners, I because one need not travel clear to the +Canal Zone to study the ways of Americans. As for the other seven, each +was assigned his strip of land something over a mile wide and five long +running back to the western boundary of the Zone. That region of +wilderness known as "Beyond the Canal" was to be left for special +treatment later. The Zone had been divided for census purposes into +four sections, with headquarters and supervisor in Ancon, Empire, +Gorgona, and Cristobal respectively. Our district, stretching from the +trestleless bridge over the canal to a great tree near Bas Obispo, was +easily the fat of the land, the most populous, most cosmopolitan, and +embracing within its limits the greatest task on the Zone. + +Meanwhile we had fallen to studying the "Instructions to Enumerators," +the very first article of which was such as to give pause and +reflection; + +"When you have once signed on as an enumerator you cannot cease to +exercise your functions as such without justifiable cause under penalty +of $500 fine." Which warning was quickly followed by the hair-raising +announcement: + +"If you set down the name of a fictitious person"--what can have given +the good census department the notion of such a possibility?--"you will +be fined $2,000 or sentenced to five years' imprisonment, or both." + +From there on the injunctions grew less nerve-racking: "You must use a +medium soft black pencil (which will be furnished)"--law-breaking under +such conditions would be absurdity--"use no ditto marks and"--here I +could not but shudder as there passed before my eyes memories of +college lecture rooms and all the strange marks that have come to mean +something to me alone--"take pains to write legibly!" + +Then we arose and swarmed upstairs to an empty court-room, where Judge +G----, throwing away his cigarette and removing his Iowa feet from the +bar of justice, caused us each to raise a right hand and swear an oath +as solemn as ever president on March fourth. An oath, I repeat, not +merely to uphold and defend the constitution against all enemies, armed +or armless, but furthermore "not to share with any one any of the +information you gather as an enumerator, or show a census card, or keep +a copy of same." Yet, I trust I can spin this simple yarn of my Canal +Zone days without offense to Uncle Sam against the day when mayhap I +shall have occasion to apply to him again for occupation. For that +reason I shall take abundant care to give no information whatsoever in +the following pages. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +"The boss" and I initiated the Canal Zone Census that very night. +Legally it was to begin with the dawning of February, but there were +many labor camps in our district and the hours bordering on midnight +the only sure time to "catch 'em in." Up in House 47 I gathered +together the legion paraphernalia of this new occupation,--some two +hundred red cards a foot long and half as wide, a surveyor's field +notebook for the preservation of miscellaneous information, tags for +the tagging of canvassed buildings, tacks for the tacking of the same, +the necessary tack-hammer, the medium soft black pencil, above all the +awesome legal "Commission," impressively signed and sealed, wherein +none other than our weighty nation's chief himself did expressly +authorize me to search out, enter, and question ad libitum. All this +swung over a shoulder in a white canvas sack, that carried memory back +through the long years to my newsboy days, I descended to the town. + +"The boss" was ready. It was nearly eleven when we crossed the silent +P. R. R. tracks and, plunging away into the night past great heaps of +abandoned locomotives huddled dim and uncertain in the thin moonlight +like ghosts of the French fiasco, dashed into a camp of the laborer's +village of Cunette, pitched on the very edge of the now black and +silent void of the canal. Eighteen thick-necked negroes in undershirts +and trousers gazed up white-eyed from a suspended card game at the long +camp table. But we had no time for explanations. + +"Name?" I shouted at the coal-hued Hercules nearest at hand. + +"David Providence," he bleated in trembling voice, and the great Zone +questionnaire was on. + +We had enrolled the group before a son of wisdom among them surmised +that we were not, after all, plain-clothes men in quest of criminals; +and his announcement brought visible relief. Twice as many blacks were +sprawled in the two rows of double-sided, three-story bunks,--mere +strips of canvas on gas-pipes that could be hung up like swinging +shelves when not in use. Mere noise did not even disturb their dreams. +We roused them by pencil-jabs in the ribs, and they started up with +savage, animal-like grunts and murderous glares which instantly +subsided to sheepish grins and voiceless astonishment at sight of a +white face bending over them. Now and again open-mouthed guffaws of +laughter greeted the mumbled admission of some powerful buck that he +could not read, or did not know his age. But there was nothing even +faintly resembling insolence, for these were all British West Indians +without a corrupting "States nigger" among them. A half-hour after our +arrival we had tagged the barracks and dived into the next camp, +blacker and sleepier and more populous than the first. It was February +morning before I climbed the steps of silent 47 and stepped under the +shower-bath that is always preliminary, on the Zone, to a night's +repose. + +A dream of earthquake, holocaust, and general destruction developed +gradually into full consciousness at four-thirty. House 47 was in +riotous uproar. No, neither conflagration nor foreign invasion was +pending; it was merely the houseful of engineers in their customary +daily struggle to catch the labor-train and be away to work by +daylight. When the hour's rampage had subsided I rose to switch off the +light and turned in again. + +The rays of the impetuous Panama sun were spattering from them when I +passed again the jumbled rows of invalided locomotives and machinery, +reddish with rust and bound, like Gulliver, by green jungle strands and +tropical creepers. By day the arch-roofed labor-camps were silent and +empty, but for a lonely janitor languidly mopping a floor. Before the +buildings a black gang was dipping the canvas and gas-pipe bunks one by +one into a great kettle of scalding water. But there are also "married +quarters" at Cunette. A row of six government houses tops the ridge, +with six families in each house, and--no, I dare not risk nomination to +an ever expanding though unpopular club by stating how many in a +family. I will venture merely to assert that when noon-time came I was +not well started on the second house, yet carried away more than sixty +filled-out cards. + +More than two days that single row of houses endured, varied by nights +spent with "the boss" in the labor-camps of Lirio, Culebra way. Then +one morning I tramped far out the highway to the old Scotchman's +farm-house that bounds Empire on the north and began the long intricate +journey through the private-owned town itself. It was like attending a +congress of the nations, a museum exhibition of all the shapes and hues +in which the human vegetable grows. Tenements and wobbly-kneed shanties +swarming with exhibits monopolized the landscape; strange the room that +did not yield up at least a man and woman and three or four children. +Day after blazing day I sat on rickety chairs, wash-tubs, +ironing-boards, veranda railings, climbing creaking stairways, now and +again descending a treacherous one in unintentional haste and +ungraceful posture, burrowing into blind but inhabited cubby-holes, +hunting out squatters' nests of tin cans and dry-goods boxes hidden +away behind the legitimate buildings, shouting questions into +dilapidated ear-drums, delving into the past of every human being who +fell in my way. West Indian negroes easily kept the lead of all other +nationalities combined; negroes blacker than the obsidian cutlery of +the Aztecs, blonde negroes with yellow hair and blue eyes whose race +was betrayed only by eyelids and the dead whiteness of skin, and whom +one could not set down as such after enrolling swarthy Spaniards as +"white" without a smile. + +They lived chiefly in windowless, six-by-eight rooms, always a cheap, +dirty calico curtain dividing the three-foot parlor in front from the +five-foot bedroom behind, the former cluttered with a van-load of +useless junk, dirty blankets, decrepit furniture, glittering gewgaws, a +black baby squirming naked in a basket of rags with an Episcopal +prayerbook under its pillow--relic of the old demon-scaring +superstitions of Voodoo worship. Every inch of the walls was +"decorated," after the artistic temperament of the race, with pages of +illustrated magazines or newspapers, half-tones of all things +conceivable with no small amount of text in sundry languages, many a +page purely of advertising matter, the muscular, imbruted likeness of a +certain black champion rarely missing, frequently with a Bible laid +reverently beneath it. Outside, before each room, a tin fireplace for +cooking precariously bestrided the veranda rail. + +Often a tumble-down hovel where three would seem a crowd yielded up +more than a dozen inmates, many of whom, being at work, must be looked +for later--the "back-calls" that is the bete-noire of the census +enumerator. West Indians, however, are for the most part well +acquainted with the affairs of friends and room-mates, and enrolment of +the absent was often possible. Occasionally I ran into a den of +impertinence that must be frowned down, notably a notorious swarming +tenement over a lumber-yard. But on the whole the courtesy of British +West Indians, even among themselves, was noteworthy. Of the two great +divisions among them, Barbadians seemed more well-mannered than +Jamaicans--or was it merely more subtle hypocrisy? Among them all the +most unspoiled children of nature appeared to be those from the little +island of Nevis. + +"You ain't no American?" + +"Yes, ah is." + +"Why, you de bery furst American ah eber see dat was perlite." + +Which spoke badly indeed for the others, that not being one of the +virtues I strive particularly to cultivate. + +But "perlite" or not, there can be no question of the astounding +stupidity of the West Indian rank and file, a stupidity amusing if you +are in an amusable mood, unendurable if you neglect to pack your +patience among your bag of supplies in the morning. Tropical patience, +too, is at best a frail child. The dry-season sun rarely even veiled +his face, and there were those among the enumerators who complained of +the taxing labor of all-day marching up and down streets and stairs and +Zone hills beneath it; but to me, fresh from tramping over the +mountains of Central America with twenty pounds on my shoulders, this +was mere pastime. Heat had no terrors for the enumerated, however. +Often in the hottest hour of the day I came upon negroes sleeping in +tightly closed rooms, the sweat running off them in streams, yet +apparently vastly enjoying the situation. + +Sunday came and I chose to continue, though virtually all the Zone was +on holiday and even "the boss," after what I found later to be his +invariable custom, had broken away from his card-littered +dwelling-place on Saturday evening and hurried away to Panama, drawn +thither and held till Monday morning--by some irresistible attraction. +Sunday turns holiday completely on the Zone, even to hours of trains +and hotels. The frequent passengers were packed from southern white end +to northern black end with all nations in gladsome garb, bound +Panamaward to see the lottery drawing and buy a ticket for the +following Sunday, across the Isthmus to breezy Colon, or to one of a +hundred varying spots and pastimes. Others in khaki breeches fresh from +the government laundry in Cristobal and the ubiquitous leather leggings +of the "Zoner" were off to ride out the day in the jungles; still +others set resolutely forth afoot into tropical paths; a dozen or so, +gleaned one by one from all the towns along the line were even on their +way to church. Yet with all this scattering there still remained a +respectable percentage lounging on the screened verandas in pajamas and +kimonas, "Old Timers" of four or five or even six years' standing who +were convinced they had seen and heard, and smelt and tasted all that +the Zone or tropical lands have to offer. + +Well on in the morning there was a general gathering of all the +ditch-digging clans of Empire and vicinity in a broad field close under +the eaves of the town, and soon there came drifting across to me at my +labor, hoarse, frenzied screams; sounding strangely incongruous beneath +the swaying palm-trees; + + "Come on! Get down with his arm! Aaaaahrrr!" + +But my time was well chosen. In the Spanish camps above the canal, +still and silent with Sunday, men at no other time to be run to earth +were entrapped in their bunks, under their dwelling-places in the +shade, shaving, exchanging hair-cuts, washing workaday clothes, +reminiscing over far-off homes and pre-migratory days, or merely +loafing. The same cheery, friendly, quick-witted fellows they were as +in their native land, even the few Italians and rare Portuguese +scattered among them inoculated with their cheerfulness. + +Came sudden changes to camps of Martiniques, a sort of wild, untamed +creature, who spoke a distressing imitation of French which even he did +not for a moment claim to be such, but frankly dubbed patois. +Restless-eyed black men who answered to their names only at the +question "Cummun t'appelle?" and give their age only to those who open +wide their mouths and cry, "Caje-vous?" Then on again to the no less +strange, sing-song "English" of Jamaica, the whining tones of those +whose island trees the conquesting Spaniards found +bearded--"barbados"--now and again a more or less dark Costa Rican, +Guatemalteco, Venezuelan, stray islanders from St. Vincent, Trinidad, +or Guadalupe, individuals defying classification. But the chief reward +for denying myself a holiday were the "back-calls" in the town itself +which I was able to check out of my field-book. Many a long-sought +negro I roused from his holiday siesta, dashing past the tawdry calico +curtains to pound him awake--mere auricular demonstration having only +the effect of lulling him into deeper child-like slumber. The surest +and often only effective means was to tickle the slumberer gently on +the soles of the bare feet with some airy, delicate instrument such as +my tack-hammer, or a convenient broom-handle or flat-iron. Frequently I +came upon young negro men of the age and type that in white skins would +have been loafing on pool-room corners, reading to themselves in loud +and solemn voices from the Bible, with a far-away look in their eyes; +always I was surrounded by a never-broken babble of voices, for the +West Indian negro can let his face run unceasingly all the day through, +and the night, though he have never a word to say. + +Thus my "enumerated" tags spread further and wider over the city of +Empire. I reached in due time the hodge-podge shops and stores of +Railroad Avenue. Chinamen began to drift into the rolls, there appeared +such names as Carmen Wah Chang, cooks and waitresses living in darksome +back cupboards must be unearthed, negro shoemakers were caught at their +stands on the sidewalks, shiny-haired bartenders gave up their +biographies in nasal monosyllables amid the slop of "suds" and the +scrape of celluloid froth-eradicators. Rare was the land that had not +sent representatives to this great dirt-shoveling congress. A Syrian +merchant gasped for breath and fell over his counter in delight to find +that I, too, had been in his native Zakleh, five Punjabis all but died +of pleasure when I mispronounced three words of their tongue. +Occasionally there came startling contrast as I burst unexpectedly into +the ancestral home of some educated native family that had withstood +all the tides of time and change and still lived in the beloved +"Emperador" of their forefathers. Anger was usually near the surface at +my intrusion, but they quickly changed to their ingrown politeness and +chatty sociability when addressed in their own tongue and treated in +their own extravagant gestures. It was almost sure to return again, +however, at the question whether they were Panamanians. Distinctly not! +They were Colombians! There is no such country as Panama. + +Thus the enrolling of the faithful continued. Chinese laundrymen +divulged the secrets of their mysterious past between spurts of water +at steaming shirt-bosoms; Chinese merchants, of whom there are hordes +on the Zone, cueless, dressed and betailored till you must look at them +twice to tell them from "gold" employees, the flag of the new republic +flapping above their doors, the new president in their lapels, left off +selling crucifixes and breastpin medallions of Christ to negro women, +to answer my questions. One evening I stumbled into a nest of eleven +Bengali peddlers with the bare floor of their single room as bed, +table, and chairs; in one corner, surmounted by their little +embroidered skull-caps, were stacked the bundles with which they pester +Zone housewives, and in another their god wrapped in a dirty rag +against profaning eyes. + +Many days had passed before I landed the first Zone resident I could +not enroll unassisted. He was a heathen Chinee newly arrived, who spoke +neither Spanish nor English. It was "Chinese Charlie" who helped me +out. "Chinese Charlie" was a resident of the Zone before the days of de +Lesseps and at our first meeting had insisted on being enrolled under +that pseudonym, alleging it his real name. Upstairs above his store all +was sepulchral silence when I mounted to investigate--and I came +quickly and quietly down again; for the door had opened on the gaudy +Oriental splendor of a joss-house where dwelt only grinning wooden +idols not counted as Zone residents by the materialistic census +officials. On the Isthmus as elsewhere "John" is a law-abiding +citizen--within limits; never obsequious, nearly always friendly, ready +to answer questions quite cheerily so long as he considers the matter +any of your business, but closing infinitely tighter than the +maltreated bivalve when he fancies you are prying too far. + +In time I reached the Commissary--the government department store--and +enrolled it from cash-desk to cold-storage; Empire hotel, from steward +to scullions, filed by me whispering autobiography; the police station +on its knoll fell like the rest. I went to jail--and set down a large +score of black men and a pair of European whites, back from a day's +sweaty labor of road building, who lived now in unaccustomed +cleanliness in the heart of the lower story of a fresh wooden building +with light iron bars, easy to break out of were it not that policemen, +white and black, sleep on all sides of them. Crowded old Empire not +only faces her streets but even her back yards are filled with shacks +and inhabited boxes to be hunted out. On the hem of her tattered +outskirts and the jungle edges I ran into heaps of old abandoned +junk,--locomotives, cars, dredges, boilers (some with the letters "U. +S." painted upon them, which sight gave some three-day investigator +material to charge the I. C. C. with untold waste); all now soon to be +removed by a Chicago wrecking company. + +Then all the town must be done again--"back calls." By this time so +wide and varied was my acquaintance in Empire that wenches withdrew a +dripping hand from their tubs to wave at me with a sympathetic giggle, +and piccaninnies ran out to meet me as I returned in quest of one +missing inmate in a house of fifty. For the few laborers still uncaught +I took to coming after dark. But West Indians rarely own lamps, not +even the brass tax-numbers above the doors were visible, and as for a +negro in the dark-- + +Absurd rumors had begun early to circulate among the darker brethren. +In all negrodom the conviction became general that this individual +detailed catechising and house-branding was really a government scheme +to get lists of persons due for deportation, either for lack of work as +the canal neared completion or for looseness of marital relations. +Hardly a tenement did I enter but laughing voices bandied back and +forth and there echoed and reechoed through the building such remarks +as: + +"Well, dey gon' sen' us home, Penelope," or "Yo an' Percival better +hurry up an' git married, Ambrosia." + +Several dusky females regularly ran away whenever I approached; one at +least I came a-seeking in vain nine times, and found her the tenth +behind a garbage barrel. Many fancied the secret marks on the +"enumerated" tag--date, and initials of the enumerator--were intimately +concerned with their fate. So strong is the fear of the law imbued by +the Zone Police that they dared not tear down the dreaded placard, but +would sometimes sit staring at it for hours striving to penetrate its +secret or exorcise away its power of evil, and now and then some bolder +spirit ventured out--at midnight--with a pencil and put tails and extra +flourishes on the penciled letters in the hope of disguising them +against the fatal day. + +Except for the chaos of nationalities and types on the Zone, +enumerating would have become more than monotonous. But the enumerated +took care to break the monotony. There was the wealth of nomenclature +for instance. What more striking than a shining-black waiter strutting +proudly about under the name of Levi McCarthy? There was no necessity +of asking Beresford Plantaganet if he were a British subject. Naturally +the mother of Hazarmaneth Cumberbath Smith, baptized that very week, +had to claw out the family Bible from among the bed-clothes and look up +the name on the fly-leaf. + +To the enumerator, who must set down concise and exact answers to each +of his questions, fifty or sixty daily scenes and replies something +like these were delightful; + +Enumerator (sitting down on the edge of a barrel): "How many living in +this room?" + +Explosive laughter from the buxom, jet-black woman addressed. + +Enumerator (on a venture): "What's the man's name?" + +"He name 'Rasmus Iggleston." + +"What's his metal-check number?" + +"Lard, mahster, ah don' know he check number." + +"Haven't you a commissary-book with it in?" + +"Lard no, mah love, commissary-book him feeneesh already befo' las' +week." + +"Is he a Jamaican?" + +"No, him a Mont-rat, mahster." (Monsterratian.) + +"What color is he?" + +"Te! He! Wha' fo' yo as' all dem questions, mahster?" + +"For instance." + +"Oh, him jes' a pitch darker'n me." + +"How old is he?" + +(Loud laughter) "Law', ah don' know how ol' him are!" + +"Well, about how old?" + +"Oh, him a ripe man, mah love, him a prime man." + +"Is he older than you?" + +"Oh, yes, him older 'n me." + +"And how old are you?" + +"Te! He! 'Deed ah don' know how ol' ah is; ah gone los' mah age paper." + +"Is he married?" + +(Quickly and with very grave face) "Oh, yes indeed, mahster, Ah his +sure 'nough wife." + +"Can he read?" + +(Hesitatingly) "Er--a leetle, sir, not too much, sir." (Which generally +means he can spell out a few words of one syllable and make some sort +of mark representing his name.) + +"What kind of work does he do?" + +(Haughtily) "Him employed by de I. C. C." + +"Yes, naturally. But what kind of work does he do. Is he a laborer?" + +(Quickly and very impressively) "Laborer! Oh, no, mah sweet mahster, he +jes' shovel away de dirt befo' de steam shovel." + +"All right. That 'll do for 'Rasmus. Now your name?" + +"Mah name Mistress Jane Iggleston." + +"How long have you lived on the Canal Zone?" + +"Oh, not too long, mah love." + +"Since when have you lived in this house?" + +"Oh, we don' come to dis house too long, sah." + +"Can you read and write?" + +"No, ah don' stay in Jamaica. Ah come to Panama when ah small." + +"Do you do any work besides your own housework?" + +(Evasively) "Work? If ah does any work? No, not any." + +Enumerator looks hard from her to washtub. + +"Ah--er--oh, ah washes a couple o' gentlemen's clot'es." + +"Very good. Now then, how many children?" + +"We don' git no children, sah." + +"What! How did that happen?" + +Loud, house-shaking laughter. + +Enumerator (looking at watch and finding it 12:10): "Well, good +afternoon." + +"Good evenin', sah. Thank you, sah. Te! He!" + +Variations on the above might fill many pages: + +"How old are you?" + +Self-appointed interpreter of the same shade; "He as' how old is yo?" + +"How old _I_ are? Ah don rightly know mah age, mahster, mah mother +never tol' me." + +St. Lucian woman, evidently about forty-five, after deep thought, +plainly anxious to be as truthful as possible: "Er--ah's twenty, sir." + +"Oh, you're older than that. About sixty, say?" + +"'Bout dat, sah." + +"Are you married?" + +(Pushing the children out of the way.) "N-not as yet, mah sweet +mahster, bu-but--but we go 'n' be soon, sah." + +To a Barbadian woman of forty: "Just you and your daughter live here?" + +"Dat's all, sir." + +"Doesn't your husband live here?" + +"Oh, ah don't never marry as yet, sah." + +Anent the old saying about the partnership of life and hope. + +To a Dominican woman of fifty-two, toothless and pitted with small-pox: +"Are you married?" + +(With simpering smile) "Not as yet, mah sweet mahster." + +To a Jamaican youth; + +"How many people live in this room?" + +"Three persons live here, sir." + +"I stand grammatically corrected. When did you move here?" + +"We remove here in April." + +"Again I apologize for my mere American grammar. Now, Henry, what is +your room-mate's name?" + +"Well, we calls him Ethel, but I don't know his right title. +Peradventure he will not work this evening [afternoon] and you can ask +him from himself." + +"Do his parents live on the Zone?" + +"Oh, yes, sah, he has one father and one mother." + +An answer: "Why HIMSELF [emphatic subject pronoun among Barbadians] +didn't know if he'd get a job." + +To a six-foot black giant working as night-hostler of steam-shovels: + +"Well, Josiah, I suppose you're a Jamaican?" + +"Oh, yes, boss, ah work in Kingston ten years as a bar-maid." + +"Married?" + +"No, boss, ah's not 'xactly married. Ah's livin' with a person." + +A colored family: + +Sarah Green, very black, has a child named Edward White, and is now +living with Henry Brown, a light yellow negro. + +West Indian wit: + +A shop-sign in Empire: "Don't ask for credit. He is gone on vacation +since January 1, 1912." + +Laughter and carefree countenances are legion in the West Indian ranks, +children seem never to be punished, and to all appearances man and wife +live commonly in peace and harmony. Dr. O---- tells the following +story, however: + +In his rounds he came upon a negro beating his wife and had him placed +under arrest. The negro: "Why, boss, can't a man chastize his wife when +she desarves and needs it?" + +Dr. O----: "Not on the Canal Zone. It's against the law." + +Negro (in great astonishment): "Is dat so, boss. Den ah'll never do it +again, boss--on de Canal Zone." + +One morning in the heart of Empire a noise not unlike that of a rocky +waterfall began to grow upon my ear. Louder and louder it swelled as I +worked slowly forward. At last I discovered its source. In a lower room +of a tenement an old white-haired Jamaican had fitted up a private +school, to which the elite among the darker brethren sent their +children, rather than patronize the common public schools Uncle Sam +provides free to all Zone residents. The old man sat before some twenty +wide-eyed children, one of whom stood slouch-shouldered, book in hand, +in the center of the room, and at regular intervals of not more than +twenty seconds he shouted high above all other noises of the +neighborhood: + +"Yo calls dat Eng-leesh! How eber yo gon' l'arn talk proper lika dat, +yo tell me?" + +Far back in the interior of an Empire block I came upon an old, old +negro woman, parchment-skinned and doddering, living alone in a +stoop-shouldered shanty of boxes and tin cans. "Ah don' know how ol' ah +is, mahster," was one of her replies, "but ah born six years befo' de +cholera diskivered." + +"When did you come to Panama?" + +"Ah don' know, but it a long time ago." + +"Before the Americans, perhaps?" + +"Oh, long befo'! De French ain't only jes' begin to dig. Ah's ashamed +to say how long ah been here" (just why was not evident, unless she +fancied she should long ago have made her fortune and left). "Is you a +American? Well, de Americans sure have done one thing. Dey mak' dis +country civilize. Why, chil', befo' dey come we have all de time here +revolutions. Ah couldn't count to how many revolutions we had, an' +ebery time dey steal all what we have. Dey even steal mah clothes. Ah +sure glad fo' one de Americans come." + +It was during my Empire enumerating that I was startled one morning to +burst suddenly from the tawdry, junk-jumbled rooms of negroes into a +bare-floored, freshly scrubbed room containing some very clean cots, a +small table and a hammock, and a general air of frankness and +simplicity, with no attempt to disguise the commonplace. At the table +sat a Spaniard in worn but newly washed working-clothes, book in hand. +I sat down and, falling unconsciously into the "th" pronunciation of +the Castilian, began blithely to reel off the questions that had grown +so automatic. + +"Name?"-;-Federico Malero. "Check Number?"--"Can you read?" "A little." +The barest suggestion of amusement in his voice caused me to look up +quickly. "My library," he said, with the ghost of a weird smile, +nodding his head slightly toward an unpainted shelf made of pieces of +dynamite boxes, "Mine and my room-mates." The shelf was filled with +four--REAL Barcelona paper editions of Hegel, Fichte, Spencer, Huxley, +and a half-dozen others accustomed to sit in the same company, all +dog-eared with much reading. + +"Some ambitious foreman," I mused, and went on with my queries: + +"Occupation?" + +"Pico y pala," he answered. + +"Pick and shovel!" I exclaimed--"and read those?" + +"No importa," he answered, again with that elusive shadow of a smile, +"It doesn't matter," and as I rose to leave, "Buenos dias, senor," and +he turned again to his reading. + +I plunged into the jumble of negroes next door, putting my questions +and setting down the answers without even hearing them, my thoughts +still back in the clean, bare room behind, wondering whether I should +not have been wiser after all to have ignored the sharp-drawn lines and +the prejudices of my fellow-countrymen and joined the pick and shovel +Zone world. There might have been pay dirt there. A few months before, +I remembered, a Spanish laborer killed in a dynamite explosion in the +"cut" had turned out to be one of Spain's most celebrated lawyers. I +recalled that EL UNICO, the anarchist Spanish weekly published in +Miraflores contains some crystal-clear thinking set forth in a +sharp-cut manner that shows a real inside knowledge of the "job" and +the canal workers, however little one may agree with its philosophy and +methods. + +Then it was due to the law of contrasts, I suppose, that the thought of +"Tom," my room-mate, suddenly flashed upon me; and I discovered myself +chuckling at the picture, "Tom, the Rough-neck," to whom all such as +Federico Malero with his pick and shovel were mere "silver men," on +whom "Tom" looked down from his high perch on his steam-shovel as far +less worthy of notice than the rock he was clawing out of the hillside. +How many a silent chuckle and how many a covert sneer must the Maleros +on the Zone indulge in at the pompous airs of some American ostensibly +far above them. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Meanwhile my fellow enumerators were reporting troubles "in the bush." +I heard particularly those of two of the Marines, "Mac" and Renson, +merry, good-natured, earnest-by-spurts, even modest fellows quite +different from what I had hitherto pictured as an enlisted man. + +"Mac" was a half and half of Scotch and Italian. Naturally he was +constantly effervescing, both verbally and temperamentally, his +snapping black eyes were never still, life played across his excitable, +sunny boyish face like cloud shadows on a mountain landscape, whoever +would speak to him at any length must catch him in a vice-like grip and +hold his attention by main force. He spoke with a funny little +almost-foreign accent, was touching on forty, and was the youngest man +at that age in the length and breadth of the Canal Zone. + +At first sight you would take "Mac" for a mere roustabout, like most +who go a'soldiering. But before long you'd begin to wonder where he got +his rich and fluent vocabulary and his warehouse of information. Then +you'd run across the fact that he had once finished a course in a +middle-western university--and forgotten it. The schools had left +little of their blighting mark upon him, yet "pump" "Mac" on any +subject from rapid-fire guns to grand opera and you'd get at least a +reasonable answer. Though you wouldn't guess the knowledge was there +unless you did pump for it, for "Mac" was not of the type of those who +overwork the first person pronoun, not because of foolish diffidence +but merely because it rarely occurred to him as a subject of +conversation. Seventeen years in the marine corps--you were sure he was +"jollying" when he first said it--had taken "Mac" to most places where +warships go, from Pekin and "the Islands" to Cape Town and Buenos +Ayres, and given him not merely an acquaintance with the world +but--what is far more of an acquisition--the gift of getting acquainted +in almost any stratum of the world in the briefest possible space of +time. + +"Mac" spoke not only his English and Italian but a fluent "Islands" +Spanish; he knew enough French to talk even to Martiniques, and he +could moreover make two distinct sets of noises that were understood by +Chinese and Japanese respectively. He was a man just reckless enough in +all things to be generous and alive, yet never foolishly wasteful +either of himself or his meager substance. "Mac" first rose to fame in +the census department by appearing one afternoon at Empire police +station dragging a "bush" native by the scruff of the neck with one +hand, and carrying in the other the machete with which the bushman had +tried to prove he was a Colombian and not subject to questioning by the +agents of other powers. + +Renson--well, Renson was in some ways "Mac's" exact antithesis and in +some his twin brother. He was one of those youths who believe in +spending prodigally and in all possible haste what little nature has +given them. Wherefore, though he was younger than "Mac" appeared to be, +he already looked older than "Mac" was. In Zone parlance "he had +already laid a good share of the road to Hell behind him." Yet such a +cheery, likable chap was Renson, so large-hearted and unassuming--that +was just why you felt an itching to seize him by the collar of his +olive-drab shirt and shake him till his teeth rattled for tossing +himself so wantonly to the infernal bow-wows. + +Renson's "bush" troubles were legion. Not only were there the seducing +brown "Spigoty" women out in the wilderness to help him on his +descending trail, but when and wherever fire-water of whatever +nationality or degree of voltage showed its neck--and it is to be found +even in "the bush"--there was Renson sure to give battle--and fall. +"It's no use bein' a man unless you're a hell of a man," was Renson's +"influenced" philosophy. How different this was from his native good +sense when the influence was turned off was demonstrated when he +returned from cautiously reconnoitering a cottage far back in the wilds +one dark night and reported as his reason for postponing the +enumerating: "If you'd butt in on one o' them Martinique booze +festivals they'd crown you with a bottle." + +Already one or two enumerators had gone back to private life--by +request. Particularly sad was the case of our dainty, blue-blooded +Panamanian. As with many Panamanians, and not a few of the self-exalted +elsewhere, he was more burdened with blue corpuscles than with gray +matter. At any rate-- + +On our cards, after the query "Color?" was a small space, a very small +space in which was to be written quite briefly and unceremoniously "W," +"B," or "Mx" as the case might be. Uncle Sam was in a hurry for his +census. Early one afternoon our Panamanian helpmate burst upon one of +his numerous aristocratic relatives in his royal thatched domains in +the ancestral bush. When he had embraced him the customary fifteen +times on the right side and the fifteen accustomed times on the left +side, and had performed the eighty-five gestures of greeting required +by the social manual of the bush, and asked the three hundred and +sixty-five questions de rigueur regarding the honorable health of his +honorable horde of offspring, and his eye had fallen again on the red +cards in his hand, the fact struck him that the relative was of +precisely the same shade of complexion as himself. Could he set him +down as he had many a mere red-blooded person and thereby perhaps +establish a precedent that might result in his own mortification? Yet +could he stretch a shade--or several shades--and set him down as +"white"? No, there was the oath of office, and the government that +administered it had been found long-armed and Argus-eyed. Long he sat +in deepest meditation. Being a Panamanian, he could not of course know +that Uncle Sam was in a hurry for his census. Till at length, as the +sun was firing the western jungle tree-tops, a scintillating idea +rewarded his unwonted cogitation. He caught up the medium soft pencil +and wrote in aristocratic hand down across the sheet where other +information is supposed to find place: + +"Color;--A very light mixture," and taking his leave with the requisite +seventy-five gestures and genuflexions, he drifted Empireward with the +dozen cards the day had yielded. + +Which is why I was shocked next morning by the disrespectful report of +Renson that "my friend the boss had tied a can to the Spig's tail," and +our dainty and lamented comrade went back to the more fitting +blue-blood occupation of swinging a cane in the lobbies of Panama's +famous hostelries. + +But what mattered such small losses? Had not "Scotty" been engaged to +fill the breach--or all of them, one or two breaches more or less made +small difference to "Scotty." He was a cozy little barrel of a man, +born in "Doombahrton," and for some years past had been dispensing good +old Dumbarton English in Panama's proudest educational institution. But +Panama's school vacation is during her "summer," her dry season from +February to April. What more natural then than that "Scotty" should +have concluded to pass his vacation taking census, for obviously--"a +mon must pick up a wee bit o' change wherever he can." + +I seemed to have been appointed to a purely sight-seeing job. One +February noon I reported at the office to find that passes to Gatun had +been issued to five of us, "Scotty," "Mac," Renson, and Barter among +the number. The task in the "town by the dam site" it seemed, was +proving too heavy for the regular enumerators of that district. + +We left by the 2:10 train. Cascadas and Bas Obispo rolled away behind +us, across the canal I caught a glimpse of the wilderness surrounding +the abode of "Old Fritz," then we entered a to me unknown land. I could +easily have fancied myself a tourist, especially so at Matachin when +"Mac" solemnly attempted to "spring" on me the old tourist hoax of +suicided Chinamen as the derivation of the town's name. Through +Gorgona, the Pittsburg of the Zone with its acres of machine-shops, +rumbled the train and plunged beyond into a deep, if not exactly rank, +endless jungle. The stations grew small and unimportant. Bailamonos and +San Pablo were withering and wasting away, "'Orca L'garto," or the +Hanged Alligator was barely more than a memory, Tabernilla a mere heap +of lumber being tumbled on flatcars bound for new service further +Pacificward. Of Frijoles there remained barely enough to shudder at, +with the collector's nasal bawl of "Free Holys!" and everywhere the +irrepressible tropical greenery was already rushing back to engulf the +pigmy works of man. It seemed criminally wasteful to have built these +entire towns with all the detail and machinery of a well governed and +fully furnished city from police station to salt cellars only to tear +them down again and utterly wipe them out four or five years after +their founding. A forerunner of what, in a few brief years, will have +happened to all the Zone--nay, is not this the way of life itself? + +For soon the Spillway at Gatun is to close its gates and all this vast +region will be flooded and come to be Gatun Lake. Villages that were +old when Pizarro began his swine-herding will be wiped out, even this +splendid double-tracked railroad goes the way of the rest, for on +February fifteenth, a bare few days away, it was to be abandoned and +where we were now racing northwestward through brilliant sunshine and +Atlantic breezes would soon be the bottom of a lake over which great +ocean steamers will glide, while far below will be tall palm-trees and +the spreading mangoes, the banana, king of weeds, gigantic ferns +and--well, who shall say what will become of the brilliant parrots, the +monkeys and the jaguars? + +For nearly an hour we had not a glimpse of the canal, lost in the +jungle to the right. Then suddenly we burst out upon the growing lake, +now all but licking at the rails beneath us, the Zone city of Gatun +climbing up a hillside on its edge and scattering over several more. To +the left I caught my first sight of the world-famous locks and dam, and +at 3:30 we descended at the stone station, first mile-post of +permanency, for being out of reach of the coming flood it is built to +stay and shows what Canal Zone stations will be in the years to come. +There remained for me but seven miles of the Isthmus still unseen. + +On the cement platform was a great foregathering of the census clans +from all districts, whence we climbed to the broad porch of the +administration building above. There before me, for the first time +in--well, many months, spread the Atlantic, the Caribbean perhaps I +should say, seeming very near, so near I almost fancied I could have +thrown a stone to where it began and stretched away up to the bluish +horizon, while the entrance to the canal where soon great ships will +enter poked its way inland to the locks beside us. Across the tree-tops +of the flat jungle, also seeming close at hand though the railroad +takes seven miles--and thirty-five cents if you are no employee--to +reach it, was Colon, the tops of whose low buildings were plainly +visible above the vegetation. Not many "Zoners," I reflected, catch +their first view of Colon from the veranda of the Administration +Building at Gatun. + +We had arrived with time to spare. Fully an hour we loafed and yarned +and smoked before a whistle blew and long lines of little figures began +to come up out of the depths and zigzag across the landscape until soon +a line of laborers of every shade known to humanity began to form, +pay-checks in hand; its double head at the pay-windows on the two sides +of the veranda, its tail serpentining off down the hillside and away +nearly to the edge of the mammoth locks. Packs of the yellow cards of +Cristobal district in hand--a relief to eyes that had been staring for +days at the pink ones of Empire--we lined up like birds of prey just +beyond the windows. As the first laborer passed this, one--nay, several +of us pounced upon him, for all plans we had laid to line up and take +turns were thus quickly overthrown and wild competition soon reigned. +From then on each dived in to snatch his prey and, dragging him to the +nearest free space, began in some language or other: "Where d'ye live?" + +That was the overwhelming problem,--in what language to address each +victim. Barter, speaking only his nasal New Jersey, took to picking out +negroes, and even then often turned away in disgust when he landed a +Martinique or a Haytian. West Indian "English" alternated with a black +patois that smelt at times faintly of French, muscular, bullet-headed +negroes appeared slowly and laboriously counting their money in their +hats, eagle-nosed Spaniards under the boina of the Pyrenees, Spaniards +from Castile speaking like a gatling-gun in action, now and again even +a snappy-eyed Andalusian with his s-less slurred speech, slow, +laborious Gallegos, Italians and Portuguese in numbers, Colombians of +nondescript color, a Slovak who spoke some German, a man from Palestine +with a mixture of French and Arabic noises I could guess at, and +scattered here and there among the others a Turk who jabbered the +lingua franca of Mediterranean ports. I "got" all who fell into my +hands. Once I dragged forth a Hindu, and shuddered with fear of a first +failure. But he knew a bit of a strange English and I found I recalled +six or seven words of my forgotten Hindustanee. + +Then suddenly a flood of Greeks broke upon us, growing deeper with +every moment. Above the pandemonium my companions were howling hoarsely +and imploringly for the interpreter, while clutching their trembling +victim by the slack of his labor-stained shirt lest he escape +un-enrolled. The interpreter, in accordance with a well-known law of +physics and the limitations of human nature, could not be in sixteen +places at once. I crowded close, caught his words, memorized the few +questions, and there was I with my "Poomaynes?" "Poseeton?" and +"Padremaynos?" enrolling Greeks unassisted, not only that but haughtily +acting as interpreter for my fellows--not only without having studied +the tongue of Achilles but never even having graced a Greek letter +fraternity. + +Quick tropical twilight descended, and still the labor-smeared line +wound away out of sight into the darkness, still workmen of every shade +and tongue jingled their brass-checks timidly on the edge of the +pay-window, from behind which came roaring noises that the Americans +within fancied Spaniards, or Greeks, or Roumanians must understand +because they were not English noises; still we pounced upon the paid as +upon a tackling-dummy in the early days of spring practice. + +The colossal wonder of it all was how these deep-chested, +muscle-knotted fellows endured us, how they refrained from taking us up +between a thumb and forefinger and dropping us over the veranda +railing. For our attack lacked somewhat in gentle courtesy, notably so +that of "the Rowdy." He was a chestless youth of the type that has +grown so painfully prevalent in our land since the soft-hearted +abolishment of the beech-rod of revered memory; of that all too +familiar type whose proofs of manhood are cigarettes and impudence and +discordant noise, and whose national superiority is demonstrated by the +maltreating of all other races. But the enrolled were all, black, +white, or mixed, far more gentlemen than we. Some, of brief Zone +experience, were sheepish with fear and the wonder as to what new +mandate this incomprehensible U. S. was perpetrating to match its +strange sanitary laws that forbade a man even to be uncleanly in his +habits, after the good old sacred right of his ancestors to remotest +ages. Then, too, there was a Zone policeman in dressy, new-starched +khaki treading with dangling club and the icy-eye of public appearance, +waiting all too eagerly for some one to "start something." But the +great percentage of the maltreated multitude were "Old Timers," men of +four or five years of digging who had learned to know this strange +creature, the American, and the world, too; who smiled indulgently down +upon our yelping and yanking like a St. Bernard above the snapping +puppy he well knows cannot seriously bite him. + +Dense black night had fallen. Here and there lanterns were hung, under +one of which we dragged each captive. The last passenger back to Empire +roared away into the jungle night; still we scribbled on, "backed" a +yellow card and dived again into the muscular whirlpool to emerge +dragging forth by the collar a Greek, a Pole, or a West Indian. It was +like business competition, in which I had an unfair advantage, being +able to understand any jargon in evidence. When at last the pay-windows +came down with a bang and an American curse, and the serpentining tail +squirmed for a time in distress and died away, as a snake's tail dies +after sundown, I turned in more than a hundred cards. To-morrow the +tail would revive to form the nucleus of a new serpent, and we should +return by the afternoon train to the lock city, and so on for several +days to come. + +It was after nine of a black pay-day night. We were hungry. "The +Rowdy," familiar with the lay of the land, volunteered to lead the +foraging expedition. We stumbled down the hill and away along the +railroad. A faint rumbling that grew to a confused roar fell on our +ears. We climbed a bank into a wild conglomeration of wood and tin +architecture, nationalities, colors, and noises, and across a dark, +bottomless gully from the high street we had reached lights flashed +amid a very ocean of uproar. "The Rowdy," as if to make the campaign as +real as possible, led us racing down into the black abyss, whence we +charged up the further slope and came sweating and breathless into the +rampant rough and tumble of pay-day night in New Gatun, the time and +place that is the vortex of trouble on the Isthmus. Merely a short +street of one of the half-dozen Zone towns in which liquor licenses are +granted, lined with a few saloons and pool-rooms; but such a singing, +howling, swarming multitude as is rivaled almost nowhere else, except +it be on Broadway at the passing of the old year. But this mob, +moreover, was fully seventy percent black, and rather largely +French--and when black and French and strong drink mix, trouble sprouts +like jungle seeds. Now and then Policeman G---- drifted by through the +uproar, holding his "sap" loosely as for ready use and often half +consciously hitching the heavy No. 38 "Colt" under his khaki jacket a +bit nearer the grasp of his right hand. I little knew how familiar +every corner of this scene would one day be to me. + +A Chinese grocer sold us bread and cheese. Down on the further corner +of the hubbub we entered a Spanish saloon and spread ourselves over the +"white" bar, adding beer to our humble collation. Beyond the +lattice-work that is the "color line" in Zone dispensaries, West +Indians were dancing wild, crowded "hoe-downs" and "shuffles" amid much +howling and more liquidation; on our side a few Spanish laborers +quietly sipped their liquor. The Marines of course were "busted." The +rest of us scraped up a few odd "Spigoty" dimes. The Spanish +bar-tender--who is never the "tough" his American counterpart strives +to show himself--but merely a cheery good-fellow--drifted into our +conversation, and when we found I had slept in his native village he +would have it that we accept a round of Valdepenas. Which must have +been potent, for it moved "Scotty" to unbutton an inner pocket and set +up an entire bottle of amontillado. So midnight was no great space off +when we turned out again into the howling night and, having helped +Renson to reach a sleeping-place, scattered to the bachelor quarters +that had been found for us and lay down for the few hours that remained +before the 5:51 should carry us back to Empire. + +At last I had crossed all the Isthmus and heard the wash of the +Caribbean at my feet. It was the Sunday following our Gatun days, and +nearly a month since my landing on the Zone. The morning train from +Empire left me at the lake-side city for a run over locks and dam which +the working days had not allowed, and there being no other train for +hours I set off along the railroad to walk the seven miles to Colon. On +either side lay hot, rampant jungle, low and almost swampy. It was noon +when I reached the broad railroad yards and Zone storehouses of Mt. +Hope and turned aside to Cristobal hotel. + +Cristobal is built on the very fringe of the ocean with the roll of +waves at the very edge of its windows, and a far-reaching view of the +Caribbean where the ceaseless Zone breeze is born. There stands the +famous statue of Columbus protecting the Indian maid, crude humor in +bronze; for Columbus brought Indian maids anything but protection. Near +at hand in the joyous tropical sunshine lay a great steamer that in +another week would be back in New York tying up in sleet and ice. A +western bronco and a lariat might perhaps have dragged me on board, +with a struggle. + +There is no more line of demarkation between Cristobal and Colon than +between Ancon and Panama. A khaki-clad Zone policeman patrols one +sidewalk, a black one in the sweltering dark blue uniform and heavy +wintry helmet of the Republic of Panama lounges on the other side of a +certain street; on one side are the "enumerated" tags of the census, on +the other none. Cross the street and you feel at once a foreigner. It +is distinctly unlawful to sell liquor on Sunday or to gamble at any +time on the Canal Zone; it is therefore with something approaching a +shock that one finds everything "wide open" and raging just across the +street. + +I wandered out past "Highball's" merry-go-round, where huge negro bucks +were laughing and playing and riding away their month's pay on the +wooden horses like the children they are, and so on to the edge of the +sea. Unlike Panama, Colon is flat and square-blocked, as it is +considerably darker in complexion with its large mixture of negroes +from the Caribbean shores and islands. Uncle Sam seems to have taken +the city's fine beach away from her. But then, she probably never took +any other advantage of it than to turn it into a garbage heap as bad as +once was Bottle Alley. On one end is a cement swimming pool with the +announcement, "Only for gold employees of the I. C. C. or P. R. R. and +guests of Washington Hotel." It is merely a softer way of saying, "Only +white Americans with money can bathe here." + +Then beyond are the great hospitals, second only to those of Ancon, the +"white" wards built out over the sea, and behind them the "black" where +the negroes must be content with second-hand breezes. Some of the costs +of the canal are here,--sturdy black men in a sort of bed-tick pajamas +sitting on the verandas or in wheel chairs, some with one leg gone, +some with both. One could not but wonder how it feels to be hopelessly +ruined in body early in life for helping to dig a ditch for a foreign +power that, however well it may treat you materially, cares not a +whistle-blast more for you than for its old worn-out locomotives +rusting away in the jungle. + +Under the beautiful royal palms beyond, all bent inland in the constant +breeze are park benches where one can sit with the Atlantic spreading +away to infinity before, breaking with its ages-old, mysterious roll on +the shore just as it did before the European's white sails first broke +the gleaming skyline. Out to sea runs the growing breakwater from Toro +Point, the great wireless tower, yet just across the bay on a little +jutting, dense-grown tongue of land is the jungle hut of a jungle +family as utterly untouched by civilization as was the verdant valley +of Typee on the day Melville and Toby came stumbling down into it from +the hills above. + +But meanwhile I was not getting the long hours of unbroken sleep the +heavy mental toil of enumeration requires. Free government bachelor +quarters makes strange bed-fellows--or at least room-fellows. +Quartermasters, like justice, are hopelessly blind or I might have been +assigned quarters upon the financial knoll where habits and hours were +a bit more in keeping with my own. But a bachelor is a bachelor on the +Zone, and though he be clerk to his highness "the Colonel" himself he +may find himself carelessly tossed into a "rough-neck" brotherhood. + +House 47 was distinctly an abode of "rough-necks." A "rough-neck," it +may be essential to explain to those who never ate at the same table +with one, is a bull-necked, whole-hearted, hard-headed, cast-iron +fellow who can ride the beam of a snorting, rock-tearing steam-shovel +all day, wrestle the night through with various starred Hennessey and +its rivals, and continue that round indefinitely without once failing +to turn up to straddle his beam in the morning. He seems to have been +created without the insertion of nerves, though he is never lacking in +"nerve." He is a fine fellow in his way, but you sometimes wish his way +branched off from yours for a few hours, when bed-time or a mood for +quiet musing comes. He is a man you are glad to meet in a saloon--if +you are in a mood to be there--or tearing away at the cliffs of +Culebra; but there are other places where he does not seem exactly to +fit into the landscape. + +House 47, I say, was a house of "rough-necks." That fact became +particularly evident soon after supper, when the seven phonographs were +striking up their seven kinds of ragtime on seven sides of us; and it +was the small hours before the poker games, carried on in much the same +spirit as Comanche warfare, broke up through all the house. Then, too, +many a "rough-neck" is far from silent even after he has fallen asleep; +and about the time complete quiet seemed to be settling down it was +four-thirty; and a jarring chorus of alarm-clocks wrought new upheaval. + +Then there was each individual annoyance. Let me barely mention two or +three. Of my room-mates, "Mitch" had sat at a locomotive throttle +fourteen years in the States and Mexico, besides the four years he had +been hauling dirt out of the "cut." Youthful ambition "Mitch" had left +behind, for though he could still look forward to forty, railroad rules +had so changed in the States during his absence that he would have had +to learn his trade over again to be able to "run" there. Moreover four +years on the Zone does not make a man look forward with pleasure to a +States winter. So "Mitch," like many another "Zoner," was planning to +buy with the savings of his $210 a month "when the job is done" a chunk +of land on some sunny slope of a southern state and settle down for an +easy descent through old age. There was nothing objectionable about +"Mitch"--except perhaps his preference for late-hour poker. But he had +a way of stopping with one leg out of his trousers when at last all the +house had calmed down and cots were ceasing to creak, to make some such +wholly irrelevant remark as; "By ----, that ---- dispatcher give me 609 +to-day and she wouldn't pull a greased string out of a knot-hole"--and +thereby always hung a tale that was sure to range over half the track +mileage of the States and wander off somewhere into the sandy cactus +wilderness of Chihuahua at least before "Mitch" succeeded in getting +out of the other trouser leg. + +The cot directly across from my own groaned--occasionally--under the +coarse-grained bulk of Tom. Tom was a "rough-neck" par excellence, so +much so that even in a houseful of them he was known as "Tom the +Rough-neck," which to Tom was high tribute. Some preferred to call him +"Tom the Noisy." He was built like a steam caisson, or an oil-barrel, +though without fat, with a neck that reminded you of a Miura bull with +his head down just before the estoque; and when he neglected to button +his undershirt--a not infrequent oversight--he displayed the hairy +chest of a mammoth gorilla. + +Tom's philosophy of getting through life was exactly the same as his +philosophy of getting through a rocky hillside with his steam-shovel. +When it came to argument Tom was invariably right; not that he was +over-supplied with logic, but because he possessed a voice and the +bellows to work it that could rise to the roar of his own steam-shovel +on those weeks when he chose to enter the shovel competition, and would +have utterly overthrown, drowned out, and annihilated James Stewart +Mill himself. + +Tom always should have had money, for your "rough-neck" on the Zone has +decidedly the advantage over the white-collared college graduate when +the pay-car comes around. But of course being a genuine "rough-neck" +Tom was always deep in debt, except on the three days after pay-day, +when he was rolling in wealth. + +Once I fancied the bulk of my troubles was over. Tom disappeared, +leaving not a trace behind--except his working-clothes tumbled on and +about his cot. Then it turned out that he was not dead, but in Ancon +hospital taking the Keeley cure; and one summer evening he blew in +again, his "cure" effected--with a bottle in his coat pocket and two +inside his vest. So the next day there was Tom celebrating his recovery +all over House 47 and when next morning he did finally go back to his +shovel there were scattered about the room six empty quart bottles each +labeled "whiskey." Luckily Tom ran a shovel instead of a passenger +train and could claw away at his hillside as savagely as he chose +without any danger whatever, beyond that of killing himself or an odd +"nigger" or two. + +We had other treasures on exhibition in 47. There was "Shorty," for +instance. "Shorty" was a jolly, ugly open-handed, four-eyed little +snipe of a roughneck machinist who had lost "in the line of duty" two +fingers highly useful in his trade. In consequence he was now, after +the generous fashion of the I.C.C., on full pay for a year without +work, providing he did not leave the Zone. And while "Shorty," like the +great majority of us, was a very tolerable member of society under the +ordinary circumstances of having to earn his "three squares a day," +paid leisure hung most ponderously upon him. + +The amusements in Empire are few--and not especially amusing. There is +really only one unfailing one. That is slid in glass receptacles across +a yellow varnished counter down on Railroad Avenue opposite Empire +Machine Shops. So it happened that "Shorty" was gradually winning the +title of a thirty-third degree "booze-fighter," and passengers on any +afternoon train who took the trouble to glance in at a wide-open door +just Atlanticward of the station might have beheld him with his back to +the track and one foot slightly raised and resting lightly and with the +nonchalance of long practice on a gas-pipe that had missed its +legitimate mission. In fact "Shorty" had come to that point where he +would rather be caught in church than found dead without a bottle on +him, and arriving home overflowing with joy about midnight slept away +most of the day in 47 that he might spend as much of the night as the +early closing laws of the Zone permitted at the amusement headquarters +of Empire. + +With these few hints of the life that raged beneath the roof of 47 it +may perhaps be comprehensible, without going into detail, why I came to +contemplate a change of quarters. I detest a kicker. I have small use +for any but the man who will take his allotted share with the rest of +the world without either whining or snarling. Yet when an official +government census enumerator falls asleep on the edge of a tenement +washtub with a question dead on his lips, or solemnly sets down a +crow-black Jamaican as "white," it is Uncle Sam who is suffering and +time for correction. + +But it is one thing for a Canal Zone employee to resolve to move, and +quite another to carry out that resolution. Nero was a meek, +unassertive, submissive, tractable little chap, keenly sensible to the +sufferings of his fellows, compared with a Zone quartermaster. So the +first time I ventured to push open the screen door next to the post +office I was grateful to escape unmaimed. But at last, when I had done +a whole month's penance in 47, I resorted to strategy. On March first I +entered the dreaded precinct shielded behind "the boss" with his +contagious smile, and the musical quartermaster of Empire was +overthrown and defeated, and I marched forth clutching in one hand a +new "assignment to quarters." + +That night I moved. The new, or more properly the older, room was in +House 35, a one-story building of the old French type, many of which +the Americans revamped upon taking possession of the Isthmian +junk-heap, across and a bit down the graveled street. It was a single +room, with no roommate to question, which I might decorate and +otherwise embellish according to my own personal idiosyncrasies. At the +back, with a door between, dwelt the superintendent of the Zone +telephone system, with a convenient instrument on his table. In short, +fortune seemed at last to be grinning broadly upon me. + +But--the sequel. I hate to mention it. I won't. It's absurdly +commonplace. Commonplace? Not a bit of it. He was a champion, an artist +in his specialty. How can I have used that word in connection with his +incomparable performance? Or attempt to give a hint of life on the +Canal Zone without mentioning the most conspicuous factor in it? + +He lived in the next room south, a half-inch wooden partition reaching +half-way to the ceiling between his pillow and mine. By day he lay on +his back in the right hand seat of a locomotive cab with his hand on +the throttle and the soles of his shoes on the boiler plate--he was +just long enough to fit into that position without wrinkling. During +the early evening he lay on his back in a stout Mission rocking-chair +on the front porch of House 35, Empire, C.Z. And about 8 P. M. daily he +retired within to lie on his back on a regulation I.C.C. metal +cot--they are stoutly built--one pine half-inch from my own. Obviously +twenty-four hours a day of such onerous occupation had left some slight +effects on his figure. His shape was strikingly similar to that of a +push-ball. Had he fallen down at the top of Ancon or Balboa hill it +would have been an even bet whether he would have rolled down sidewise +or endwise--if his general type of build and specifications will permit +any such distinction. + +When I first came upon him, reposing serenely in the porch +rocking-chair on the cushion that upholstered his spinal column, I was +pleased. Clearly he was no "rough-neck"--he couldn't have been and kept +his figure. There was no question but that he was perfectly harmless; +his stories ought to prove cheerful and laugh-provoking and kindly. His +very presence seemed to promise to raise several degrees the merriment +in that corner of House 85. + +It did. Toward eight, as I have hinted, he transferred from +rocking-chair to cot. He was not afflicted with troublesome nerves. At +times he was an entire minute in falling asleep. Usually, however, his +time was something under the half; and he slept with the innocent, +undisturbed sleep of a babe for at least twelve unbroken hours, unless +the necessity of getting across the "cut" to his engine absolutely +prohibited. Just there was the trouble. His first gentle, slumberous +breath sounded like a small boy sliding down the sheet-iron roof of 35. +His second resembled a force of carpenters tearing out the half-grown +partitions. His third--but mere words are an absurdity. At times the +noises from his gorilla-like throat softened down till one merely +fancied himself in the hog-corral of a Chicago stockyards; at others we +prayed that we might at once be transferred there. A thousand times +during the night we were certain he was on the very point of choking to +death, and sat up in bed praying he wouldn't, and offering our month's +salary to charity if he would; and through all our fatiguing anguish he +snorted undisturbedly on. In House 35 he was known as "the Sloth." It +was a gentle and kindly title. + +There were a few inexperienced inmates who had not yet utterly given up +hope. The long hours of the night were spent in solemn conference. +Pounding on the walls with hammers, chairs, and shoe-heels was like +singing a lullaby. One genius invented a species of foghorn which +proved very effective--in waking up all Empire east of the tracks, +except "the Sloth." Some took to dropping their heavier and more +dispensable possessions over the partition. One memorable night a +fellow-sufferer cast over a young dry-goods box which, bouncing from +the snorer's figure to the floor, caused him to lose a beat--one; and +the feat is still one of the proud memories of 35. On Sundays when all +the rest of the world was up and shaved and breakfasted and off on the +8:39 of a brilliant, sunny day to Panama, "the Sloth" would be still +imperturbably snorting and choking in the depths of his cot. And in the +evening, as the train roamed back through the fresh cool jungle dusk +and deposited us at Empire station, and we crossed the wooden bridge +before the hotel and began to climb the graveled path behind, hoping +against hope that we might find crape on that door, from the night +ahead would break on our cars a sound as of a hippopotamus struggling +wildly against going down for the third and last time. + +Most annoying of all, "the Sloth" was not even a bona fide bachelor. He +proudly announced that, though he was a model of marital virtue, he had +not lived with his wife in many years. I never heard a man who knew him +by night ask why. It was close upon criminal negligence on the part of +the I.C.C. to overlook its opportunity in this matter. There were so +many, many uninhabited hilltops on the Zone where a private +Sloth-dwelling might have been slapped together from the remains of +falling towns at Gatun end; near it a grandstand might even have been +erected and admission charged. Or at least the daily climb to it would +have helped to reduce a push-ball figure, and thereby have improved the +general appearance of the Canal Zone force. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +One morning early in March "the boss" and I crossed the suspension +bridge over the canal. A handcar and six husky negroes awaited us, and +we were soon bumping away over temporary spurs through the jungle, to +strike at length the "relocation" opposite the giant tree near Bas +Obispo that marked the northern limit of our district. + +The P.R.R., you will recall, has been operating across the Isthmus +since 1855. When the United States took over the Zone in 1904 it built +a new double-tracked line of five-foot gauge for nearly the whole +forty-seven miles. Much of this, however, runs through territory soon +to be covered by Gatun Lake, nearly all the rest of it is on the wrong +side of the canal. An almost entirely new line, therefore, is being +built through the virgin jungle on the South American side of the +canal, which is to be the permanent line and is known in Zone parlance +as the "relocation." This is forty-nine miles in length from Panama to +Colon, and is single track only, as freight traffic especially is +expected, very naturally, to be lighter after the canal is opened. +Already that portion from the Chagres to the Atlantic had been put in +use--on February fifteenth, to be exact; and the time was not far off +when the section within our district--from Gamboa to Pedro +Miguel--would also be in operation. + +That portion runs through the wilderness a mile or more back from the +canal, through jungled hills so dense with vegetation one could only +make one's way through it with the ubiquitous machete of the native +jungle-dweller, except where tiny trails appear that lead to squatters' +thatched huts thrown together of tin, dynamite and dry-goods boxes and +jungle reeds in little scattered patches of clearing. Some of these +hills have been cut half away for the new line--great generous "cuts," +for to the giant 90-ton steam-shovels a few hundred cubic yards of +earth more or less is of slight importance. All else is virtually +impenetrable jungle. Travelers by rail across the Isthmus, as no doubt +many ships' passengers will be in the years to come while their steamer +is being slowly raised and lowered to and from the eighty-five-foot +lake, will see little of the canal,--a glimpse of the Bas Obispo "cut" +at Gamboa and little else from the time they leave Gatun till they +return to the present line at Pedro Miguel station. But in compensation +they will see some wondrous jungle scenery,--a tangled tropical +wilderness with great masses of bush flowers of brilliant hues, +gigantic ferns, countless palm and banana trees, wonderfully slender +arrow-straight trees rising smooth and branchless more than a hundred +feet to end in an immense bouquet of brilliant purplish-hue blossoms. + +"The boss" barely noticed these things. One quickly grows accustomed to +them. Why, Americans who have been down on the Zone for a year don't +know there's a palm-tree on the Isthmus--or at least they do not +remember there were no palm-trees in Keokuk, Iowa, when they left there. + +Along this new-graveled line, still unused except by work-trains, we +rode in our six negro-power car, dropping off in the gravel each time +we caught sight of any species of human being. Every little way was a +gang, averaging some thirty men, distinct in nationality,--Antiguans +shoveling gravel, Martiniques snarling and quarreling as they wallowed +thigh-deep in swamps and pools, a company of Greeks unloading +train-loads of ties, Spaniards leisurely but steadily grading and +surfacing, track bands of "Spigoties" chopping away the aggressive +jungle with their machetes--the one task at which the native Panamanian +(or Colombian, as many still call themselves) is worth his brass-check. +Every here and there we caught labor's odds and ends, diminutive +"water-boys," likewise of varying nationality, a negro switch-boy +dozing under the bit of shelter he had rigged up of jungle ferns, +frightening many a black laborer speechless as we pounced upon him +emerging from his "soldiering" in the jungle; occasionally even a +native bushman on his way to market from his palm-thatched home +generations old back in the bush, who has scarcely noticed yet that the +canal is being dug, fell into our hands and was inexorably set down in +spite of all protest unless he could prove beyond question that he had +already been "taken" or lived beyond the Zone line. + +Thus we scribbled incessantly on, even through the noon hour, dragging +gangs one by one away from their tasks, shaking laborers out of the +brief after-lunch siesta in a patch of shade. "The boss" was hampered +by having only two languages where ten were needed. In the early +afternoon he went on to Paraiso to feed himself and the traction power, +while I held the fort. Soon after rain fell, a sort of advance agent of +the rainy season, a sudden tropical downpour that ran in rivulets down +across the pink card-boards and my victims. Yet strange to note, the +writing of the medium soft pencil remained as clear and unsmudged as in +the driest weather, and so clean a rain was it that it did not even +soil my white cotton shirt. I continued unheeding, only to note with +surprise a few minutes later that the sun was shining on the dense +green jungle about me as brilliantly as ever and that I was dry again +as when I had set out in the morning. + +"The boss" returned, and when I had eaten the crackers and the bottle +of pink lemonade he brought, we pushed on toward the Pacific. Till at +length in mid-afternoon we came to the top of the descent to Pedro +Miguel and knew that the end of our district was at hand. So powerful +was the breeze from the Atlantic that our six man-power engine sweated +profusely as they toiled against it, even on the downgrade of the +return to Empire. + +To "Scotty" had been assigned my Empire "recalls" and I had been given +a new and virgin territory,--namely, the town of Paraiso. It lies +"somewhat back from the village street," that is, the P.R.R. Indeed, +trains do not deign to notice its existence except on Sundays. But +there is the temporary bridge over the canal which few engineers +venture to "snake her across" at any great speed, and the enumerator +housed in Empire need not even be a graduate "hobo" to be able to drop +off there a bit after seven in the morning and prance away up the +chamois path into the town. + +Wherever on the Zone you espy a town of two-story skeleton screened +buildings scattered over hills, with winding gravel roads and trees and +flowers between there you may be sure live American "gold" employees. +Yet somehow the Canal Commission had dodged the monotony you expected, +somehow they have broken up the grim lines that make so dismal the +best-intentioned factory town. There are hints that the builders have +heard somewhere of the science of landscape gardening. At times these +same houses are deceiving, for all I. C. C. buildings bear a strong +family resemblance, and it is only at the door that you know whether it +is bachelors' quarters, a family residence, or the supreme court. + +From the outside world "P'reeso" scarcely draws a glance of attention; +but once in it you find a whole Zone town with all the accustomed +paraphernalia of I. C. C. hotel and commissary, hospital and police +station, all ruled over and held in check by the famous "Colonel" in +command of the latter. Moreover Paraiso will some day come again into +her own, when the "relocation" opens and brings her back on the main +line, while proud Culebra and haughty Empire, stranded on a railless +shore of the canal, will wither and waste away and even their broad +macadamed roads will sink beneath a second-growth jungle. + +Renson had come to lend assistance. He set to work among the negro +cabins, the upper gallery seats of Paraiso's amphitheater of hills, for +Renson had been a free agent for more than a month now and was not +exactly in a condition to interview American housewives. My own task +began down at the row of inhabited box-cars, and so on through shacks +and tenements with many Spanish laborers' wives. Then toward noon the +labor-train screamed in, with two "gold" coaches and many open +cattle-cars with long benches jammed with sweaty workmen, easily six +hundred men in the six cars, who swept in upon the town like a flood +through a suddenly opened sluiceway as the train barely paused and +shrieked away again. + +Renson and I dashed for the laborers' mess-halls, where hundreds of +sun-bronzed foreigners, divided only as to color, packed pell-mell +around a score of wooden tables heavily stocked with rough and tumble +food--yet so different from the old French catch as catch can days when +each man owned his black pot and toiled all through the noon-hour to +cook himself an unsanitary lunch. We jotted them down at express speed, +with changes of tongue so abrupt that our heads were soon reeling, and +in the place where our minds should have been sounded only a confused +chaotic uproar like a wrangling within the covers of a polyglot +dictionary. Then suddenly I landed a Russian! It was the final straw. I +like to speak Spanish, I can endure the creaking of Turks attempting to +talk Italian, I can bend an ear to the excruciating "French" of +Martinique negroes, I have boldly faced sputtering Arabs, but I will +NOT run the risk of talking Russian. It was the second and last case +during my census days when I was forced to call for interpretative +assistance. + +At best we caught only a small percentage at each table before the +crowd had wolfed and melted away. An odd half dozen more, perhaps, we +found stretched out in the shade under the mess-hall and neighboring +quarters before the imperative screech of the labor-train whistle ended +a scene that must be several times repeated, and now left us silent and +alone, to wander wet and weary to the nearest white bachelor quarters, +there to lie on our backs an hour or more till the polyglot jumble of +words in the back of our heads had each climbed again to its proper +shelf. + +Speaking of white bachelor quarters, therein lay the enumerator's +greatest problem. The Spaniard or the Jamaican is in nine cases out of +ten fluently familiar with his companion's antecedents and pedigree. He +can generally furnish all the information the census department calls +for. But it is quite otherwise with the American bachelor. He may know +his room-mate's exact degree of skill at poker, he probably knows his +private opinion of "the Colonel," he is sure to know his degree of +enmity to the prohibition movement; but he is not at all certain to +know his name and rarely indeed has he the shadow of a notion when and +in what particular corner of the States he began the game of existence. +So loose are ties down on the Zone that a man's room-mate might go off +into the jungle and die and the former not dream of inquiring for him +for a week. Especially we world-wanderers, as are a large percentage of +"Zoners," with virtually no fixed roots in any soil, floating wherever +the job suggests or the spirit moves, have the facts of our past in our +own heads only. No wanderer of experience would dream of asking his +fellow where he came from. The answer would be too apt to be, "from the +last place." So difficult did this matter become that I gave up rushing +for the bus to Pedro Miguel each evening and the even more distressing +necessity of catching that premature 6:30 train each morning in Empire +and, packing a sheet and pillow and tooth-brush, moved down to Paraiso +that I might spend the first half of the night in quest of these +elusive bits of bachelor information. + +Meanwhile the enrolling by day continued unabated. I had my first +experience enumerating "gold" married quarters--white American +families; just enough for experience and not enough to suffer severely. +The enrolling of West Indians was pleasanter. The wives of locomotive +engineers and steam-shovel cranemen were not infrequently supercilious +ladies who resented being disturbed during their "social functions" and +lacked the training in politeness of Jamaican "mammies." Living in +Paradise now under a paternal all-providing government, they seemed to +have forgotten the rolling-pin days of the past. It was here in Paraiso +that I first encountered that strange, that wondrous strange custom of +lying about one's age. Negro women never did. What more absurd, +uncalled-for piece of dishonesty! Does Mrs. Smith fear that Mrs. Jones +next door will succeed in pumping out of me that capital bit of +information? Little does she know the long prison sentence at "hard +labor" that stares me in the face for any such slip; to say nothing of +my naturally incommunicative disposition. Or is she ashamed to let ME +know the truth?--unaware that all such information goes in at my ears +and down my pencil to the pink card before me like a message over the +wires, leaving no more trace behind. Surely she must know that I care +not a pencil-point whether she is eighteen or fifty-two, nor remember +which one minute after her screen door has slammed behind me--unless +she has caused me to glance up in wonder at her silvering temples of +thirty-five when she simpers "twenty-two"--and to set her down as forty +to be on the safe side. Oh now, please, ladies, do not understand me as +accusing the American wives of Paraiso in general of this weakness. The +large majority were quite pleasant, frank, and overflowing with cheery +good sense. But the percentage who were not was far larger than I, who +am also an American, was pleased to find it. + +But doubly astonishing were the few cases of lying by proxy. A +"clean-cut," college-graduated civil engineer of thirty-two whom one +would have cited as an example of the best type of American, gave all +data concerning himself in an unimpeachable manner. His wife was +absent. When the question of her age arose he gave it, with the +slightest catch in his voice, as twenty. Now that might be all very +well. Men of thirty-two are occasionally so fortunate as to marry girls +of twenty. But a moment later the gentleman in question finds himself +announcing that his wife has been living on the Zone with him since +1907; and that she was born in New England! Thus is he tripped over his +own clothes-line. For New England girls do not marry at fifteen; mother +would not let them even if they would. + +I, too, had gradually worked my way high up among the nondescript +cabins on the upper rim of Paraiso that seem on the very verge of +pitching headlong into the noisy, smoky canal far below with the jar of +the next explosion, when one sunny mid-afternoon I caught sight of +Renson dejectedly trudging down across what might be called the +"Maiden" of Paraiso, back of the two-story lodge-hall. I took leave of +my ebony hostess and descended. Renson's troubles were indeed +disheartening. Back in the jungled fringe of the town he had fallen +into a swarm of Martiniques, and Renson's French being nothing more +than an unstudied mixture of English and Spanish, he had not gathered +much information. Moreover negro women from the French isles are enough +to frighten any virtuous young Marine. + +"What's the sense o' me tryin' to chew the fat in French?" asked +Renson, with tears in his voice. "I ain't in no condition to work at +this census business any longer anyway. I ain't got to bed before three +in the morning this week"--in his air was open suggestion that it was +some one else's fault--"Some day I'll be gettin' in bad, too. This +mornin' a fool nigger woman asked me if I didn't want her black +pickaninny I was enumeratin', thinkin' it was a good joke. You know how +these bush kids is runnin' around all over the country before a white +man's brat could walk on its hind legs. 'Yes,' I says, 'if I was goin' +alligator huntin' an' needed bait!' I come near catchin' the brat up by +the feet an' beatin' its can off. I'm out o' luck any way, an'--" + +The fact is Renson was aching to be "fired." More than thirty days had +he been subject only to his own will, and it was high time he returned +to the nursery discipline of camp. Moreover he was out of cigarettes. I +slipped him one and smoothed him down as its fumes grew--for Renson was +as tractable as a child, rightly treated--and set him to taking +Jamaican tenements in the center of town, while I struck off into the +jungled Martinique hills myself. + +There were signs abroad that the census job was drawing to a close. My +first pay-day had already come and gone and I had strolled up the +gravel walk one noon-day to the Disembursing Office with my yellow pay +certificate duly initialed by the examiner of accounts, and was handed +my first four twenty-dollar gold pieces--for hotel and commissary books +sadly reduce a good paycheck. Already one evening I had entered the +census office to find "the boss" just peeling off his sweat-dripping +undershirt and dotted with skin-pricking jungle life after a day +mule-back on the thither side of the canal; an utterly fruitless day, +for not only had he failed during eight hours of plunging through the +wilderness to find a single hut not already decorated with the +"enumerated" tag, but not even a banana could he lay hands on when the +noon-hour overhauled him far from the ministrations of "Ben" and the +breeze-swept veranda of Empire hotel. + +It was, I believe, the afternoon following Renson's linguistic troubles +that "the boss" came jogging into Paraiso on his sturdy mule. In his +eagerness to "clean up" the territory we fell to corraling negroes +everywhere, in the streets, at work, buying their supplies at the +commissary, sleeping in the shade of wayside trees, anywhere and +everywhere, until at last in his excitement "the boss" let his medium +soft pencil slip by the column for color and dashed down the +abbreviation for "mixed" after the question, "Married or Single?" Which +may have been near enough the truth of the case, but suggested it was +time to quit. So we marked Paraiso "finished except for recalls" and +returned to Empire. + +One by one our fellow-enumerators had dropped by the wayside, some by +mutual agreement, some without any agreement whatever. Renson was now +relieved from census duty, to his great joy, there remained but four of +us,--"the boss" and "Mac" in the office, "Scotty" and I outside. A deep +conference ensued and, as if I had not had good luck enough already, it +was decided that we two should go through the "cut" itself. It was like +offering us a salary to view all the Great Work in detail, for +virtually all the excavation of any importance on the Zone lay within +the confines of our district. + +So one day "Scotty" and I descended at the girderless railroad bridge +and, taking each one side of the canal, set out to canvass its every +nook and cranny. The canal as it then stood was about the width of two +city blocks, an immense chasm piled and tumbled with broken rock and +earth, in the center a ditch already filled with grimy water, on either +side several levels of rough rock ledges with sheer rugged stone faces; +for the hills were being cut away in layers each far above the other. +High above us rose the jagged walls of the "cut" with towns hanging by +their fingernails all along its edge, and ahead in the abysmal, smoky +distance the great channel gashed through Culebra mountain. + +The different levels varied from ten to twenty feet one above the +other, each with a railroad on it, back and forth along which +incessantly rumbled and screeched dirt-trains full or empty, halting +before the steam-shovels, that shivered and spouted thick black smoke +as they ate away the rocky hills and cast them in great giant handsful +on the train of one-sided flat-cars that moved forward bit by bit at +the flourish of the conductor's yellow flag. Steam-shovels that seemed +human in all except their mammoth fearless strength tore up the solid +rock with snorts of rage and the panting of industry, now and then +flinging some troublesome, stubborn boulder angrily upon the cars. Yet +they could be dainty as human fingers too, could pick up a railroad +spike or push a rock gently an inch further across the car. Each was +run by two white Americans, or at least what would prove such when they +reached the shower-bath in their quarters--the craneman far out on the +shovel arm, the engineer within the machine itself with a labyrinth of +levers demanding his unbroken attention. Then there was of course a +gang of negroes, firemen and the like, attached to each shovel. + +All the day through I climbed and scrambled back and forth between the +different levels, dodging from one track to another and along the rocky +floor of the canal, needing eyes and ears both in front and behind, not +merely for trains but for a hundred hidden and unknown dangers to keep +the nerves taut. Now and then a palatial motorcar, like some rail-road +breed of taxi, sped by with its musical insistent jingling bells, +usually with one of the countless parties of government guests or +tourists in spotless white which the dry season brings. Dirt-trains +kept the right of way, however, for the Work always comes first at +Panama. Or it might be the famous "yellow car" itself with members of +the Commission. Once it came all but empty and there dropped off +inconspicuously a man in baggy duck trousers, a black alpaca coat of +many wrinkles; and an unassuming straw hat, a white-haired man with +blue--almost babyish blue-eyes, a cigarette dangling from his lips as +he strolled about with restless yet quiet energy. There has been no +flash and glitter of military uniforms on the Zone since the French +sailed for home, but every one knew "the Colonel" for all that, the +soldier who has never "seen service," who has never heard the shrapnel +scream by overhead, yet to whom the world owes more thanks than six +conquering generals rolled into one. + +Scores of "trypod" and "Star" drills, whole battalions of deafening +machines run by compressed air brought from miles away, are pounding +and grinding and jamming holes in the living rock. After them will +presently come nonchalantly strolling along gangs of the ubiquitous +black "powder-men" and carelessly throw down boxes of dynamite and +pound the drill-holes full thereof and tamp them down ready to "blow" +at 11:30 and 5:30 when the workmen are out of range,--those mighty +explosions that twelve times a week set the porch chairs of every +I.C.C. house on the Isthmus to rocking, and are heard far out at sea. + +Anywhere near the drills is such a roaring and jangling that I must +bellow at the top of my voice to be heard at all. The entire gamut of +sound-waves surrounds and enfolds me, and with it all the powerful +Atlantic breeze sweeps deafeningly through the channel. Down in the +bottom of the canal if one step behind anything that shuts off the +breeze it is tropically hot; yet up on the edge of the chasm above, the +trees are always nodding and bowing before the ceaseless wind from off +the Caribbean. Scores of "switcheros" drowse under their sheet-iron +wigwams, erected not so much as protection from the sun, for the +drowsers are mostly negroes and immune to that, as from young rocks +that the dynamite blasts frequently toss a quarter-mile. Then over it +all hang heavy clouds of soft-coal dust from trains and shovels, +shifting down upon the black, white and mixed, and the enumerator +alike; a dirty, noisy, perilous, enjoyable job. + +Everywhere are gangs of men, sometimes two or three gangs working +together at the same task. Shovel gangs, track gangs, surfacing gangs, +dynamite gangs, gangs doing everything imaginable with shovel and pick +and crowbar, gangs down on the floor of the canal, gangs far up the +steep walls of cut rock, gangs stretching away in either direction till +those far off look like upright bands of the leaf-cutting ants of +Panamanian jungles; gangs nearly all, whatever their nationality, in +the blue shirts and khaki trousers of the Zone commissary, giving a +peculiar color scheme to all the scene. + +Now and then the boss is a stony-eyed American with a black cigar +clamped between his teeth. More often he is of the same nationality as +the workers, quite likely from the same town, who jabbers a little +imitation English. Which is one of the reasons why a force of "time +inspectors" is constantly dodging in and out over the job, time-book +and pencil in hand, lest some fellow-townsman of the boss be earning +his $1.50 a day under the shade of a tree back in the jungle. Here are +Basques in their boinas, preferring their native "Euscarra" to Spanish; +French "niggers" and English "niggers" whom it is to the interest of +peace and order to keep as far apart as possible; occasionally a few +sunburned blond men in a shovel gang, but they prove to be Teutons or +Scandinavians; laborers of every color and degree--except American +laborers, more than conspicuous by their absence. For the American +negro is an untractable creature in large numbers, and the caste system +that forbids white Americans from engaging in common labor side by side +with negroes is to be expected in an enterprise of which the leaders +are not only military men but largely southerners, however many may be +shivering in the streets of Chicago or roaming hungrily through the +byways of St. Louis. It is well so, perhaps. None of us who feels an +affection for the Zone would wish to see its atmosphere lowered from +what it is to the brutal depths of our railroad construction camps in +the States. + +The attention of certain state legislatures might advantageously be +called to the Zone Spaniard's drinking-cup. It is really a tin can on +the end of a long stick, cover and all. The top is punched sieve-like +that the water may enter as it is dipped in the bucket with which the +water-boy strains along. In the bottom is a single small hole out of +which spurts into the drinker's mouth a little stream of water as he +holds it high above his head, as once he drank wine from his leather +bota in far-off Spain. Many a Spanish gang comes entirely from the same +town, notably Salamanca or Avila. I set them to staring and chattering +by some simple remark about their birthplace: "Fine view from the Paseo +del Rastro, eh?" "Does the puente romano still cross the river?" But I +had soon to cease such personalities, for picks and shovels lay idle as +long as I remained in sight and Uncle Sam was the loser. + +So many were the gangs that I advanced barely a half-mile during this +first day and, lost in my work, forgot the hour until it was suddenly +recalled by the insistent, strident tooting of whistles that forewarns +the setting-off of the dynamite charges from the little red electric +boxes along the edge of the "cut." I turned back toward Paraiso and, +all but stumbling over little red-wound wires everywhere on the ground, +dodging in and out, running forward, halting or suddenly retreating, I +worked my way gradually forward, while all the world about me was +upheaving and spouting and belching forth to the heavens, as if I had +been caught in the crater of a volcano as it suddenly erupted without +warning. The history of Panama is strewn with "dynamite stories." Even +the French had theirs in their sixteen per cent, of the excavation of +Culebra; in American annals there is one for every week. Three days +before, one of my Empire friends set off one afternoon for a stroll +through the "cut" he had not seen for a year. In a retired spot he came +upon two negroes pounding an irregular bundle. "What you doing, boys?" +he inquired with idle curiosity. "Jes' a brealdn' up dis yere dynamite, +boss," languidly answered one of the blacks. My friend was one of those +apprehensive, over-cautious fellows so rare on the Zone. Without so +much as taking his leave he set off at a run. Some two car-lengths +beyond an explosion pitched him forward and all but lifted him off his +feet. When he looked back the negroes had left. Indeed neither of them +has reported for work since. + +Then there was "Mac's" case. In his ambition for census efficiency +"Mac" was in the habit of stopping workmen wherever he met them. One +day he encountered a Jamaican carrying a box of dynamite on his head +and, according to his custom, shouted: + +"Hey, boy! Had your census taken yet?" + +"What dat, boss?" cried the Jamaican with wide-open eyes, as he threw +the box at "Mac's" feet and stood at respectful attention. + +Somehow "Mac" lacked a bit of his old zealousness thereafter. + +On the second day I pushed past Cucaracha, scene of the greatest +"slide" in the history of the canal when forty-seven acres went into +the "cut," burying under untold tons of earth and rock steam-shovels +and railroads, "Star" and "trypod" drills, and all else in +sight--except the "rough-necks," who are far too fast on their feet to +be buried against their will. One by one I dragged shovel gangs away to +a distance where my shouting could be heard, one by one I commanded +drillmen to shut off their deafening machines, all day I dodged +switching, snorting trains, clambered by steep rocky paths, or ladders +from one level to another, howling above the roar of the "cut" the +time-worn questions, straining my ear to catch the answer. Many a negro +did not know the meaning of the word "census," and must have it +explained to him in words of one syllable. Many a time I climbed to +some lofty rock ledge lined with drills and, gesticulating like a +semaphore in signal practice, caught at last the wandering attention of +a negro, to shout sore-throated above the incessant pounding of +machines and the roaring of the Atlantic breeze: + +"Hello, boy! Census taken yet?" + +A long vacant stare, then at last, perhaps, the answer: + +"Oh, yes sah, boss." + +"When and where?" + +"In Spanish Town, Jamaica, three year ago, sah." + +Which was not an attempt to be facetious but an answer in all +seriousness. Why should not one census, like one baptism, suffice for a +life-time? It was fortunate that enumerators were not accustomed to +carry deadly weapons. + +Quick changes from negro to Spanish gangs demonstrated beyond all +future question how much more native intelligence has the white man. +Rarely did I need to ask a Spaniard a question twice, still less ask +him to repeat the answer. His replies came back sharp and swift as a +pelota from a cesta. West Indians not only must hear the question an +average of three times but could seldom give the simplest information +clearly enough to be intelligible, though ostensibly speaking English. +A Spanish card one might fill out and be gone in less time than the +negro could be roused from his racial torpor. Yet of the Spaniards on +the Zone surely seventy per cent, were wholly illiterate, while the +negroes from the British Weat Indies, thanks to their good fortune in +being ruled over by the world's best colonist, could almost invariably +read and write; many of those shoveling in the "cut" have been trained +in trigonometry. + +Few are the "Zoners" now who do not consider the Spaniard the best +workman ever imported in all the sixty-five years from the railroad +surveying to the completion of the canal. The stocky, muscle-bound +little fellows come no longer to America as conquistadores, but to +shovel dirt. And yet more cheery, willing workers, more law-abiding +subjects are scarcely to be found. It is unfortunate we could not have +imported Spaniards for all the canal work; even they have naturally +learned some "soldiering" from the example of lazy negroes who, where +laborers must be had, are a bit better than no labor--though not much. + +The third day came, and high above me towered the rock cliffs of +Culebra's palm-crowned hill, steam-shovels approaching the summit in +echelon, here and there an incipient earth and rock "slide" dribbling +warningly down. He who still fancies the digging of the canal an +ordinary task should have tramped with us through just our section, +halting to speak to every man in it, climbing out of this man-made +canon twice a day, a strenuous climb even near its ends, while at +Culebra one looks up at all but unscalable mountain walls on either +side. + +From time to time we hear murmurs from abroad that Americans are making +light of catastrophies on the Isthmus, that they cover up their great +disasters by a strict censorship of news. The latter is mere absurdity. +As to catastrophies, a great "slide" or a premature dynamite explosion +are serious disaster to Americans on the job just as they would be to +Europeans. But whereas the continental European would sit down before +the misfortune and weep, the American swears a round oath, spits on his +hands, and pitches in to shovel the "slide" out again. He isn't +belittling the disasters; it is merely that he knows the canal has got +to be dug and goes ahead and digs it. That is the greatest thing on the +Zone. Amid all the childish snarling of "Spigoties," the back-biting of +Europe, the congressional wrangles, the Cabinet politics, the man on +the job,--"the Colonel," the average American, the "rough-neck"--goes +right on digging the canal day by day as if he had never heard a rumor +of all this outside noise. + +Mighty is the job from one point of view; yet tiny from another. With +all his enormous equipment, his peerless ingenuity, and his feverish +activity all little man has succeeded in doing is to scratch a little +surface wound in Mother Earth, cutting open a few superficial veins, of +water, that trickle down the rocky face of the "cut." + +By March twelfth we had carried our task past and under Empire +suspension bridge, and the end of the "cut" was almost in sight. That +day I clawed and scrambled a score of times up the face of rock walls. +I zigzagged through long rows of negroes pounding holes in rock ledges. +I stumbled and splashed my way through gangs of Martinique "muckers." I +slid down the face of government-made cliffs on the seat of my +commissary breeches. I fought my way up again to stalk through long +lines of men picking away at the dizzy edge of sheer precipices. I +rolled down in the sand and rubble of what threatened to develop into +"slides." I crawled under snorting steam-shovels to drag out besooted +negroes--negroes so besooted I had to ask them their color--while +dodging the gigantic swinging shovel itself, to say nothing of "dhobie" +blasts and rocks of the size of drummers' trunks that spilled from it +as it swung. I climbed up into the quivering monster itself to +interrupt the engineer at his levers, to shout at the craneman on his +beam. I sprang aboard every train that was not running at full speed, +walking along the running-board into the cab; if not to "get" the +engineer at least to gain new life from his private ice-water tank. I +scrambled over tenders and quarter-miles of "Lidgerwood flats" piled +high with broken rock and earth, to scream at the American conductor +and his black brakemen, often to find myself, by the time I had set +down one of them, carried entirely out of my district, to Pedro Miguel +or beyond the Chagres, and have to "hit the grit" in "hobo" fashion and +catch something back to the spot where I left off. In short I poked +into every corner of the "cut" known to man, bawling in the +November-first voice of a presidential candidate to everything in +trousers: + +"Eh! 'Ad yer census taken yet?" + +And what was my reward? From the northern edge of Empire to where the +"cut" sinks away into the Chagres and the low, flat country beyond, I +enrolled--just thirteen persons. It was then and there, though it still +lacked an hour of noon, that I ceased to be a census enumerator. With +slow and deliberate step I climbed out of the canal and across a pathed +field to Bas Obispo and, sitting down in the shade of her station, +patiently awaited the train that would carry me back to Empire. + +Four thousand, six hundred and seventy-seven Zone residents had I +enrolled during those six weeks. Something over half of these were +Jamaicans. Of the states Pennsylvania was best represented. Martinique +negroes, Greeks, Spaniards, and Panamanians were some eighty per cent +illiterate; of some three hundred of the first only a half dozen even +claimed to read and write; and non-wedlock was virtually universal +among them. + +Rumor has it that there are seventy-two separate states and +dependencies represented on the Isthmus. My own cards showed a few +less. Most conspicuous absences, besides American negroes, were natives +of Honduras, of four countries of South America, of most of Africa, and +of entire Australia. That this was largely due to chance was shown by +the fact that my fellow-enumerators found persons from all these +countries. + +I had enrolled persons born in the following places: All the United +States except three or four states in the far northwest; Canada, +Mexico, Guatemala, Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Canal Zone, +Colombia, Venezuela, British Guiana (Demarara), French and Dutch +Guiana, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Chile, Cuba, Hayti and Santo +Domingo, Jamaica, Barbados, St. Vincent, Trinidad, Saint Lucia, +Montserrat, Dominica, Nevis, Nassau, Eleuthera and Inagua, Martinique, +Guadalupe, Saint Thomas (Danish West Indies), Curacao and Tobago, +England, Ireland, Scotland, Holland, Finland, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, +Norway, Russia, France, Spain, Andorra, Portugal, Switzerland, Germany, +Italy, Austria, Hungary, Greece, Servia, Turkey, Canary Islands, Syria, +Palestine, Arabia, India (from Tuticorin to Lahore), China, Japan, +Egypt, Sierra Leone, South Africa and--the High Seas. + +"Where you born, boy?" I had run across a wrinkled old negro who had +worked more than thirty years for the P.R.R. + +"'Deed ah don' know, boss," + +"Oh, come! Don't know where you were born?" "Fo' Gawd, boss, ah's +tellin' yo de truff. Ah don know, 'cause ah born to sea." + +"Well, what country are you a subject of?" + +"Truly ah cahn't say, boss." + +"Well what nationality was your father?" + +"Ah neveh see him, sah." "Well then where the devil did you first land +after you were born?" + +"'Deed ah cahn't say, boss. T'ink it were one o' dem islands. Reckon +ah's a subjec' o' de' worl', boss." + +Weeks afterward the population of Uncle Sam's ten by fifty-mile strip +of tropics was found to have been on February first, 1912, 62,810. No, +anxious reader, I am not giving away inside information; the source of +my remarks is the public prints. Of these about 25,000 were British +subjects (West Indian negroes with very few exceptions). Of the entire +population 37,428 were employed by the U. S. government. Of white +Americans, of the Brahmin caste of the "gold" roll, there were employed +on the Zone but 5,228. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Police headquarters presented an unusual air of preoccupation next +morning. In the corner office the telephone rang often and +imperatively, several times erect figures in khaki and broad "Texas" +hats flashed by the doorway, the drone of earnest conference sounded a +few minutes, and the figures flashed as suddenly out again into the +world. In the inner office I glanced once more in review through the +"Rules and Regulations." The Zone, too, was now familiar ground, and as +for the third requirement for a policeman--to know the Zone residents +by sight--a strange face brought me a start of surprise, unless it +beamed above the garb that shouted "tourist." Now all I needed was a +few hours of conference and explanation on the duties, rights, and +privileges of policemen; and that of course would come as soon as +leisure again settled down over headquarters. + +Musing which I was suddenly startled to my feet by "the Captain" +appearing in the doorway. + +"Catch the next train to Balboa;" he said. "You've got four minutes. +You'll find Lieutenant Long on board. Here are the people to look out +for." + +He thrust into my hands a slip of paper, from another direction there +was tossed at me a new brass-check and "First-Class Private" police +badge No. 88, and I was racing down through Ancon. In the meadow below +the Tivoli I risked time to glance at the slip of paper. On it were the +names of an ex-president and two ministers of a frowsy little South +American republic during whose rule a former president and his henchmen +had been brutally murdered by a popular uprising in the very capital +itself. + +In the first-class coach I found Lieutenant Long, towering so far above +all his surroundings as to have been easily recognized even had he not +been in uniform. Beside him sat Corporal Castillo of the +"plain-clothes" squad, a young man of forty, with a high forehead, a +stubby black mustache, and a chin that was decisive without being +aggressive. + +"Now here's the Captain's idea," explained the Lieutenant, as the train +swung away around Ancon hill, "We'll have to take turns mounting guard +over them, of course. I'll have to talk Spanish, and nobody'd have to +look at Castillo more than once to know he was born up in some crack in +the Andes."--Which was one of the Lieutenant's jokes, for the Corporal, +though a Colombian, was as white, sharp-witted, and energetic as any +American on the Zone.--"But no one to look at him would suspect that +Fr--French, is it?" + +"Franck." + +"Oh, yes, that Franck could speak Spanish. We 'll do our best to +inflate that impression, and when it comes your turn at guard-mount you +can probably let several little things of interest drift in at your +ears." + +"I left headquarters before the Captain had time to explain," I +suggested. + +"Oh!" said the Lieutenant. "Well, here it is in a spectacle-case, as +our friend Kipling would put it. We're on our way to Culebra Island. +There are now in quarantine there three men who arrived yesterday from +South America. They are members of the party of the murdered president. +To-day there will arrive and also be put in hock the three gents whose +names you have there. Now we have a private inside hunch that the three +already here have come up particularly and specifically to prepare for +the funeral of the three who are arriving. Which is no hair off our +brows, except it's up to us to see they don't pull off any little +stunts of that kind on Zone territory." + +At least this police business was starting well; if this was a sample +it would be a real job. + +The train had stopped and we were climbing the steps of Balboa police +station; for without the co-operation of the "Admiral of the Pacific +Fleet" we could not reach Culebra Island. + +"By the way, I suppose you're well armed?" asked the Lieutenant in his +high querulous voice, as we drank a last round of ice-water preparatory +to setting out again. + +"Em--I've got a fountain pen," I replied. "I haven't been a policeman +twenty minutes yet, and I was appointed in a hurry." + +"Fine!" cried "the Admiral" sarcastically, snatching open the door of a +closet beside the desk. "With a warm job like this on hand! You know +what these South Americans are--" with a wink at the Lieutenant that +was meant also for Castillo, who stood with his felt hat on the back of +his head and a far-away look in his eyes. + +"Yah, mighty dangerous--around meal time," said the Corporal; though at +the same time he drew from a hip pocket a worn leather holster +containing a revolver, and examined it intently. + +Meanwhile "the Admiral" had handed me a massive No. 88 "Colt" with +holster, a box of cartridges, and a belt that might easily have served +as a horse's saddle-girth. When I had buckled it on under my coat the +armament felt like a small boy clinging about my waist. + +We trooped on down a sort of railroad junction with a score of +abandoned wooden houses. It was here I had first landed on the Zone one +blazing Sunday nearly two months before and tramped away for some miles +on a rusty sandy track along a canal already filled with water till a +short jungle path led me into my first Zone town. Already that seemed +ancient history. + +The police launch, manned by negro prisoners, with "the Admiral" in a +cushioned arm-chair at the wheel, was soon scudding away across the +sunlit harbor, the breakwater building of the spoil of Culebra "cut" on +our left, ahead the cluster of small islands being torn to pieces for +Uncle Sam's fortifications. The steamer being not yet sighted, we put +in at Naos Island, where the bulky policeman in charge led us to dinner +at the I. C. C. hotel, during which the noonday blasting on the Zone +came dully across to us. Soon after we were landing at the cement +sidewalk of the island--where I had been a prisoner for a day in +January as my welcome to U. S. territory--and were being greeted by the +pocket edition doctor and the bay-windowed German who had been my +wardens on that occasion. + +We found the conspirators at a table in a corridor of the first-class +quarantine station. In the words of Lieutenant Long "they fully looked +the part," being of distinctly merciless cut of jib. They were roughly +dressed and without collars, convincing proof of some nefarious design, +for when the Latin-American entitled to wear them leaves off his white +collar and his cane he must be desperate indeed. + +We "braced" them at once, marching down upon them as they were +murmuring with heads together over a mass of typewritten sheets. The +Corporal was delegated to inform them in his most urbane and +hidalguezco Castilian that we were well acquainted with their errand +and that we were come to frustrate by any legitimate means in our power +the consummation of any such project on American territory. When the +first paralyzed stare of astonishment that plans they had fancied +locked in their own breasts were known to others had somewhat subsided, +one of them assumed the spokesmanship. In just as courtly and +superabundant language he replied that they were only too well aware of +the inadvisability of carrying out any act against its sovereignty on +U. S. soil; that so long as they were on American territory they would +conduct themselves in a most circumspect and caballeroso manner--"but," +he concluded, "in the most public street of Panama city the first time +we meet those three dogs--we shall spit in their faces--that's all, +nada mas," and the blazing eyes announced all too plainly what he meant +by that figure of speech. + +That was all very well, was our smiling and urbane reply, but to be on +the safe side and merely as a matter of custom we were under the +unfortunate necessity of requesting them to submit to the annoyance of +having their baggage and persons examined with a view to discovering +what weapons-- + +"Como no senores? All the examination you desire." Which was +exceedingly kind of them. Whereupon, when the Lieutenant had +interpreted to me their permission, we fell upon them and amid +countless expressions of mutual esteem gave them and their baggage such +a "frisking" as befalls a Kaffir leaving a South African diamond mine, +and found them armed with--a receipt from the quarantine doctor for +"one pearl-handled Smill and Wilson No. 32." Either they really +intended to postpone their little affair until they reached Panama, or +they had succeeded in concealing their weapons elsewhere. + +The doctor and his assistant were already being rowed out to the +steamer that was to bring the victims. They were to be lodged in a room +across the corridor from the conspirators, which corridor it would be +our simple duty to patrol with a view to intercepting any exchange of +stray lead. We fell to planning such division of the twenty-four hours +as should give me the most talkative period. The Lieutenant took the +trouble further to convince the trio of my total ignorance of Spanish +by a distinct and elaborate explanation, in English, of the difference +between the words "muchacho" and "muchacha." Then we wandered down past +the grimy steerage station to the shore end of the little wharf to +await the doctor and our proteges. + +The ocean breeze swept unhampered across the island; on its rocky shore +sounded the dull rumble of waves, for the sea was rolling a bit now. +The swelling tide covered inch by inch a sandy ridge that connected us +with another island, gradually drowning beneath its waters several +rusty old hulls. A little rocky wooded isle to the left cut off the +future entrance to the canal. Some miles away across the bay on the +lower slope of a long hill drowsed the city of Panama in brilliant +sunshine; and beyond, the hazy mountainous country stretched +southwestward to be lost in the molten horizon. On a distant hill some +Indian was burning off a patch of jungle to plant his corn. + +Meanwhile the Lieutenant and the Corporal had settled some Lombroso +proposition and fallen to reciting poetry. The former, who was +evidently a lover of melancholy, mouth-filling verse, was declaiming +"The Raven" to the open sea. I listened in wonder. Was this then police +talk? I had expected rough, untaught fellows whose conversation at best +would be pornographic rather than poetic. My astonishment swelled to +the bursting point when the Colombian not only caught up the poem where +the Lieutenant left off but topped it off with that peerless +translation by Bonalde the Venezuelan, beginning: + + Una fosca media noche, cuando en tristes reflexiones + Sobre mas de un raro infolio de olvidados cronicones-- + +And just then the quarantine launch swung around the neighboring +island. I tightened my horse belt and dragged the "Colt" around within +easy reach; and a moment later the doctor and his bulking understudy +stepped ashore--alone. + +"They didn't come," said the former; "they were not allowed to leave +their own country." + +"Hell and damnation," said the Lieutenant at length in a calm, +conversational tone of voice, with the air of a small boy who has been +wantonly robbed of a long-promised holiday but who is determined not to +make a scene over it. The Corporal seemed indifferent, and stood with +the far-away look in his eyes as if he were already busy with some +other plans or worries. But then, the Corporal was married. As for +myself, I had somehow felt from the first that it was too good to be +true. Adventure has steadily dodged me all my days. + +A half-hour later we were pitching across the bay toward Ancon hill, +scaled bare on one end by the work of fortification like a Hindu +hair-cut. The water came spitting inboard now and then, and dejected +silence reigned within the craft. But spirits gradually revived and +before we could make out the details of the wharf the Corporal's hearty +genuine laughter and the Lieutenant's rousing carcajada were again +drifting across the water. At Balboa I unburdened myself of my shooting +hardware and, catching the labor-train, was soon mounting the graveled +walk to Ancon police station. In the second-story squad-room of the +bungalow were eight beds. But there were more than enough policemen to +go round, and the legal occupant of the bunk I fell asleep in returned +from duty at midnight and I transferred to the still warm nest of a man +on the "grave-yard" shift. + +"It's customary to put a man in uniform for a while first before +assigning him to plain-clothes duty," the Inspector was saying next +morning when I finished the oath of office that had been omitted in the +haste of my appointment, "but we have waived that in your case because +of the knowledge of the Zone the census must have given you." + +Thus casually was I robbed of the opportunity to display my manly form +in uniform to tourists of trains and the Tivoli--tourists, I say, +because the "Zoners" would never have noticed it. But we must all +accept the decrees of fate. + +That was the full extent of the Inspector's remarks; no mention +whatever of the sundry little points the recruit is anxious to be +enlightened upon. In government jobs one learns those details by +experience. For the time being there was nothing for me to do but to +descend to the "gum-shoe" desk in Ancon station and sit in the +swivel-chair opposite Lieutenant Long "waiting for orders." + +Toward noon a thought struck me. I swung the telephone around and "got" +the Inspector. + +"All my junk is up in Empire yet," I remarked. + +"All right, tell the desk-man down there to make you out a pass. +Or--hold the wire! As long as you're going out, there's a prisoner over +in Panama that belongs up in Empire. Go over and tell the Chief you +want Tal Fulano." + +I wormed my way through the fawning, neck-craning, many-shaded mob of +political henchmen and obsequious petitioners into the sacred hushed +precincts of Panama police headquarters. A paunched "Spigoty" with a +shifty eye behind large bowed glasses, vainly striving to exude dignity +and wisdom, received me with the oily smirk of the Panamanian +office-holder who feels the painful necessity of keeping on outwardly +good terms with all Americans. I flashed my badge and mentioned a name. +A few moments later there was presented to me a sturdy, if somewhat +flabby, young Spaniard carefully dressed and perfumed. We bowed like +life-long acquaintances and, stepping down to the street, entered a +cab. The prisoner, which he was now only in name, was a muscular fellow +with whom I should have fared badly in personal combat. I was wholly +unarmed, and in a foreign land. All those sundry little unexplained +points of a policeman's duty were bubbling up within me. When the +prisoner turned to remark it was a warm day should I warn him that +anything he said would be used against him? When he ordered the driver +to halt before the "Panazone" that he might speak to some friends +should I fiercely countermand the order? What was my duty when the +friends handed him some money and a package of cigars? Suppose he +should start to follow his friends inside to have a drink--but he +didn't. We drove languidly on down the avenue and up into Ancon, where +I heaved a genuine sigh of relief as we crossed the unmarked street +that made my badge good again. The prisoner was soon behind padlocks +and the money and cigars in the station safe. These and him and the +transfer card I took again with me into the foreign Republic in time +for the evening train. But he seemed even more anxious than I to +attract no attention, and once in Empire requested that we take the +shortest and most inconspicuous route to the police station; and my +responsibility was soon over. + +Many were the Z.P. facts I picked up during the next few days in the +swivel-chair. The Zone Police force of 1912 consisted of a Chief of +Police, an Assistant Chief, two Inspectors, four Lieutenants, eight +sergeants, twenty corporals, one hundred and seventeen "first-class +policemen," and one hundred and sixteen "policemen" (West Indian +negroes without exception, though none but an American citizen could +aspire to any white position); not to mention five clerks at +headquarters, who are quite worth the mentioning. "Policemen" wore the +same uniform as "first-class" officers, with khaki-covered helmet +instead of "Texas" hat and canvas instead of leather leggings, drew +one-half the pay of a white private, were not eligible for advancement, +and with some few notable exceptions were noted for what they did know +and the facility with which they could not learn. One Inspector was in +charge of detective work and the other an overseer of the uniformed +force. Each of the Lieutenants was in charge of one-fourth of the Zone +with headquarters respectively at Ancon, Empire, Gorgona, and +Cristobal, and the sub-stations within these districts in charge of +sergeants, corporals, or experienced privates, according to importance. + +Years ago when things were yet in primeval chaos and the memorable +sixth of February of 1904 was still well above the western horizon +there was gathered together for the protection of the newly-born Canal +Strip a band of "bad men" from our ferocious Southwest, warranted to +feed on criminals each breakfast time, and in command of a man-eating +rough-rider. But somehow the bad men seemed unable to transplant to +this new and richer soil the banefulness that had thrived so +successfully in the land of sage-brush and cactus. The gourmandizing +promised to be chiefly at the criminal tables; and before long it was +noted that the noxious gentlemen were gradually drifting back to their +native sand dunes, and the rough-riding gave way to a more orderly +style of horsemanship. Then bit by bit some men--just men without any +qualifying adjective whatever--began to get mixed up in the matter; one +after another army lieutenants were detailed to help the thing along, +until by and by they got the right army lieutenant and the right men +and the Z. P. grew to what it is to-day,--not the love, perhaps, but +the pride of every "Zoner" whose name cannot be found on some old +"blotter." + +There are a number of ways of getting on the force. There is the broad +and general high-way of being appointed in Washington and shipped down +like a nice fresh vegetable in the original package and delivered just +as it left the garden without the pollution of alien hands. Then +there's the big, impressive, broad-shouldered fellow with some life and +military service behind him, and the papers to prove it, who turns up +on the Zone and can't help getting on if he takes the trouble to climb +to headquarters. Or there are the special cases, like Marley for +instance. Marley blew in one summer day from some uncharted point of +the compass with nothing but his hat and a winning smile on his brassy +features, and naturally soon drifted up the "Thousand Stairs." But +Marley wasn't exactly of that manly build that takes "the Chief" and +"the Captain" by storm; and there were suggestions on his young-old +face that he had seen perhaps a trifle too much of life. So he wiped +the sweat from his brow several times at the third-story landing only +to find as often that the expected vacancy was not yet. Meanwhile the +tropical days slipped idly by and Marley's "standin" with the owners of +I. C. C. hotel-books began to strain and threaten to break away, and +everything sort of gave up the ghost and died. Everything, that is, +except the winning smile. 'Til one afternoon with only that asset left +Marley met the department head on the grass-bordered path in front of +the Episcopal chapel, just where the long descent ends and a man begins +to regain his tractable mood, and said Marley: + +"Say, looka here, Chief. It's a question of eats with me. We can't put +this thing off much longer or--" + +Which is why that evening's train carried Marley, with a police badge +and the little flat volume bound in imitation leather in his pocket, +out to some substation commander along the line for the corporal in +charge to break in and hammer down into that finished product, a Zone +Policeman. + +Incidentally Marley also illustrated some months later one of the +special ways of getting off the force. It was still simpler. Going "on +pass" to Colon to spend a little evening, Marley neglected to leave his +No. 38 behind in the squad-room, according to Z. P. rules. Which was +careless of him. For when his spirits reached that stage where he +recognized what sport it would be to see the "Spigoty" policemen of +Bottle Alley dance a western cancan he bethought him of the No. 38. +Which accounts for the fact that the name of Marley can no longer be +found on the rolls of the Z. P. But all this is sadly anticipating. + +Obviously, you will say, a force recruited from such dissimilar sources +must be a thing of wide and sundry experience. And obviously you are +right. Could a man catch up the Z. P. by the slack of the khaki riding +breeches and shake out their stories as a giant in need of carfare +might shake out their loose change, then might he retire to some sunny +hillside of his own and build him a sound-proof house with a swimming +pool and a revolving bookcase and a stable of riding horses, and cause +to be erected on the front lawn a kneeling-place where publishers might +come and bow down and beat their foreheads on the pavement. + +There are men in the Z. P. who in former years have played horse with +the startled markets of great American cities; men whose voices will +boom forth in the pulpit and whisper sage councils in the professional +in years to come; men whom doting parents have sent to Harvard--on whom +it failed to take, except on their clothes--men who have gone down into +the Valley of the Shadow of Death and crawled on hands and knees +through the brackish red brook that runs at the bottom and come out +again smiling on the brink above. Careers more varied than Mexican +sombreros one might hear in any Z. P. squad-room--were not the Z. P. so +much more given to action than to autobiography. + +They bore little resemblance to what I had expected. My mental picture +of an American policeman was that conglomerate average one +unconsciously imbibes from a distant view of our city forces, and by +comparison with foreign,--a heavy-footed, discourteous, half-fanatical, +half-irreligious clubber whose wits are as slow as his judgment is +honest. Instead of which I found the Z. P. composed almost without +exception of good-hearted, well set up young Americans almost all of +military training. I had anticipated, from other experiences, a +constant bickering and a general striving to make life unendurable for +a new-comer. Instead I was constantly surprised at the good fellowship +that existed throughout the force. There were of course some healthy +rivalries; there were no angels among them--or I should have fled the +Isthmus much earlier; but for the most part the Z. P. resembled nothing +so much as a big happy family. Above all I had expected early to make +the acquaintance of "graft," that shifty-eyed monster which we who have +lived in large American cities think of as sitting down to dinner with +the force in every mess-hall. Graft? Why a Zone Policeman could not +ride on a P. R. R. train in full uniform when off duty without paying +his fare, though he was expected to make arrests if necessary and stop +behind with his prisoner. Compared indeed with almost any other spot on +the broad earth's surface "graft" eats slim meals on the Canal Zone. + +The average Zone Policeman would arrest his own brother--which is after +all about the supreme test of good policehood. He is not a man who +likes to keep "blotters," make out accident reports and such things, +that can be of interest only to those with clerks' and bookkeepers' +souls. + +He would far rather be battling with sun, man, and vegetation in the +jungle. He is of those who genuinely and frankly have no desire to +become rich, and "successful," a lack of ambition that formal society +cannot understand and fancies a weakness. + +I had still another police surprise during these swivel-chair days. I +discovered there was on the Zone a yellow tailor who made Beau Brummel +uniforms at $7.50, compared with which the $5 ready-made ones were mere +clothes. All my life long I had been laboring under the delusion that a +uniform is merely a uniform. But one lives and learns. + +There are few left, I suppose, who have not heard that gray-bearded +story of the American in the Philippines who called his native servant +and commanded: + +"Juan, va fetch the caballo from the prado and--and--oh, saddle and +bridle him. Damn such a language anyway! I'm sorry I ever learned it." + +This is capped on the Zone by another that is not only true but +strikingly typical. An American boss who had been much annoyed by +unforeseen absences of his workmen pounced upon one of his Spaniards +one morning crying: + +"When you know por la noche that you're not going to trabaja por la +manana why in--don't you habla?" + +"Si, senor," replied the Spaniard. + +By which it may be gathered that linguistic ability on the Zone is on a +par with that in other U. S. possessions. Of the seven of us assigned +to plain-clothes duty on this strip of seventy-two nationalities there +was a Colombian, a gentleman of Swedish birth, a Chinaman from +Martinique, and a Greek, all of whom spoke English, Spanish, and at +least one other language. Of the three native Americans two spoke only +their mother tongue. In the entire white uniformed force I met only +Lieutenant Long and the Corporal in charge of Miraflores who could +seriously be said to speak Spanish, though I am informed there were one +or two others. + +This was not for a moment any fault of the Z. P. It comes back to our +government and beyond that to the American people. With all our +expanding over the surface of the earth in the past fourteen years +there still hangs over us that old provincial back-woods bogie, +"English is good enough for me." We have only to recall what England +does for those of her colonial servants who want seriously to study the +language of some portion of her subjects to have something very like +the blush of shame creep up the back of our necks. Child's task as is +the learning of a foreign language, provincial old Uncle Sam just +flat-foots along in the same old way, expecting to govern and judge and +lead along the path of civilization his foreign colonies by bellowing +at them in his own nasal drawl and treating their tongue as if it were +some purely animal sound. He is well personified by Corporal ----, late +of the Z. P. The Corporal had served three years in the Philippines and +five on the Zone, and could not ask for bread in the Spanish tongue. +"Why don't you learn it?" some one asked one day. + +"Awe," drawled the Corporal, "what's the use o' goin' t' all that +trouble? If you have t' have any interpretin' done all you got t' do is +t' call in a nigger." + +Uncle Sam not merely lends his servants no assistance to learn the +tongues of his colonies, but should one of his subjects appear bearing +that extraordinary accomplishment he gives him no preference whatever, +no better position, not a copper cent more salary; and if things get to +a pass where a linguist must be hired he gives the job to the first +citizen that comes along who can make a noise that is evidently not +English, or more likely still to some foreigner who talks English like +a mouthful of Hungarian goulash. It is not the least of the reasons why +foreign nations do not take us as seriously as they ought, why our +colonials do not love us and, what is of far greater importance, do not +advance under our rule as they should. + +Meanwhile there had gradually been reaching me "through the proper +channels," as everything does on the Zone even to our ice-water, the +various coupon-books and the like indispensable to Zone life and the +proper pursuit of plain-clothes duty. Distressing as are statistics the +full comprehension of what might follow requires the enumeration of the +odds and ends I was soon carrying about with me. + +A brass-check; police badge; I. C. C. hotel coupon-book; Commissary +coupon-book; "120-Trip Ticket" (a booklet containing blank passes +between any stations on the P. R. R., to be filled out by holder) +Mileage book (purchased by employees at half rates of 2 1/2 cents a +mile for use when traveling on personal business) "24-Trip Ticket" (a +free courtesy pass to all "gold" employees allowing one monthly round +trip excursion over any portion of the line) Freight-train pass for the +P. R. R.; Dirt-train and locomotive pass for the Pacific division; +ditto for the Central division; likewise for the Atlantic division; (in +short about everything on wheels was free to the "gum-shoe" except the +"yellow car") Passes admitting to docks and steamers at either end of +the Zone; note-book; pencil or pen; report cards and envelopes (one of +which the plain-clothes man must fill out and forward to headquarters +"via train-guard" wherever night may overtake him--"the gum-shoe's +day's work," as the idle uniformed man facetiously dubs it). + +Furthermore the man out of uniform is popularly supposed never to +venture forth among the populace without: + +Belt, holster, cartridges, and the No. 38 "Colt" that reminds you of a +drowning man trying to drag you down; handcuffs; police whistle; +blackjack (officially he never carries this; theoretically there is not +one on the Isthmus. But the "gum-shoe" naturally cannot twirl a police +club, and it is not always policy to shoot every refractory prisoner). +Then if he chances to be addicted to the weed there is the +cigarette-case and matches; a watch is frequently convenient; and +incidentally a few articles of clothing are more or less indispensable +even in the dry season. Now and again, too, a bit of money does not +come amiss. For though the Canal Zone is a Utopia where man lives by +work-coupons alone, the detective can never know at what moment his +all-embracing duties may carry him away into the foreign land of +Panama; and even were that possibility not always staring him in the +face, in the words of "Gorgona Red," "You've got t' have money fer yer +booze, ain't ye?" + +Which seems also to be Uncle Sam's view of the matter. Far and away +more important than any of the plain-clothes equipment thus far +mentioned is the "expense account." It is unlike the others in that it +is not visible and tangible but a mere condition, a pleasant sensation +like the consciousness of a good appetite or a youthful fullness of +life. The only reality is a form signed by the czar of the Zone himself +tucked away among I. C. C. financial archives. That authorizes the man +assigned to special duty in plain clothes to be reimbursed money +expended in the pursuance of duty up to the sum of $60 per month; +though it is said that the interpretation of this privilege to the full +limit is not unlikely to cause flames of light, thunderous rumblings, +and other natural phenomena in the vicinity of Empire and Culebra. But +please note further; these expenditures may be only "for cab or boat +hire, meals away from home, and LIQUOR and CIGARS!" Plainly the +"gum-shoe" should be a bachelor. + +Fortunately, however, the proprietor of the expense account is not +required personally to consume it each month. It is designed rather to +win the esteem of bar-tenders, loosen the tongues of suspects, libate +the thirsty stool-pigeon, and prime other accepted sources of +information. But beware! Exceeding care in filling out the account of +such expenditures at the month's end. Carelessness leads a hunted life +on the Canal Zone. Take, for instance, the slight error of my +friend--who, having made such expenditure in Colon, by a slip of the +pen, or to be nice, of the typewriter, sent in among three score and +ten items the following: + + Feb. 4/ 2 bots beer; Cristobal........50c + +and in the course of time found said voucher again on his desk with a +marginal note of mild-eyed wonder and more than idle curiosity, in the +handwriting of a man very high up indeed; + + WHERE can you buy beer in Cristobal? + +All this and more I learned in the swivel-chair waiting for orders, +reading the latest novel that had found its way to Ancon station, and +receiving frequent assurances that I should be quite busy enough once I +got started. Opposite sat Lieutenant Long pouring choice bits of +sub-station orders into the 'phone: + +"Don't you believe it. That was no accident. He didn't lose everything +he had in every pocket rolling around drunk in the street. He's been +systematically frisked. Sabe frisked? Get on the job and look into it." + +For the Lieutenant was one of those scarce and enviable beings who can +live with his subordinates as man to man, yet never find an ounce of +his authority missing when authority is needed. + +Now and then a Z. P. story whiled away the time. There was the sad case +of Corporal ---- in charge of ---- station. Early one Sunday afternoon +the Corporal saw a Spaniard leading a goat along the railroad. +Naturally the day was hot. The Corporal sent a policeman to arrest the +inhuman wretch for cruelty to animals. When he had left the culprit +weeping behind padlocks he went to inspect the goat, tied in the shade +under the police station. + +"Poor little beast," said the sympathetic Corporal, as he set before it +a generous pan of ice-water fresh from the police station tank. The +goat took one long, eager, grateful draught, turned over on its back, +curled up like the sensitive-plants of Panama jungles when a finger +touches them, and departed this vale of tears. But Corporal ---- was an +artist of the first rank. Not only did he "get away with it" under the +very frowning battlements of the judge, but sent the Spaniard up for +ten days on the charge against him. Z. P.'s who tell the story assert +that the Spaniard did not so much mind the sentence as the fact that +the Corporal got his goat. + +Then there was "the Mystery of the Knocked-out Niggers." Day after day +there came reports from a spot out along the line that some negro +laborer strolling along in a perfectly reasonable manner suddenly lay +down, threw a fit, and went into a comatose state from which he +recovered only after a day or two in Ancon or Colon hospitals. The +doctors gave it up in despair. As a last resort the case was turned +over to a Z. P. sleuth. He chose him a hiding-place as near as possible +to the locality of the strange manifestation. For half the morning he +sweltered and swore without having seen or heard the slightest thing of +interest to an old "Zoner." A dirt-train rumbled by now and then. He +strove to amuse himself by watching the innocent games of two little +Spanish switch-boys not far away. They were enjoying themselves, as +guileless childhood will, between their duties of letting a train in +and out of the switch. Well on in the second half of the morning +another diminutive Iberian, a water-boy, brought his compatriots a pail +of water and carried off the empty bucket. The boys hung over the edge +of the pail a sort of wire hook, the handle of their home-made +drinking-can, no doubt, and went on playing. + +By and by a burly black Jamaican in shirt-sleeves loomed up in the +distance. Now and then as he advanced he sang a snatch of West Indian +ballad. As he espied the "switcheros" a smile broke out on his features +and he hastened forward his eyes fixed on the water-pail. In a working +species of Spanish he made some request of the boys, the while wiping +his ebony brow with his sleeve. The boys protested. Evidently they had +lived on the Zone so long they had developed a color line. The negro +pleaded. The boys, sitting in the shade of their wigwam, still shook +their heads. One of them was idly tapping the ground with a +broom-handle that had lain beside him. The negro glanced up and down +the track, snatched up the boys' drinking vessel, of which the wire +hooked over the pail was not after all the handle, and stooped to dip +up a can of water. The little fellow with the broom-stick, ceasing a +useless protest, reached a bit forward and tapped dreamily the rail in +front of him. The Jamaican suddenly sent the can of water some rods +down the track, danced an artistic buck-and-wing shuffle on the thin +air above his head, sat down on the back of his neck, and after trying +a moment in vain to kick the railroad out by the roots, lay still. + +By this time the sleuth was examining the broom-handle. From its split +end protruded an inch of telegraph wire, which chanced also to be the +same wire that hung over the edge of the galvanized bucket. Close in +front of the innocent little fellows ran a "third rail!" + +Then suddenly this life of anecdote and leisure ended. There was thrust +into my hands a typewritten-sheet and I caught the next thing on wheels +out to Corozal for my first investigation. It was one of the most +commonplace cases on the Zone. Two residents of my first dwelling-place +on the Isthmus had reported the loss of $150 in U. S. gold. + +Easier burglary than this the world does not offer. Every bachelor +quarters on the Isthmus, completely screened in, is entered by two or +three screen-doors, none of which is or can be locked. In the building +are from twelve to twenty-four wide-open rooms of two or three +occupants each, no three of whom know one another's full names or +anything else, except that they are white Americans and ipso facto (so +runs Zone philosophy) above dishonesty. The quarters are virtually +abandoned during the day. Two negro janitors dawdle about the building, +but they, too, leave it for two hours at mid-day. Moreover each of the +forty-eight or more occupants probably has several friends or +acquaintances or enemies who may drift in looking for him at any hour +of the day or night. No negro janitor would venture to question a white +American's errand in a house; Panama is below the Mason and Dixon line. +In practice any white American is welcome in any bachelor quarters and +even to a bed, if there is one unoccupied, though he be a total +stranger to all the community. Add to this that the negro tailor's +runner often has permission to come while the owner is away for suits +in need of pressing, that John Chinaman must come and claw the week's +washing out from under the bed where the "rough-neck" kicked it on +Saturday night, that there are a dozen other legitimate errands that +bring persons of varying shades into the building, and above all that +the bachelors themselves, after the open-hearted old American fashion, +have the all but universal habit of tossing gold and silver, railroad +watches and real-estate bonds, or anything else of whatever value, +indifferently on the first clear corner that presents itself. +Precaution is troublesome and un-American. It seems a fling at the +character of your fellow bachelors--and in the vast majority of Zone +cases it would be. But it is in no sense surprising that among the many +thousands that swarm upon the Isthmus there should be some not averse +to increasing their income by taking advantage of these guileless +habits and bucolic conditions. There are suggestions that a few--not +necessarily whites--make a profession of it. No wonder "our chief +trouble is burglary" and has been ever since the Z. P. can remember. +Summed up, the pay-day gold that has thus faded away is perhaps no +small amount; compared with what it might have been under prevailing +conditions it is little. + +As for detecting such felonies, police officers the world around know +that theft of coin of the realm in not too great quantities is +virtually as safe a profession as the ministry. The Z. P. plain-clothes +man, like his fellows elsewhere, must usually be content in such cases +with impressing on the victim his Sherlockian astuteness, gathering the +available facts of the case, and return to typewrite his report thereof +to be carefully filed away among headquarters archives. Which is +exactly what I had to do in the case in question, diving out the door, +notebook in hand, to catch the evening train to Panama. + +I was growing accustomed to Ancon and even to Ancon police-mess when I +strolled into headquarters on Saturday, the sixteenth, and the +Inspector flung a casual remark over his shoulder: + +"Better get your stuff together. You're transferred to Gatun." + +I was already stepping into a cab en route for the evening train when +the Inspector chanced down the hill. + +"New Gatun is pretty bad on Saturday nights," he remarked. (All too +well I remembered it.) "The first time a nigger starts anything run him +in, and take all the witnesses in sight along." + +"That reminds me; I haven't been issued a gun or handcuffs yet," I +hinted. + +"Hell's fire, no?" queried the Inspector. "Tell the station commander +at Gatun to fix you up." + + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +I scribbled myself a ticket and was soon rolling northward, greeting +acquaintances at every station. The Zone is like Egypt; whoever moves +must travel by the same route. At Pedro Miguel and Cascadas armies of +locomotives--the "mules" of the man from Arkansas--stood steaming and +panting in the twilight after their day's labor and the wild race +homeward under hungry engineers. As far as Bas Obispo this busy, +teeming Isthmus seemed a native land; beyond, was like entering into +foreign exile. It is a common Zone experience that only the locality +one lives in during his first weeks ever feels like "home." + +The route, too, was a new one. From Gorgona the train returned +crab-wise through Matachin and across the sand dyke that still holds +the Chagres out of the "cut," and halted at Gamboa cabin. Day was dying +as we rumbled on across the iron bridge above the river and away into +the fresh jungle night along the rock-ballasted "relocation." The +stillness of this less inhabited half of the Zone settled down inside +the car and out, the evening air of summer caressing almost roughly +through the open windows. The train continued its steady way almost +uninterruptedly, for though new villages were springing up to take the +place of the old sinking into desuetude and the flood along with the +abandoned line, there were but two where once were eight. We paused at +the new Frijoles and the box-car town of Monte Lirio and, skirting on a +higher level with a wide detour on the flanks of thick jungled and +forested hills what is some day to be Gatun Lake, drew up at 7:30 at +Gatun. + +I wandered and inquired for some time in a black night--for the moon +was on the graveyard shift that week--before I found Gatun police +station on the nose of a breezy knoll. But for "Davie," the desk-man, +who it turned out was also to be my room-mate, and a few wistful-eyed +negroes in the steel-barred room in the center of the building, the +station was deserted. "Circus," said the desk-man briefly. When I +mentioned the matter of weapons he merely repeated the word with the +further information that only the station commander could issue them. + +There was nothing to do therefore but to ramble out armed with a lead +pencil into a virtually unknown town riotous with liquor and negroes +and the combination of Saturday night, circus time, and the aftermath +of pay-day, and to strut back and forth in a way to suggest that I was +a perambulating arsenal. But though I wandered a long two hours into +every hole and corner where trouble might have its breeding-place, +nothing but noise took place in my sight and hearing. I turned +disgustedly away toward the tents pitched in a grassy valley between +the two Gatuns. At least there was a faint hope that the equestrienne +might assault the ring-master. + +I approached the tent flap with a slightly quickening pulse. World-wide +and centuries old as is the experience, personally I was about to +"spring my badge" for the first time. Suppose the doortender should +refuse to honor it and force me to impress upon him the importance of +the Z. P.--without a gun? Outwardly nonchalant I strolled in between +the two ropes. Proprietor Shipp looked up from counting his winnings +and opened his mouth to shout "ticket!" I flung back my coat, and with +a nod and a half-wink of wisdom he fell back again to computing his +lawful gains. + +By the way, are not you who read curious to know, even as I for long +years wondered, where a detective wears his badge? Know then that long +and profound investigation among the Z. P. seems to prove conclusively +that as a general and all but invariable rule he wears it pinned to the +lining of his coat, or under his lapel, or on the band of his trousers, +or on the breast of his shirt, or in his hip pocket, or up his sleeve, +or at home on the piano, or riding around at the end of a string in the +baby's nursery; though as in the case of all rules this one too has its +exceptions. + +Entertainments come rarely to Gatun. The one-ringed circus was packed +with every grade of society from gaping Spanish laborers to haughty +wives of dirt-train conductors, among whom it was not hard to +distinguish in a far corner the uniformed sergeant in command of Gatun +and the long lean corporal tied in a bow-line knot at the alleged wit +of the versatile but solitary clown who changed his tongue every other +moment from English to Spanish. But the end was already near; +excitement was rising to the finale of the performance, a wrestling +match between a circus man and "Andy" of Pedro Miguel locks. By the +time I had found a leaning-place it was on--and the circus man of +course was conquered, amid the gleeful howling of "rough-necks," who +collected considerable sums of money and went off shouting into the +black night, in quest of a place where it might be spent quickly. It +would be strange indeed if among all the thousands of men in the prime +of life who are digging the canal at least one could not be found who +could subjugate any champion a wandering circus could carry among its +properties. I took up again the random tramping in the dark unknown +night; till it was two o'clock of a Sunday morning when at last I +dropped my report-card in the train-guard box and climbed upstairs to +the cot opposite "Davie," sleeping the silent, untroubled sleep of a +babe. + +I was barely settled in Gatun when the train-guard handed me one of +those frequent typewritten orders calling for the arrest of some +straggler or deserter from the marine camp of the Tenth Infantry. That +very morning I had seen "the boss" of census days off on his vacation +to the States--from which he might not return--and here I was coldly +and peremptorily called upon to go forth and arrest and deliver to Camp +Elliott on its hill "Mac," the pride of the census, with a promise of +$25 reward for the trouble. "Mac" desert? It was to laugh. But +naturally after six weeks of unceasing repetition of that pink set of +questions "Mac's" throat was a bit dry and he could scarcely be +expected to return at once to the humdrum life of camp without spending +a bit of that $5 a day in slaking a tropical thirst. Indeed I question +whether any but the prudish will loudly blame "Mac" even because he +spent it a bit too freely and brought up in Empire dispensary. Word of +his presence there soon drifted down to the wily plain-clothes man of +Empire district. But it was a hot noonday, the dispensary lies somewhat +up hill, and the uniformless officer of the Zone metropolis is rather +thickly built. Wherefore, stowing away this private bit of information +under his hat, he told himself with a yawn, "Oh, I'll drag him in later +in the day," and drifted down to a wide-open door on Railroad Avenue to +spend a bit of the $25 reward in off-setting the heat. Meanwhile "Mac," +feeling somewhat recovered from his financial extravagance, came +sauntering out of the dispensary and, seeing his curly-headed friend +strolling a beat not far away, naturally cried out, "Hello, Eck!" And +what could Eck say, being a reputable Zone policeman, but: + +"Why, hello, Mac! How they framin' up? Consider yourself pinched." + +Which was lucky for "Mac." For Eck had once worn a marine hat over his +own right eye and, he knew from melancholy experience that the $25 was +no government generosity, but "Mac's" own involuntary contribution to +his finding and delivery; so managed to slip most of it back into +"Mac's" hands. + +Long, long after, more than six weeks after in fact, I chanced to be in +Bas Obispo with a half-hour to spare, and climbed to the flowered and +many-roaded camp on its far-viewing hilltop that falls sheer away on +the east into the canal. In one of the airy barracks I found Renson, +cards in hand, clear-skinned and "fit" now, thanks to the regular life +of this adult nursery, though his lost youth was gone for good. And +"Mac"? Yes, I saw "Mac" too--or at least the back of his head and +shoulders through the screen of the guard-house where Renson pointed +him out to me as he was being locked up again after a day of shoveling +sand. + +The first days in Gatun called for little else than patrol duty, +without fixed hours, interspersed with an occasional loaf on the +second-story veranda of the police-station overlooking the giant locks; +close at hand was the entrance to the canal, up which came slowly +barges loaded with crushed stone from Porto Bello quarry twenty miles +east along the coast or sand from Nombre de Dios, twice as distant, +while further still, spread Limon Bay from which swept a never-ending +breeze one could wipe dry on as on a towel. So long as he has in his +pocket no typewritten report with the Inspector's scrawl across it, +"For investigation and report," the plain-clothes man is virtually his +own commander, with few duties beside trying to be in as many parts of +his district at once as possible and the ubiquitous duty of "keeping in +touch with headquarters." So I wandered and mingled with all the life +of the vicinity, exactly as I should have done had I not been paid a +salary to do so. By day one could watch the growth of the great locks, +the gradual drowning of little green, new-made islands beneath the +muddy still waters of Gatun Lake, tramp out along jungle-flanked +country roads, through the Mindi hills, or down below the old railroad +to where the cayucas that floated down the Chagres laden with fruit +came to land on the ever advancing edge of the waters. With night +things grew more compact. From twilight till after midnight I prowled +in and out through New Gatun, spilled far and wide over its several +hills, watching the antics of negroes, pausing to listen to their +guitars and their boisterous merriment, with an eye and ear ever open +for the unlawful. When I drifted into a saloon to see who might be +spending the evening out, the bar-tender proved he had the advantage of +me in acquaintance by crying: "Hello, Franck! What ye having?" and +showing great solicitude that I get it. After which I took up the +starlit tramp again, to run perhaps into some such perilous scene as on +that third evening. A riot of contending voices rose from a building +back in the center of a block, with now and then the sickening thump of +a falling body. I approached noiselessly, likewise weaponless, peeped +in and found--four negro bakers stripped to the waist industriously +kneading to-morrow's bread and discussing in profoundest earnest the +object of the Lord in creating mosquitoes. Beyond the native town, as +an escape from all this, there was the back country road that wound for +a mile through the fresh night and the droning jungle, yet instead of +leading off into the wilderness of the interior swung around to +American Gatun on its close-cropped hills. + +I awoke one morning to find my name bulletined among those ordered to +report for target test. A fine piece of luck was this for a man who had +scarcely fired a shot since, aged ten, he brought down with an air-gun +an occasional sparrow at three cents a head. We took the afternoon +train to Mt. Hope on the edge of Colon and trooped away to a little +plain behind "Monkey Hill," the last resting-place of many a "Zoner." +The Cristobal Lieutenant, father of Z. P., was in charge, and here +again was that same Z. P. absence of false dignity and the genuine +good-fellowship that makes the success of your neighbor as pleasing as +your own. + +"Shall I borrow a gun, Lieutenant?" I asked when I found myself "on +deck." + +"Well, you'll have to use your own judgment as to that," replied the +Lieutenant, busy pasting stickers over holes in the target. + +The test was really very simple. All you had to do was to cling to one +end of a No. 38 horse-pistol, point it at the bull's-eye of a target, +hold it in that position until you had put five bullets into said +bull's-eye, repeat that twice at growing distances, mortally wound ten +times the image of a Martinique negro running back and forth across the +field, and you had a perfect score. Only, simple as it was, none did +it, not even old soldiers with two or three "hitches" in the army. So I +had to be content with creeping in on the second page of a seven-page +list of all the tested force from "the Chief" to the latest negro +recruit. + +The next evening I drifted into the police station to find a group of +laborers from the adjoining camps awaiting me on the veranda bench, +because the desk-man "didn't sabe their lingo." They proved upon +examination to be two Italians and a Turk, and their story short, sad, +but by no means unusual. Upon returning from work one of the Italians +had found the lock hinges of his ponderously padlocked tin trunk +hanging limp and screwless, and his pay-day roll of some $30 missing +from the crown of a hat stuffed with a shirt securely packed away in +the deepest corner thereof. The Turk was similarly unable to account +for the absence of his $33 savings safely locked the night before +inside a pasteboard suitcase; unless the fact that, thanks to some sort +of surgical operation, one entire side of the grip now swung open like +a barn-door might prove to have something to do with the case. The $33 +had been, for further safety's sake, in Panamanian silver, suggesting a +burglar with a wheelbarrow. + +The mysterious detective work began at once. Without so much as putting +on a false beard I repaired to the scene of the nefarious crime. It was +the usual Zone type of laborers' barracks. A screened building of one +huge room, it contained two double rows of three-tier "standee" canvas +bunks on gas-pipes. Around the entire room, close under the sheet-iron +roof, ran a wooden platform or shelf reached by a ladder and stacked +high with the tin trunks, misshapen bundles, and pressed-paper +suitcases containing the worldly possessions of the fifty or more +workmen around the rough table below. + +Theoretically not even an inmate thereof may enter a Zone labor-camp +during working hours. Practically the West Indian janitors to whom is +left the enforcement of this rule are nothing if not fallible. In the +course of the second day I unearthed a second Turk who, having chanced +the morning before to climb to the baggage shelf for his razor and soap +preparatory to welcoming a fellow countryman to the Isthmus, had been +mildly startled to step on the shoulder-blade of a negro of given +length and proportions lying prone behind the stacked-up impedimenta. +The latter explained both his presence in a white labor-camp and his +unconventional posture by asserting that he was the "mosquito man," and +shortly thereafter went away from there without leaving either card or +address. + +By all my library training in detective work the next move obviously +was to find what color of cigarette ashes the Turk smoked. Instead I +blundered upon the absurdly simple notion of trying to locate the negro +of given length and proportions. The real "mosquito man"--one of that +dark band that spends its Zone years with a wire hook and a screened +bucket gathering evidence against the defenseless mosquito for the +sanitary department to gloat over--was found not to fit the model even +in hue. Moreover, "mosquito men" are not accustomed to carry their +devotion to duty to the point of crawling under trunks in their quest. + +For a few days following, the hunt led me through all Gatun and +vicinity. Now I found myself racing across the narrow plank bridges +above the yawning gulf of the locks, with far below tiny men and toy +trains, now in and out among the cathedral-like flying buttresses, +under the giant arches past staring signs of "DANGER!" on every +hand--as if one could not plainly hear its presence without the +posting. I descended to the very floor of the locks, far below the +earth, and tramped the long half-mile of the three flights between +soaring concrete walls. Above me rose the great steel gates, standing +ajar and giving one the impression of an opening in the Great Wall of +China or of a sky-scraper about to be swung lightly aside. On them +resounded the roar of the compressed-air riveters and all the way up +the sheer faces, growing smaller and smaller as they neared the sky, +were McClintic-Marshall men driving into place red-hot rivets, thrown +at them viciously by negroes at the forges and glaring like comets' +tails against the twilight void. + +The chase sent me more than once stumbling away across rock-tumbled +Gatun dam that squats its vast bulk where for long centuries, +eighty-five feet below, was the village of Old Gatun with its proud +church and its checkered history, where Morgan and Peruvian viceroys +and "Forty-niners" were wont to pause from their arduous journeyings. +They call it a dam. It is rather a range of hills, a part and portion +of the highlands that, east and west, enclose the valley of the +Chagres, its summit resembling the terminal yards of some great city. +There was one day when I sought a negro brakeman attached to a given +locomotive. I climbed to a yard-master's tower above the Spillway and +the yard-master, taking up his powerful field-glasses, swept the +horizon, or rather the dam, and discovered the engine for me as a +mariner discovers an island at sea. + +"Er--would you be kind enough to tell us where we can find this Gatun +dam we've heard so much about?" asked a party of four tourists, half +and half as to sex, who had been wandering about on it for an hour or +so with puzzled expressions of countenance. They addressed themselves +to a busy civil engineer in leather leggings and rolled up shirt +sleeves. + +"I'm sorry I haven't time to use the instrument," replied the engineer +over his shoulder, while he wig-wagged his orders to his negro helpers +scattered over the landscape, "but as nearly as I can tell with the +naked eye, you are now standing in the exact center of it." + +The result of all this sweating and sight-seeing was that some days +later there was gathered in a young Barbadian who had been living for +months in and about Gatun without any visible source of income +whatever--not even a wife. The Turk and the camp janitor identified him +as the culprit. But the primer lesson the police recruit learns is that +it is one thing to believe a man guilty and quite another to convince a +judge--the most skeptical being known to zoology--of that perfectly +apparent fact. With the suspect behind bars, therefore, I continued my +underground activities, with the result that when at length I took the +train at New Gatun one morning for the court-room in Cristobal I loaded +into a second-class coach six witnesses aggregating five nationalities, +ready to testify among other things to the interesting little point +that the defendant had a long prison record in Barbados. + +When the echo of the black policeman's "Oye! Oye!" had died away and +the little white-haired judge had taken his "bench," I made the +discovery that I was present not in one, but in four capacities,--as +arresting officer, complainant, interpreter, and to a large extent +prosecuting attorney. To swear a Turk who spoke only Turkish through +another Turk, who mangled a little Spanish, for a judge who would not +recognize a non-American word from the voice of a steam-shovel, with a +solemn "So Help Me God!" to clinch and strengthen it when the witness +was a follower of the prophet of Medina--or nobody--was not without its +possibilities of humor. The trial proceeded; the witnesses witnessed in +their various tongues, the perspiring arresting officer reduced their +statements to the common denominator of the judge's single tongue, and +the smirking bullet-headed defendant was hopelessly buried under the +evidence. Wherefore, when the shining black face of his lawyer, +retained during the two minutes between the "Oye!" and the opening of +the case, rose above the scene to purr: + +"Your Honor, the prosecution has shown no case. I move the charge +against my client be quashed." + +I choked myself just in time to keep from gasping aloud, "Well, of all +the nerve!" Never will I learn that the lawyer's profession admits +lying on the same footing with truth in the defense of a culprit. + +"Cause shown," mumbled the Judge without looking up from his writing, +"defendant bound over for trial in the circuit court." + +A week later, therefore, there was a similar scene a story higher in +the same building. Here on Thursdays sits one of the three members of +the Zone Supreme Court. Jury trial is rare on the Isthmus--which makes +possibly for surer justice. This time there was all the machinery of +court and I appeared only in my legal capacity. The judge, a man still +young, with an astonishingly mobile face that changed at least once a +minute from a furrowy scowl with great pouting lips to a smile so broad +it startled, sat in state in the middle of three judicial arm-chairs, +and the case proceeded. Within an hour the defendant was standing up, +the cheery grin still on his black countenance, to be sentenced to two +years and eight months in the Zone penitentiary at Culebra. A deaf man +would have fancied he was being awarded some prize. One of the +never-ending surprises on the Zone is the apparent indifference of +negro prisoners whether they get years or go free. Even if they testify +in their own behalf it is in a listless, detached way, as if the matter +were of no importance anyway. But the glance they throw the innocent +arresting officer as they pass out on their way to the barb-wire +enclosure on the outskirts of the Zone capital tells another story. +There are members of the Z. P. who sleep with a gun under their pillow +because of that look or a muttered word. But even were I nervous I +should have been little disturbed at the glare in this case, for it +will probably be a long walk from Culebra penitentiary to where I am +thirty-two months from that morning. + +A holiday air brooded over all Gatun and the country-side. Workmen in +freshly washed clothing lolled in the shade of labor-camps, black +Britishers were gathering in flat meadows fitted for the national game +of cricket, far and wide sounded the care-free laughter and chattering +of negroes, while even within Gatun police station leisure and peace +seemed almost in full possession. + +The morning "touch" with headquarters over, therefore, I scrambled away +across the silent yawning locks and the trainless and workless dam to +the Spillway, over which already some overflow from the lake was +escaping to the Caribbean. My friends "Dusty" and H---- had carried +their canoe to the Chagres below, and before nine we were off down the +river. It was a day that all the world north of the Tropic of Cancer +could not equal; just the weather for a perfect "day off." A +plain-clothes man, it is true, is not supposed to have days off. Some +one might run away with the Administration Building on the edge of the +Pacific and the telephone wires be buzzing for me--with the sad result +that a few days later there would be posted in Zone police stations +where all who turned the leaves might read: + + Special Order No. .... + Having been found Guilty of charges of + Neglect of Duty + preferred against him by his commanding officer + First-class Policeman No. 88 + is hereby fined $2. + + Chief of Division. + +But shades of John Aspinwall! Should even a detective work on such a +Sunday? Surely no criminal would--least of all a black one. Moreover +these forest-walled banks were also part of my beat. + +The sun was hot, yet the air of that ozone-rich quality for which +Panama is famous. For headgear we had caps; and did not wear those, +though barely a few puffy, snow-white clouds ventured out into the vast +chartless sky all the brilliant day through. Then the river; who could +describe this lower reach of the Chagres as it curves its seven deep +and placid miles from where Uncle Sam releases it from custody, to the +ocean. Its jungled banks were without a break, for the one or two +clusters of thatch and reed huts along the way are but a part of the +living vegetation. Now and then we had glimpses across the tree-tops of +brilliant green jungle hills further inland, everywhere were huge +splendid trees, the stack-shaped mango, the soldier-erect palm heavy, +yet unburdened, with cocoanuts. Some fish resembling the porpoise rose +here and there, back and forth above the shadows winged snow-white +cranes so slender one wondered the sea breeze did not wreck them. Above +all the quiet and peace and contentment of a perfect tropical day +enfolded the landscape in a silence only occasionally disturbed by the +cry of a passing bird. Once a gasoline launch deep-laden with +Sunday-starched Americans, snorted by, bound likewise to Fort Lorenzo +at the river's mouth; and we lay back in our soft, rumpled khaki and +drowsily smiled our sympathy after them. When they had drawn on out of +earshot life began to return to the banks and nature again took +possession of the scene. Alligators abounded once on this lower +Chagres, but they have grown scarce now, or shy, and though we sat with +H----'s automatic rifle across our knees in turns we saw no more than a +carcass or a skeleton on the bank at the foot of the sheer wall of +impenetrable verdure. + +Till at length the sea opened on our sight through the alley-way of +jungle, and a broad inviting cocoanut grove nodded and beckoned on our +left. Instead we paddled out across the sandbar to play with the surf +of the Atlantic, but found it safer to return and glide across the +little bay to the drowsy straw and tin village. Here--for the mouth of +the Chagres like its source lies in a foreign land--a solitary +Panamanian policeman in the familiar Arctic uniform enticed us toward +the little thatched office, and house, and swinging hammock of the +alcalde to register our names, and our business had we had any. So +deep-rooted was the serenity of the place that even when "Dusty," in +all Zone innocence, addressed the white-haired little mulatto as +"hombre" he lost neither his dignity nor his temper. + +The policeman and a brown boy of merry breed went with us up the grassy +rise to the old fort. In its musty vaulted dungeons were still the +massive, rust-corroded irons for feet, waist and neck of prisoners of +the old brutal days; blind owls stared upon us; once the boy brought +down with his honda, or slung-shot, one of the bats that circled +uncannily above our heads. In dank corners were mounds of worthless +powder; the bakery that once fed the miserable dungeon dwellers had +crumbled in upon itself. Outside great trees straddled and split the +massive stone walls that once commanded the entrance to the Chagres, +jungle waved in undisputed possession in its earth-filled moat, even +the old cannon and heaped up cannon-balls lay rust-eaten and dejected, +like decrepit old men who have long since given up the struggle. + +We came out on the nose of the fort bluff and had before and below us +and underfoot all the old famous scene, for centuries the beginning of +all trans-Isthmian travel,--the scalloped surf-washed shore with its +dwindling palm groves curving away into the west, the Chagres pushing +off into the jungled land. We descended to the beach of the outer bay +and swam in the salt sea, and the policeman, scorning the launch party, +squatted a long hour in the shade of a tree above in tropical patience. +Then with "sour" oranges for thirst and nothing for hunger--for Lorenzo +has no restaurant--we turned to paddle our way homeward up the Chagres, +that bears the salt taste of the sea clear to the Spillway. Whence one +verse only of a stanza by the late bard of the Isthmus struck a false +note on our ears; + + Then go away if you have to, + Then go away if you will! + To again return you will always yearn + While the lamp is burning still. + You've drunk the Chagres water + And the mango eaten free, + And, strange though it seems, + It will haunt your dreams + This Land of the Cocoanut Tree. + +No catastrophe had befallen during my absence. The same peaceful sunny +Sunday reigned in Gatun; new-laundered laborers were still lolling in +the shade of the camps, West Indians were still batting at interminable +balls with their elongated paddles in the faint hope of deciding the +national game before darkness settled down. Then twilight fell and I +set off through the rambling town already boisterous with church +services. Before the little sub-station a swarm of negroes was pounding +tamborines and bawling lustily: + + Oh, yo mus' be a lover of de Lard + Or yo cahn't go t' Heaven when yo di-ie. + +Further on a lady who would have made ebony seem light-gray bowed over +an organ, while a burly Jamaican blacker than the night outside stood +in the vestments of the Church of England, telling his version of the +case in a voice that echoed back from the town across the gully, as if +he would drown out all rival sects and arguments by volume of sound. +The meeting-house on the next corner was thronged with a singing +multitude, tamborines scattered among them and all clapping hands to +keep time, even to the pastor, who let the momentum carry on and on +into verse after verse as if he had not the self-sacrifice to stop it, +while outside in the warm night another crowd was gathered at the edge +of the shadows gazing as at a vaudeville performance. How well-fitted +are the various brands of Christianity to the particular likings of +their "flocks." The strongest outward manifestation of the religion of +the West Indian black is this boisterous singing. All over town were +dusky throngs exercising their strong untrained voices "in de Lard's +sarvice"; though the West Indian is not noted as being musical. Here a +preacher wanting suddenly to emphasize a point or clinch an argument +swung an arm like a college cheer leader and the entire congregation +roared forth with him some well-known hymn that settled the question +for all time. + +I strolled on into darker High street. Suddenly on a veranda above +there broke out a wild unearthly screaming. Two negroes were engaged in +savage, sanguinary combat. Around them in the dim light thrown by a +cheap tenement lamp I could make out their murderous weapons--machetes +or great bars of iron--slashing wildly, while above the din rose +screams and curses: + + Yo ---- Badgyan, ah kill yo! + +I sped stealthily yet swiftly up the long steps, drawing my No. 38 (for +at last I had been issued one) as I ran and dashed into the heart of +the turmoil swallowing my tendency to shout "Unhand him, villain!" and +crying instead: + +"Here, what the devil is going on here?" + +Whereupon two negroes let fall at once two pine sticks and turned upon +me their broad childish grins with: + +"We only playin', sar. Playin' single-sticks which we larn to de army +in Bahbaydos, sahgeant." + +Thus I wandered on, in and out, till the night lost its youth and the +last train from Colon had dumped its merry crowd at the station, then +wound away along the still and deserted back road through the +night-chirping jungle between the two surviving Gatuns. There was a +spot behind the Division Engineer's hill that I rarely succeeded in +passing without pausing to drink in the scene, a scallop in the hills +where several trees stood out singly and alone against the myriad +starlit sky, below and beyond the indistinct valleys and ravines from +which came up out of the night the chorus of the jungle. Further on, in +American Gatun there was a seat on the steps before a bungalow that +offered more than a good view in both directions. A broad, U. S.-tamed +ravine sank away in front, across which the Atlantic breeze wafted the +distance-softened thrum of guitar, the tones of fifes and happy negro +voices, while overhead feathery gray clouds as concealing as a dancer's +gossamer hurried leisurely by across the brilliant face of the moon; to +the right in a free space the Southern Cross, tilted a bit awry, +gleamed as it has these untold centuries while ephemeral humans come +and pass their brief way. + +It was somewhere near here that Gatun's dry-season mosquito had his +hiding-place. Rumor whispers of some such letter as the following +received by the Colonel--not the blue-eyed czar at Culebra this time; +for you must know there is another Colonel on the Zone every whit as +indispensable in his sphere: + + +GATUN, ... 26, 1912. + +Dear Colonel:-- + +I am writing to call your attention to a gross violation of Sanitary +Ordinance No. 3621, to an apparent loop-hole in your otherwise +excellent department. The circumstances are as follows; + +On the evening of ... 24, as I was sitting at the roadside between +Gatun and New Gatun (some 63 paces beyond house No. 226) there appeared +a MOSQUITO, which buzzed openly and for some time about my ears. It was +probably merely a male of the species, as it showed no tendency to +bite; but a mosquito nevertheless. I trust you will take fitting +measures to punish so bold and insolent a violation of the rules of +your department. + +I am, sir, very truly yours, + +(Mrs.) HENRY PECK. + +P. S. The mosquito may be easily recognized by a peculiarly triumphant, +defiant note in his song, + + +I cannot personally vouch for the above, but if it was received any +"Zoner" will assure you that prompt action was taken. It is well so. +The French failed to dig the canal because they could not down the +mosquito. Of course there was the champagne and the other things that +come with it--later in the night. But after all it was the little +songful mosquito that drove them in disgrace back across the Atlantic. + +Still further on toward the hotel and a midnight lunch there was one +house that was usually worth lingering before, though good music is +rare on the Zone. Then there was the naughty poker game in bachelor +quarters number--well, never mind that detail--to keep an ear on in +case the pot grew large enough to make a worth-while violation of the +law that would warrant the summoning of the mounted patrolman. + +Meanwhile "cases" stacked up about me. Now one took me out the hard U. +S. highway that, once out of sight of the last negro shanty, rambles +erratically off like the reminiscences of an old man through the +half-cleared, mostly uninhabited wilderness, rampant green with rooted +life and almost noisy with the songs of birds. Eventually within a +couple of hours it crossed Fox River with its little settlement and +descended to Mt. Hope police station, where there is a 'phone with +which to "get in touch" again and then a Mission rocker on the screened +veranda where the breezes of the near-by Atlantic will have you well +cooled off before you can catch the shuttle-train back to Gatun. + +Or another led out across the lake by the old abandoned line that was +the main line when first I saw Gatun. It drops down beyond the station +and charges across the lake by a causeway that steam-shovels were +already devouring, toward forsaken Bohio. Picking its way across the +rotting spiles of culverts, it pushed on through the unpeopled jungle, +all the old railroad gone, rails, ties, the very spikes torn up and +carried away, while already the parrots screamed again in derision as +if it were they who had driven out the hated civilization and taken +possession again of their own. A few short months and the devouring +jungle will have swallowed up even the place where it has been. + +If it was only the little typewritten slip reporting the disappearance +of a half-dozen jacks from the dam, every case called for full +investigation. For days to come I might fight my way through the +encircling wilderness by tunnels of vegetation to every native hut for +miles around to see if by any chance the lost property could have +rolled thither. More than once such a hunt brought me out on the +water-tank knoll at the far end of the dam, overlooking miles of +impenetrable jungle behind and above chanting with invisible life, to +the right the filling lake stretching across to low blue ranges dimly +outlined against the horizon and crowned by fantastic trees, and all +Gatun and its immense works and workers below and before me. + +Times were when duty called me into the squalid red-lighted district of +Colon and kept me there till the last train was gone. Then there was +nothing left but to pick my way through the night out along the P.R.R. +tracks to shout in at the yard-master's window, "How soon y' got +anything goin' up the line?" and, according to the answer, return to +read an hour or two in Cristobal Y.M.C.A. or push on at once into the +forest of box-cars to hunt out the lighted caboose. Night freights do +not stop at Gatun, nor anywhere merely to let off a "gum-shoe." But +just beyond New Gatun station is a grade that sets the negro fireman to +sweating even at midnight and the big Mogul to straining every nerve +and sinew, and I did not meet the engineer that could drag his long +load by so swiftly but that one could easily swing off on the road that +leads to the police station. + +Even on the rare days when "cases" gave out there was generally +something to while away the monotony. As, one morning an American +widely known in Gatun was arrested on a warrant and, chatting merrily +with his friend, Policeman ----, strolled over to the station. There +his friend Corporal Macey subdued his broad Irish smile and ordered the +deskman to "book him up." The latter was reaching for the keys to a +cell when the American broke off his pleasant flow of conversation to +remark; + +"All right, Corporal, I'm going over to the house to get a few things +and write a few letters. I'll be back inside of an hour." + +Whereupon Corporal Macey, being a man of iron self-control, refrained +from turning a double back sommersault and mildly called the prisoner's +attention to a little point of Zone police rules he had overlooked. + +If every other known form of amusement absolutely failed it was still +the dry, or tourist season, and poured down from the States hordes of +unconscious comedians, or investigators who rushed two whole days about +the Isthmus, taking care not to get into any dirty places, and rushed +home again to tell an eager public all about it. Sometimes the +sight-seers came from the opposite end of the earth, a little band of +South Americans in tongueless awe at the undreamed monster of work +about them, yet struggling to keep their fancied despite of the +"yanqui," to which the "yanqui" is so serenely indifferent. Priests +from this southland were especially numerous. The week never passed +that a group of them might not be seen peering over the dizzy precipice +of Gatun locks and crossing themselves ostentatiously as they turned +away. + +One does not, at least in a few months, feel the "sameness" of climate +at Panama and "long again to see spring grow out of winter." Yet there +is something, perhaps, in the popular belief that even northern energy +evaporates in this tropical land. It is not exactly that; but certainly +many a "Zoner" wakes up day by day with ambitious plans, and just +drifts the day through with the fine weather. He fancies himself as +strong and energetic as in the north, yet when the time comes for doing +he is apt to say, "Oh, I guess I'll loaf here in the shade half an hour +longer," and before he knows it another whole day is charged up against +his meager credit column with Father Time. + +There came the day early in April when the Inspector must go north on +his forty-two days' vacation. I bade him bon voyage on board the 8:41 +between the two Gatuns and soon afterward was throwing together my +belongings and leaving "Davie" to enjoy his room alone. For Corporal +Castillo was to be head of the subterranean department ad interim, and +how could the digging of the canal continue with no detective in all +the wilderness of morals between the Pacific and Culebra? Thus it was +that the afternoon train bore me away to the southward. It was a +tourist train. A New York steamer had docked that morning, and the +first-class cars were packed with venturesome travelers in their stout +campaign outfits in which to rough it--in the Tivoli and the +sight-seeing motors--in their roof-like cork helmets and green veils +for the terrible Panama heat--which is sometimes as bad as in northern +New York. + +The P.R.R. is one of the few railroads whose passengers may drop off +for a stroll, let the train go on without them, and still take it to +their destination. They have only to descend, as I did, at Gamboa cabin +and wander down into the "cut," climb leisurely out to Bas Obispo, and +chat with their acquaintances among the Marines lolling about the +station until the trains puffs in from its shuttle-back excursion to +Gorgona. The Zone landscape had lost much of its charm. For days past +jungle fires had been sweeping over it, doing the larger growths small +harm but leaving little of the greenness and rank clinging life of +other seasons. Everywhere were fires along the way, even in the towns. +For quartermasters--to the rage of Zone house-wives were sending up in +clouds of smoke the grass and bushes that quickly turn to +breeding-places of mosquitoes and disease with the first rains. Night +closed down as we emerged from Miraflores tunnel; soon we swung around +toward the houses, row upon row and all alight, climbed the lower slope +of Ancon hill, and at seven I descended in familiar, cab-crowded, +bawling Panama. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +It might be worth the ink to say a word about socialism on the Canal +Zone. To begin with, there isn't any of course. No man would dream of +looking for socialism in an undertaking set in motion by the Republican +party and kept on the move by the regular army. But there are a number +of little points in the management of this private government strip of +earth that savors more or less faintly of the Socialist's program, and +the Zone offers perhaps as good a chance as we shall ever have to study +some phases of those theories in practice. + +Few of us now deny the Socialist's main criticisms of existing society; +most of us question his remedies. Some of us go so far as to feel a +sneaking curiosity to see railroads and similar purely public utilities +government-owned, just to find how it would work. Down on the Canal +Zone they have a sort of modified socialism where one can watch much of +this under a Bell jar. There one quickly discovers that a locomotive +with the brief and sufficient information "U.S." on her tender +flanks--or more properly the flanks of her tender--gives one a swelling +of the chest no other combination of letters could inspire. Thus far, +too, theory seems to work well. The service could hardly be better, and +recalling that under the old private system the fare for the +forty-seven miles across the Isthmus was $25 with a charge of ten cents +for every pound of baggage, the $2.40 of today does not seem +particularly exorbitant. + +The official machinery of this private government strip also seems to +run like clockwork. To be sure the wheels even of a clock grind a bit +with friction at times, but the clock goes on keeping time for all +that. The Canal Zone is the best governed district in the United +States. It is worth any American's time and sea-sickness to run down +there, if only to assure himself that Americans really can govern; +until he does he will not have a very clear notion of just what good +American government means. + +But before we go any further be it noted that the socialism of the +Canal Zone is under a benevolent despot, an Omnipotent, Omniscient, +Omnipresent ruler; which is perhaps the one way socialism would work, +at least in the present stage of human progress. The three Omnis are +combined in an inconspicuous, white-haired American popularly known on +the Zone as "the Colonel"--so popularly in fact that an attempt to +replace him would probably "start something" among all classes and +races of "Zoners." That he is omnipotent--on the Zone--not many will +deny; a few have questioned--and landed in the States a week later much +less joyous but far wiser. Omniscient--well they have even Chinese +secret-service men on the Isthmus, and soldiers and marines not +infrequently go out in civilian clothes under sealed orders; to say +nothing of "the Colonel's private gum-shoe" and probably a lot of other +underground sources of information neither you nor I shall ever hear +of. But you must get used to spies under socialism, you know, until we +all wear one of Saint Peter's halos. Look at the elaborate system of +the Incas, even with their docile and uninitiative subjects. In the +matter of Omnipresence; it would be pretty hard to find a hole on the +Canal Zone where you could pull off a stunt of any length or importance +without the I.C.C. having a weather-eye on you. When it comes to the no +less indispensable ingredient of benevolence one glimpse of those mild +blue eyes would probably reassure you in that point, even without the +pleasure of watching the despot sit in judgment on his subjects in his +castle office on Sunday mornings like old Saint Louis under his +oak--though with a tin of cigarettes beside him that old Louis had to +worry along without. + +This all-powerful government insists on and enforces many of the things +which Americans as a whole stand for,--Sunday closing, suppression of +resorts, forbidding of gambling. But the Zone is no test whether these +laws could be genuinely enforced in a whole nation. For down there +Panama and Colon serve as a sort of safety-valve, where a man can run +down in an hour or so on mileage or monthly pass and blow off steam; +get rid of the bad internal vapors that might cause explosion in a +ventless society. This we should not lose sight of when we boast that +there are few crimes and no real resorts on the Zone. "The Colonel" +himself will tell you there is no gambling. Yet it is curious how many +of the weekly prizes of the Panama lottery find their way into the +pockets of American canal builders, and in any Zone gathering of +whatever hour--or sex!--you are almost certain to hear flitting back +and forth mysterious whispers of "--have a 6 and a 4 this week." + +The Zone system is work-coupons for all; much as the Socialist would +have it. Only the legitimate members of the community--the workers--can +live in it--long. You should see the nonchalant way a clerk at the +government's Tivoli hotel charges a tourist a quarter for a cigar the +government sells for six cents in its commissaries. Mere money does not +rank high in Zone society. It's the labor-coupon that counts. They sell +cigarettes at the Y.M.C.A.; you are in that state where you would give +your ticket home for a smoke. Yet when you throw down good gold or +silver, black Sam behind the showcase looks up at you with that pitying +cold eye kept in stock for new-comers, and says wearily: + +"Cahn't take no money heah, boss." + +That surely is a sort of socialism where a slip of paper showing merely +that you have done your appointed task gets you the same meal wherever +you may drop in, a total stranger, yet without being identified, +without a word from any one, but merely thrusting your coupon-book at +the yellow West Indian at the door as you enter that he may snatch out +so many minutes of labor. Drop in anywhere there is a vacant bed and +you are perfectly at home. There is the shower-bath, the ice-water, the +veranda rocker--you knew exactly what was coming to you, just what kind +of bed, just what vegetables you would be served at dinner. It reminds +one of the Inca system of providing a home for every citizen, and +tambos along the way if he must travel. + +But it IS the same meal. That is just the point. There is where you +begin to furrow your brow and look more closely at this splendid +system, and fall to wondering if that public kitchen of socialism would +not become in time an awful bore. There are some things in which we +want variety and originality and above all personality. A meal is a +meal, I suppose, as a cat is a cat; yet there are many subtle little +things that make the same things distinctly different. When it comes to +dinner you want a rosy fat German or a bulky French madame putting +thought and pride and attention into it; which they will do only if +they get good coin of the realm or similar material emolument out of it +in proportion. No one will ever fancy he has a "mission" to serve good +meals--to the public. + +In the I.C.C. hotels we have a government steward who draws a good +salary and wears a nice white collar. But though he is sometimes a bit +different, and succeeds in making his hotel so, it is only in degree. +He is not a great frequenter of the dining-room; at times one wonders +just what his activities are. Certainly it is not the planning of +meals, for the I.C.C. menu is as fixed and automatic as if it had been +taken from a stone slab in the pyramids. A poor meal neither turns his +hair white nor cuts down his income. Frequently, especially if he is +English and certainly if he has been a ship's steward, the negro +waiters seem to run his establishment without interference. Dinner +hours, for example, are from 11 to 1. But beware the glare of the +waiter at whose table you sit down at 12:50. He slams cold rubbish at +you from the discard and snatches it away again before you have time to +find you can't eat it. You have your choice of enduring this +maltreatment or of unostentatiously slipping him a coin and a hint to +go cook you the best he can himself. For you know that as the closing +hour approaches the cooks will not have their private plans interfered +with by accepting your order. Here again is where the fat German or the +French madame is needed--with an ox-goad. + +In other words the tip system invented by Pharaoh and vitiated by +quick-rich Americans rages as fiercely in government hotels on the Zone +as in any "lobster palace" bordering Broadway--worse, for here the +non-tipper has no living being to advocate his cause. All food is +government property. Yet I have sat down opposite a man who gave the +government at the door a work-coupon identical with mine, but who +furthermore dropped into the waiter's hand "35 cents spig"--which is +half as bad as to do it in U.S. currency--and while I was gazing +tearfully at a misshapen lump of vacunal gristle there was set before +him, steaming hot from the government kitchen, a porterhouse steak +which a dollar bill would not have brought him within scenting distance +of in New York. Do not blame the waiter. If he does not slip an +occasional coin to the cook he will invariably draw the gristle, and +even occasional coins do not grow on his waist band. It would be as +absurd to charge it to the cook. He probably has a large family to +support, as he would have under socialism. There runs this story on the +Zone, vouched for by several: + +A "Zoner" called an I.C.C. steward and complained that his waiter did +not serve him reasonably: + +"Well," sneered the steward, "I guess you didn't come across?" + +"Come across! Why, damn you, I suppose you're getting your rake-off +too?" + +"I certainly am," replied the steward; "What do you think I'm down here +for, me health?" + +Surely we can't blame it all to the steward, or to any other +individual. Lay it rather to human nature, that stumbling-block of so +many varnished and upholstered systems. + +I hope I am not giving the impression that I.C.C. hotels are +unendurable. "Stay home"--which on the Zone means always eat at the +same hotel table--subsidize your waiter and you do moderately well. But +to move thither and yon, as any plain-clothes man must, is unfortunate. +The only difference then is that the next is worse than the last. +Whatever their convictions upon arrival, almost all Americans have come +down to paying their waiter the regular blackmail of a dollar a month +and setting it down as one of the unavoidable evils of life. One or two +I knew who insisted on sticking to "principles," and they grew leaner +and lanker day by day. + +Because of these things many an American employee will be found eating +in private restaurants of the ubiquitous Chinaman or the occasional +Spaniard, though here he must often pay in cash instead of in futures +on his labor--which are so much cheaper the world over. It is sad +enough to dine on the same old identical round for months. But how if +you were one of those who blew in on the heels of the last Frenchman +and have been eating it ever since? By this time even rat-tails would +be a welcome change--and with genuine socialism there would not even be +that escape. It is said to be this hotel problem as much as the +perpetual spring-time of the Zone that so frequently reduces--with the +open connivance of the government--a building housing forty-eight +quiet, harmless bachelors to a four-family residence housing eight and +gradually upwards; that wreaks such matrimonious havoc among the +white-frocked stenographers who come down to type and remain to cook. + +Besides the hotel there is the P.R.R. commissary, the government +department stores. It is likewise laundry, bakery, ice-factory; it +makes ice-cream, roasts coffee, sends out refrigerator-cars and a +morning supply train to bring your orders right to your door--oh, yes, +it strongly resembles what Bellamy dreamed years ago. Only, as in the +case of the hotel, there seems to be a fly or two in the amber. + +The laundry is tolerable--fancy turning your soiled linen over to a +railroad company--all machine done of course, as everything would be +under socialism, and no come-back for the garment that is not hardy +enough of constitution to stand the system. In the stores is little or +no shoddy material; in general the stock is the best available. If a +biscuit or a bolt of khaki is better made in England than in the United +States the commissary stocks with English goods, which is unexpected +broad-mindedness for government management. But while prices are lower +than in Panama or Colon they are every whit as high as in American +stores; and most of us know something of the exorbitant profit our +private merchants exact, particularly on manufactured goods. The +government claims to run the commissary only to cover cost. Either that +is a crude government joke or there is a colored gentleman esconced in +the coal-bin. Moreover if the commissary hasn't the stuff you want you +had better give up wanting, for it has no object in laying in a supply +of it just to oblige customers. Its clerks work in the most languid, +unexcited manner. They have no object whatever in holding your trade, +and you can wait until they are quite ready to serve you, or go home +without. True, most of them are merely negroes, and the few Americans +at the head of departments are chiefly provincial little fellows from +small towns whose notions of business are rather those of Podunk, +Mass., than of New York. But lolling about the commissary a half-hour +hoping to buy a box of matches, one cannot shake off the conviction +that it is the system more than the clerks. Poets and novelists and +politicians may work for "glory," but no man is going to show calico +and fit slippers for such remuneration. + +Nor are all the old evils of the competitive method banished from the +Zone. In the Canal Record, the government organ, the government +commissary advertised a sale of excellent $7 rain-coats at $1 each. The +"Record"! It is like reading it in the Bible. Witness the rush of +bargain hunters, who, it proves, are by no means of one gender. Yet +those splendid rain-coats, as manager, clerks, and even negro sweepers +well knew and could not refrain from snickering to themselves at +thought of, were just as rain-proof as a poor grade of cheese-cloth. I +do not speak from hear-say for I was numbered among the bargain +hunters--"recruits" are the natural victims, and there arrive enough of +them each year to get rid of worthless stock. Ten minutes after making +the purchase I set out to walk to Corozal through the first mild shower +of the rainy season--and arrived there I went and laid the bargain +gently in the waste-basket of Corozal police station. + +Thus does the government sink to the petty rascalities of shop-keepers. +Even a government manager on a fixed salary--in work-coupons--will +descend to these tricks of the trade to keep out of the clutches of the +auditor, or to make a "good record." The socialist's answer perhaps +would be that under their system government factories would make only +perfect goods. But won't the factory superintendent also be anxious to +make a "record"? And even government stock will deteriorate on the +shelves. + +All small things, to be sure; but it is the sum of small things that +make up that great complex thing--Life. Few of us would object to +living in that ideal dream world. But could it ever be? I have +anxiously asked this question and hinted at these little weaknesses +suggested by Zone experiences to several Zone socialists--who are not +hard to find. They merely answer that these things have nothing to do +with the case. But not one of them ever went so far as to demonstrate; +and though I was born a long way north of Missouri I once passed +through a corner of the state. + +As to the other side of the ledger,--equal pay for all, nowhere is man +further from socialism than on the Canal Zone. Caste lines are as +sharply drawn as in India, which should not be unexpected in an +enterprise largely in charge of graduates of our chief training-school +for caste. The Brahmins are the "gold" employees, white American +citizens with all the advantages and privileges thereto appertaining. +But--and herein we out-Hindu the Hindus--the Brahmin caste itself is +divided and subdivided into infinitesimal gradations. Every rank and +shade of man has a different salary, and exactly in accordance with +that salary is he housed, furnished, and treated down to the least +item,--number of electric lights, candle-power, style of bed, size of +bookcase. His Brahmin highness, "the Colonel," has a palace, +relatively, and all that goes with it. The high priests, the members of +the Isthmian Canal Commission, have less regal palaces. Heads of the +big departments have merely palatial residences. Bosses live in +well-furnished dwellings, conductors are assigned a furnished house--or +quarter of a house. Policemen, artisans, and the common garden variety +of bachelors have a good place to sleep. It is doubtful, to be sure, +whether one-fourth of the "Zoners" of any class ever lived as well +before or since. The shovelman's wife who gives five-o'clock teas and +keeps two servants will find life different when the canal is opened +and she moves back to the smoky little factory cottage and learns again +to do her own washing. + +At work, "on the job" there is a genuine American freedom of +wear-what-you-please and a general habit of going where you choose in +working clothes. That is one of the incomprehensible Zone things to the +little veneered Panamanian. He cannot rid himself of his racial +conviction that a man in an old khaki jacket who is building a canal +must be of inferior clay to a hotel loafer in a frock coat and a tall +hat. The real "Spig" could never do any real work for fear of soiling +his clothes. He cannot get used to the plain, brusk American type +without embroidery, who just does things in his blunt, efficient way +without wasting time on little exterior courtesies. None of these +childish countries is man enough to see through the rough surface. Even +with seven years of American example about him the Panamanian has not +yet grasped the divinity of labor. Perhaps he will eons hence when he +has grown nearer true civilization. + +But among Americans off the job reminiscences of East India flock in +again. D, who is a quartermaster at $225, may be on +"How-are-you-old-man?" terms with G, who is a station agent and draws +$175. But Mrs. D never thinks of calling on Mrs. G socially. H and J, +who are engineer and cranemen respectively on the same steam-shovel, +are probably "Hank" and "Jim" to each other, but Mrs. H would be +horrified to find herself at the same dance with Mrs. J. Mrs. X, whose +husband is a foreman at $165, and whose dining table is a full six +inches longer and whose ice-box will hold one more cold-storage +chicken, would not think of sitting in at bridge with Mrs. Y, whose +husband gets $150. As for being black, or any tint but pure "white"! +Even an Englishman, though he may eat in the same hotel if his skin is +not too tanned, is accepted on staring suffrance. As for the man whose +skin is a bit dull, he might sit on the steps of an I. C. C. hotel with +dollars dribbling out of his pockets until he starved to death--and he +would be duly buried in the particular grave to which his color +entitled him. A real American place is the Zone, with outward democracy +and inward caste, an unenthusiastic and afraid-to-break-the-conventions +place in play, and the opposite at work. + +Yet with it all it is a good place in which to live. There you have +always summer, jungled hills to look on by day and moonlight, and to +roam in on Sunday--unless you are a policeman seven days a week. It is +possible that perpetual summer would soon breed quite a different type +of American. The Isthmus is nearly always in boyish--or girlish--good +temper. Zone women and girls are noted for plump figures and care-free +faces. And there is a contentment that is more than climatic. There are +no hard times on the Zone, no hurried, worried faces, no famished, +wolfish eyes. The "Zoner" has his little troubles of course,--the +servant problem, for instance, for the Jamaican housemaid is a thorn in +any side. Now and then we hear some one wailing, "Oh, it gets +so--tiresome! Everybody's shoveling dirt or talking about the other +fellow." But he knows it isn't strictly true when he says it and that +he is kicking chiefly to keep in practice. Every one is free from +worries as to job, pay, house, provisions, and even hospital fees, and +the smoothness of it all, perhaps, gets on his nerves at times. I +question whether "the Colonel" himself loses much sleep when a chunk of +the hill that bears up his residence lets go and pitches into the +canal. It sets one to musing at times whether the rock-bound system of +the Incas was not best after all,--a place for every man and every man +in his place, each his allotted work, which he was fully able to do and +getting Hail Columbia if he failed to do it. + +Which brings up the question of results in labor under the +pseudo-socialist Zone system. Most American employees work steadily and +take their work seriously. It is as if each were individually proud of +being one of the chosen people and builders of the greatest work of +modern times. Yet the far-famed "American rush" is not especially +prevalent. The Zone point of view seems to be that no shoveling is so +important, even that of digging a ditch half the ships of the world are +waiting to cross, that a man should bring upon himself a premature +funeral. The common laborers, non-Americans, almost dawdle. There are +no contractor's Irish straw-bosses to keep them on the move. The answer +to the Socialist's scheme of having the government run all big building +enterprises is to go out and watch any city street gang for an hour. + +The bringing together into close contact of Americans from every +section of our broad land is tending to make a new amalgamated type. +Even New Englanders grow almost human here among their broader-minded +fellow-countrymen. Any northerner can say "nigger" as glibly as a +Carolinian, and growl if one of them steps on his shadow. It is not +easy to say just how much effect all this will have when the canal is +done and this handful of amalgamated and humanized Americans is +sprinkled back over all the States as a leaven to the whole. They tell +on the Zone of a man from Maine who sat four high-school years on the +same bench with two negro boys, and returning home after three years on +the Isthmus was so horrified to find one of those boys an alderman that +he packed his traps and moved to Alabama, "where a nigger IS a +nigger"--and if there isn't the "makings" of a story in that I 'll +leave it to the postmaster of Miraflores. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +"There is much in this police business," said "the Captain," with his +slow, deliberate enunciation, "that must lead to a blank wall. Out of +ten cases to investigate it is quite possible nine will result in +nothing. This percentage could not of course be true of a thousand +cases and a man's services still be considered satisfactory. But of ten +it is quite possible. As for knowing HOW to do detective work, all I +bring to the department myself is some ordinary common sense and a +little knowledge of human nature, and with these I try to work things +out as best I can. This peeping-through-the-key-hole police work I know +nothing whatever about, and don't want to. Nor do I expect a man to." + +I had been discussing with "the Captain" my dissatisfaction at my +failure to "get results" in an important case. A few weeks on the force +had changed many a preconceived notion of police life. It had gradually +become evident, for instance, that the profession of detective is +adventurous, absorbing, heart-stopping chiefly between the covers of +popular fiction; that real detective work, like almost any other +vocation, is made up largely of the little unimportant every-day +details, with only a rare assignment bulking above the mass. As "the +Captain" said, it was just plain every-day work carried on by the +application of ordinary common sense. Such best-seller artifices as +disguise were absurd. Not only would disguise in all but the rarest +cases be impossible, but useless. The A-B-C of plain-clothes work is to +learn to know a man by his face rather than by his clothing--and at the +outset one will be astonished to find how much he has hitherto been +depending on the latter. It must be the same with criminals, too, +unless your criminal is an amateur or a fool, in which event you will +"land" him without the trouble of disguising. A detective furthermore +should not be a handsome man or a man of striking appearance in any +way; the ideal plain-clothes man is the little insignificant snipe whom +even the ladies will not notice. + +Since April tenth I had been settled in notorious House 111, Ancon, a +sort of frontiersman resort or smugglers' retreat--had there been +anything to smuggle--where to have fallen through the veranda screening +would have been to fall into a foreign land. As pay-day approached +there came the duty of standing a half-hour at the station gate before +the departure of each train to watch and discuss with the ponderous, +smiling, dark-skinned chief of Panama's plain-clothes squad, or with a +vigilante the suspicious characters and known crooks of all colors +going out along the line. On the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth the +I. C. C. pay-car, that bank on wheels guarded by a squad of Z. P., +sprinkled its half-million a day along the Zone. Then plain-clothes +duty was not merely to scan the embarking passengers but to ride out +with each train to one of the busy towns. There scores upon scores of +soil-smeared workmen swarmed over all the landscape with long +paper-wrapped rolls of Panamanian silver in their hands, while flashily +dressed touts and crooks of both sexes drifted out from Panama with +every train to worm their insidious way into wherever the scent of coin +promised another month free from labor. To add to those crowded times +the chief dissipation of the West Indian during the few days following +pay-day that his earnings last is to ride aimlessly and joyously back +and forth on the trains. + +There is one advantage, though some policemen call it by quite the +opposite name, in being stationed at Ancon. When crime takes a holiday +and do-nothing threatens tropical dementia, or a man tires of his +native land and people a short stroll down the asphalt takes him into +the city of Panama. Barely across the street where his badge becomes +mere metal, and he must take care not to arrest absent-mindedly the +first violator of Zone laws--whom he is sure to come upon within the +first block--he notes that the English tongue has suddenly almost +disappeared. On every hand, lightly sprinkled with many other dialects, +sounds Spanish, the slovenly Spanish of Panama in which bueno is +"hueno" and calle is "caye." As he swings languidly to the right into +Avenida Central he grows gradually aware that there has settled down +about him a cold indifference, an atmosphere quite different from that +on his own side of the line. Those he addresses in the tongue of the +land reply to his questions with their customary gestures and fixed +phrases of courtesy. But no more; and a cold dead silence falls sharply +upon the last word, and at times, if the experience be comparatively +new, there seems to hover in the air something that reminds him that +way back fifty-six years ago there was a "massacre" of Americans in +Panama city. For the Panamanian has little love for the United States +or its people; which is the customary thanks any man or nation gets for +lifting a dirty half-breed gamin from the gutter. + +Off in the vortex of the city lolls Panama's public market, where +Chinamen are the chief sellers and flies the chief consumers. Myriads +of fruits in every stage of development and disintegration, haggled +bits of meat, the hundred sights and sounds and smells one hurries past +suggest that Panama may even have outdone Central America before Uncle +Sam came with his garbage-cans and his switch. Further on, down at the +old harbor, lingers a hint of the picturesqueness of Panama in +pre-canal days. Clumsy boats, empty, or deep-laden with fruit from, or +freight to, the several islands that sprinkle the bay, splash and bump +against the little cement wharf. Aged wooden "windjammers" doze at +their moorings, everywhere are jabbering natives with that shifty +half-cast eye and frequent evidence of deep-rooted disease. Almost +every known race mingles in Panama city, even to Chinese coolies in +their umbrella hats and rolled up cotton trousers, delving in rich +market gardens on the edges of the town or dog-trotting through the +streets under two baskets dancing on the ends of a bamboo pole, till +one fancies oneself at times in Singapore or Shanghai. The black Zone +laborer, too, often prefers to live in Panama for the greater freedom +it affords--there he doesn't have to clean his sink so often, marry his +"wife," or banish his chickens from the bedroom. Policemen with their +clubs swarm everywhere, for no particular reason than that the little +republic is forbidden to play at army, and with the presidential +election approaching political henchmen must be kept good-humored. Not +a few of these officers are West Indians who speak not a word of +Spanish--nor any other tongue, strictly speaking. + +Rubber-tired carriages roll constantly by along Uncle Sam's macadam, +amid the jingling of their musical bells. Every one takes a carriage in +Panama. Any man can afford ten cents even if he has no expense account; +besides he runs no risk of being overcharged, which is a greater +advantage than the cost. All this may be different when Panama's +electric line, all the way from Balboa docks to Las Sabanas, is +opened--but that's another year. Meanwhile the lolling in carriages +comes to be quite second nature. + +But like any tropical Spanish town Panama seethes only by night, +especially Saturday and Sunday nights when the paternal Zone government +allows its children to spend the evening in town. Then frequent trains, +unknown during the week, begin with the setting of the sun to disgorge +Americans of all grades and sizes through the clicking turnstiles into +the arms of gesticulating hackmen, some to squirm away afoot between +the carriages, all to be swallowed up within ten minutes in the great +sea of "colored" people. So that, large as may be each train-load, +white American faces are so rare on Panama streets that one +involuntarily glances at each that passes in the throng. + +It is the "gum-shoe's" duty to know and be unknown in as many places as +possible. Wherefore on such nights, whatever his choice, he drifts +early down by the "Normandie" and on into the "Pana-zone" to see who is +out, and why. In the latter emporium he adds a bottle of beer to his +expense account, endures for a few moments the bawling above the scream +of the piano of two Americans of Palestinian antecedents, admires some +local hero, like "Baldy" for instance, who is credited with doing what +Napoleon could not do, and floats on, perhaps to screw up his courage +and venture into the thinly-clad Teatro Apolo. He who knows where to +look, or was born under a lucky star, may even see on these merry +evenings a big Marine from Bas Obispo or a burly soldier of the Tenth +howling some joyful song with six or seven little "Spig" policemen +climbing about on his frame. At such times everything but real blood, +flows in Panama. Her history runs that way. On the day she won her +independence from Spain it is said the General in Chief cut his finger +on a wine glass. The day she won it from Colombia there was a Chinaman +killed--but every one agrees that was due to the celestial's criminal +carelessness. + +Down at the quieter end of the city are "Las Bovedas," that curving +sea-wall Phillip of Spain tried to make out from his palace walls, as +many another, regal and otherwise, has strained his eyes in vain to see +where his good coin has gone. But the walls are there all right, though +Phillip never saw them; crumbling a bit, yet still a sturdy barrier to +the sea. A broad cement and grass promenade runs atop, wide as an +American street. Thirty or forty feet below the low parapet sounds the +deep, time-mellowed voice of the Pacific, as there rolls higher and +higher up the rock ledges that great tide so different from the +scarcely noticeable one at Colon. The summer breeze never dies down, +never grows boisterous. On the landward side Panama lies mumbling to +itself, down in the hollow between squats Chiriqui prison with its +American warden, once a Zone policeman; while in the round stone +watch-towers on the curving parapets lean prison guards with fixed +bayonets and incessantly blow the shrill tin whistles that is the +universal Latin-American artifice for keeping policemen awake. On the +way back to the city the elite--or befriended--may drop in at the +University Club at the end of the wall for a cooling libation. + +On Sunday night comes the band concert in the palm-ringed Cathedral +Plaza. There is one on Thursday, too, in Plaza Santa Ana, but that is +packed with all colors and considered "rather vulgah." In the square by +the cathedral the aggregate color is far lighter. Pure African blood +hangs chiefly in the outskirts. Then the haughty aristocrats of Panama, +proud of their own individual shade of color, may be seen in the same +promenade with American ladies--even a garrison widow or two--from out +along the line. Panamanian girls gaudily dressed and suggesting to the +nostrils perambulating drug-stores shuttle back and forth with their +perfumed dandies. Above the throng pass the heads and shoulders of +unemotional, self-possessed Americans, erect and soldierly. Sergeant +Jack of Ancon station was sure to be there in his faultless civilian +garb, a figure neat but not gaudy; and even busy Lieutenant Long was +known to break away from his stacked-up duties and his black +stenographer and come to overtop all else in the square save the +palm-trees whispering together in the evening breeze between the +numbers. + +There is no favoritism in Zone police work. Every crime reported +receives full investigation, be it only a Greek laborer losing a pair +of trousers or-- + +There was the case that fell to me early in May, for instance. A box +billed from New York to Peru had been broken open on Balboa dock +and--one bottle of cognac stolen. Unfortunately the matter was turned +over to me so long after the perpetration of the dastardly crime that +the possible culprits among the dock hands had wholly recovered from +the probable consumption of the evidence. But I succeeded in gathering +material for a splendid typewritten report of all I had not been able +to unearth, to file away among other priceless headquarters' archives. + +Not that the Z. P. has not its big jobs. The force to a man distinctly +remembers that absorbing two months between the escape of wild black +Felix Paul and the day they dragged him back into the penitentiary. No +less fresh in memory are the expeditions against Maurice Pelote, or +Francois Barduc, the murderer of Miraflores. All Martinique negroes, be +it noted; and of all things on this earth, including greased pigs, the +hardest to catch is a Martinique criminal. After all, four or five +murders on the Zone in three years is no startling record in such a +swarm of nationalities. + +Cases large and small which it would be neither of interest nor politic +to detail poured in during the following weeks. Among them was the +counterfeit case unearthed by some Shylock Holmes on the Panamanian +force, that called for a long perspiring hunt for the "plant" in odd +corners of the Zone. Then there was--, an ex-Z. P. who lost his three +years' savings on the train, for which reason I shadowed a well-known +American--for it is a Z. P. rule that no one is above suspicion--about +Panama afoot and in carriages nearly all night, in true dime-novel +fashion. There was the day that I was given a dangerous convict to +deliver at Culebra Penitentiary. The criminal was about three feet +long, jet black, his worldly possessions comprising two more or less +garments, one reaching as far down as his knees and the other as far up +as the base of his neck. He had long been a familiar sight to "Zoners" +among the swarm of bootblacks that infest the corner near the P. R. R. +station. He claimed to be eleven, and looked it. But having already +served time for burglary and horse-stealing, his conviction for +stealing a gold necklace from a negro washerwoman of San Miguel left +the Chief Justice no choice but to send him to meditate a half-year at +Culebra. There is no reform school on the Zone. The few American minors +who have been found guilty of misdoing have been banished to their +native land. When the deputy warden had sufficiently recovered from the +shock brought upon him by the sight of his new charge to give me a +receipt for him, I raced for the noon train back to the city. + +Thereon I sat down beside Pol--First-Class Policeman X----, surprised +to find him off duty and in civilian clothes. There was a dreamy, +far-away look in his eyes, and not until the train was racing past Rio +Grande reservoir did he turn to confide to me the following +extraordinary occurrence: + +"Last night I dreamed old Judge ---- had my father and my mother up +before him. On the stand he asked my mother her age--and the funny part +of it is my mother has been dead over ten years. She turned around and +wrote on the wall with a piece of chalk '1859,' the year she was born. +Then my father was called and he wrote '1853.' That's all there was to +the dream. But take it from me I know what it means. Now just add 'em +together, and multiply by five--because I could see five people in the +court-room--divide by two--father and mother--and I get--," he drew out +a crumpled "arrest" form covered with penciled figures, "--9280. And +there--" his voice dropped low, "--is your winning number for next +Sunday." + +So certain was this, that First-Class X---- had bribed another +policeman to take his eight-hour shift, dressed in his vacation best, +bought a ticket to Panama and return, with real money at tourist +prices, and would spend the blazing afternoon seeking among the scores +of vendors in the city for lottery ticket 9280. And if he did not find +it there he certainly paid his fare all the way to Colon and back to +continue his search. I believe he at length found and acquired the +whole ticket, for the customary sum of $2.50. But there must have been +a slip in the arithmetic, or mother's chalk; for the winning number +that Sunday was 8895. + +Frequent as are these melancholy errors, scores of "Zoners" cling +faithfully to their arithmetical superstitions. Many a man spends his +recreation hours working out the winning numbers by some secret recipe +of his own. There are men on the Z. P. who, if you can get them started +on the subject of lottery tickets, will keep it up until you run away, +showing you the infallibility of their various systems, believing the +drawing to be honest, yet oblivious to the fact that both the one and +the other cannot be true. Dreams are held in special favor. It is +probably safe to assert that one-half the numbers over 1,000 and under +10,000 that appear in Zone dreams are snapped up next day in lottery +tickets. Many have systems of figuring out the all-important number +from the figures on engines and cars. More than one Zone housewife has +slipped into the kitchen to find the roast burning and her West Indian +cook hiding hastily behind her ample skirt a long list of the figures +on every freight-car that has passed that morning, from which by some +Antillian miscalculation and the murmuring of certain invocations she +was to find the magic number that would bring her cooking days to an +end. + +Yet there is sometimes method in their madness. Did not "Joe" who slept +in the next room to me at Gatun "hit Duque for two pieces"--which is to +say he had $3,000 to sprinkle along with his police salary? Yet +personally the only really appealing "system" was that of Cristobal. +Upon his arrival on the Isthmus four years ago he picked out a number +at random, took out a yearly subscription to it, and thought no more +about it than one does of a newspaper delivered at the door each +morning--until one Monday during this month of May, after he had +squandered something over $500, on worthless bits of paper, he strolled +into the lottery office and was handed an inconspicuous little bag +containing $7,500 in yellow gold. + +Like all Z. P. "rookies" (recruits) I had been warned early to beware +the "sympathy dodge." But experience is the only real teacher. One +afternoon I bestraddled a crazy, stilt-legged Jamaican horse to go out +into the bush beyond the Panama line to fetch and deliver a citizen of +that sovereign republic who was wanted on the Zone for horse-stealing. +At the town of Sabanas, where those Panamanians who have bagged the +most loot since American occupation have their "summer" homes,--giddy, +brick-painted monstrosities among the great trees, deep green foliage +and brilliant flower-beds (pause a moment and think of brilliant red +houses in the tropics; it will make you better acquainted with the +"Spig") I dropped in at the police station for ice-water and +information. I found it in charge of a negro policeman who knew +nothing, and had forgotten that. When, therefore, it also chanced that +an officer of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals +stopped before the gate with a coachman of Panama, it fell upon me to +assume command. The horse was the usual emaciated rat of an animal +indigenous to Panama City. When overhauled, the driver was beating the +animal uphill on his way to Old Panama to bring back a party of +tourists visiting the ruins. How he expected the decrepit beast to +carry four more persons was a mystery. When the harness was lifted +there was disclosed the expected half-dozen large raw sores. We tied +the animal in the shade near hay and water and adjourned to the station. + +The coachman, a weary, unshaven Spaniard whose red eyelids showed lack +of sleep, was weeping copiously. He claimed to be a madrileno--which +was evident; that he had been a coachman in Spain and Panama all his +life without ever before having been arrested--which was possible. He +was merely one of many drivers for a livery-stable owner in Panama. +Ordered to go for the tourists, he had called his employer's attention +to the danger of crossing Zone territory with a horse in that +condition; but the owner had ordered him to cover up the sores with +pads and harness and drive along. + +It was a very sad case. Here was a poor, honest coachman struggling to +support a wife and I don't recall how many children, but any number +sounds quite reasonable in Panama, who was about to be punished for the +fault of another. The paradox of honest and coachman did not strike me +until later. He was certainly telling the truth--you come to recognize +it readily in all ordinary cases after a few weeks in plain clothes. +The real culprit was, of course, the employer. My righteous wrath +demanded that he and not his poor serf be punished. I could not release +the driver. But I would see that the truth was brought out in court +next morning and a warrant sworn out against the owner. With showering +tears and rib-shaking sobs the coachman promised to tell the judge the +whole story. I went through him, and locking him up with assurances of +my deepest sympathy and full assistance, stilted on toward the little +village of shacks scattered out of sight among the hills, and valleys +across the border. + +Coachman, witnesses, and arresting officer, to say nothing of horse, +carriage, and sores were on hand when court opened next morning. As I +expected, the judge failed to ask the poor fellow a single question +that would bring out the complicity of his employer; did not in fact +discover there was an employer. I asked to be sworn, and gave the true +version of the case. The judge listened earnestly. When I had ended, he +recalled the coachman. The latter expressed his astonishment that I +should have made any such statements. He denied them in toto. His +employer had nothing whatever to do with the case. The fault was +entirely his, and no one else was in the remotest degree connected with +the matter. + +"Five dollars!" snapped the judge. + +The coachman paid, hitched up the rat of a horse, and wabbled away into +Panama. + +Police business, taking me down into "the Grove" that night, I found +the driver, clean-shaven and better dressed, waiting for fares before +the principal house of that section. + +"What kind of a game--," I began. + +"Senor," he cried, and tears again seemed on the point of falling, +"every word I told you was true. But of course I couldn't testify +against the patron. He'd discharge me and blackmail me, and you know I +have a wife and innumerable children to support. Come on over and have +a drink." + +This justice business, one soon learns, is of the same infallible stuff +as the rest of life. After all it is only the personal opinion of the +judge between two persons swearing on oath to diametrically opposed +statements; and for all the impressiveness of deep furrowed brows I did +not find that the average judge had any more power of reading human +nature than the average of the rest of us. I well remember the morning +when a meek little Panamanian was testifying in his own behalf, in +Spanish of course, when the judge broke in without even asking for a +translation of the testimony: + +"That'll do! Because of your gestures I believe you are trying to bunco +this court. You are lying--tell him that," this to the negro +interpreter; and he therewith sentenced the witness to jail. + +As if any Panamanian could talk earnestly of anything without waving +his arms about him. + +The telephone-bell rang one afternoon. It was always doing that, +twenty-four hours a day; but this time it sounded especially sharp and +insistent. In the adjoining room, over the "blotter," snapped the brusk +stereotyped nasal reply: + +"Ancon! Bingham talking!" + +The instrument buzzed a moment and the deskman looked up to say: + +"'Andy' and a nigger just fell over into Pedro Miguel locks. They're +sending in his body. The nigger lit on his head and hurt his leg." + +His body! How uncanny it sounded! "Andy," that bunch of muscles who had +made such short work of the circus wrestler in Gatun and whom I had +seen not twenty-four hours before bubbling with life was now a "body." +Things happen quickly on the Zone, and he whom the fates have picked to +go generally shows no hesitation in his exit. But at least a man who +dies for the I. C. C. has the affairs he left behind him attended to in +a thorough manner. In ten minutes to a half-hour one of the Z. P. is on +the ground taking note of every detail of the accident. A special train +or engine rushes the body to the morgue in Ancon hospital grounds. A +coroner's jury is soon meeting under the chairmanship of a policeman, +long reports of everything concerning the victim or the accident are +soon flowing Administration-ward. The police accident report is +detailed and in triplicate. There is sure to be in the "personal files" +at Culebra a history of the deceased and the names of his nearest +relative or friend both on the Isthmus and in the States; for every +employee must make out his biography at the time of his engagement. +There are men whose regular duty it is to list and take care of his +possessions down to the last lead pencil, and to forward them to the +legal heirs. A year's pay goes to his family--were as much required of +every employer and his the burden of proving the accident the fault of +the employee, how the safety appliances in factories would multiply. +There is a man attached to Ancon hospital whose unenviable duty it is +to write a letter of condolence to the relatives in the States. + +And so the "Kangaroos" or the "Red Men" or whatever his lodge was filed +behind the I. C. C. casket to the church in Ancon, and "Andy" was laid +away under another of the simple white iron crosses that thickly +populate many a Zone hillside, and he was charged up to the big debit +column of the costs of the canal. On the cross is his new number; for +officially a "Zoner" is always a number; that of the brass-check he +wears as a watch-charm alive, that at the head of his grave when his +canal-digging is over. + +Late one unoccupied afternoon I picked up the path behind the +Administration Building and, skirting a Zone residence, began to climb +that famous oblong mound that dominates the Pacific end of the +landscape from every direction,--Ancon Hill. For a way a fairly steep +and stony path lead through thick undergrowth. Then this ceased, and a +far steeper trail zigzagged up the face of the bare mountain, covered +only with thin dead grass. The setting sun cast its shadow obliquely +across the summit when I reached it,--a long ridge, with groves of +trees, running off abruptly toward the sea. On the opposite side Uncle +Sam was cutting away a whole side of the hill. But the five o'clock +whistle had blown, and whole armies of little workmen swarmed across +all the landscape far below, and silence soon settled down save for the +dredges at Balboa that chug on through the night. But for myself the +hill was wholly unpeopled. A sturdy ocean breeze swept steadily across +it. The sinking sun set the jungle afire in a spot that would have +startled those who do not know that it rises in the Pacific at Panama, +crude, glaring colors glowed, fading to gentler and more delicate +tints, then the evening shadow that had climbed the hill with me spread +like a great black veil over all the world. + +But the moon nearing its full followed almost on the heels of the +setting sun and, casting its half-day over a scene rich in nature and +history, invited the eye to swing clear round the hazy circle. Below +lay Panama dully rumbling with night traffic. Silent Ancon, still +better lighted, cuddled upon the lower skirts of the hill itself. Then +beyond, the curving bay, half seen, half guessed, with its long +promontory dying away into the hazy moonlit distance, lighted up here +and there by bush fires in the jungled hills. Some way out winked the +cluster of lights that marked Las Sabanas. In front, the placid +Pacific, the "South Sea" of the Spaniards, spread dimly away into the +void of night, its several islands seen only by the darker darkness +that marked where they lay. + +On the other side of the hill the rumble of cranes and night labor came +up from Balboa dock. There, began the canal, which the eye could follow +away into the dim hilly inland distance--and come upon a great cluster +of lights that was Corozal, then another group that was Miraflores, +close followed by those of Pedro Miguel; and yet further, rising to +such height as to be almost indistinguishable from the lower stars the +lights of the negro cabins of upper Paraiso twinkled dimly above a +broad glow that was Paraiso itself. There the vista ended. For at +Paraiso the canal turns to the left for its plunge through Culebra +hill, and all that follows,--Empire, Cascadas, and far Gatun, was +visible only in the imagination. + +If only the film of time might roll back and there pass again before +our eyes all that has come to pass within sight of Ancon hilltop. +Across the bay there, where now are only jungle-tangled ruins, Pizarro +set out with his handful of vagabonds to conquer South America; there +old Buccaneer Morgan laid his bloody hand. Back in the hills there men +died by scores trying to carry a ship across the Isthmus, the Spanish +viceroys passed with their rich trains, there on some unknown knoll +Balboa reached four hundred years ago the climax of a career that began +with stowing away in a cask and ended under the headsman's ax--no end +of it, down to the "Forty-niners" going hopefully out and returning +filled with gold or disease, or leaving their bones here in the jungle +before they really were "Forty-niners"; on down to the railroad days +with men wading in swamps with survey kits, and frequently lying down +to die. Then if a bit of the future, too, could for a moment be +unveiled, and one might watch the first ship glide majestically and +silently into the canal and away into the jungle like some amphibious +monster. + +It was along in those days that we were looking for a "murderous +assaulter." At a Saturday night dance in a native shack back in +Miraflores bush the usual riot had broken out about midnight and a +revolver had come into play. As a result there was a Peruvian mulatto +up in Ancon hospital who had been shot through the mouth, the bullet +being somewhere in his neck. It became my frequent duty, among other Z. +P.'s, to take suspects up the hill for possible identification. + +One morning I strolled into the station and fell to laughing. The early +train had brought in on suspicion a Spanish laborer of twenty or +twenty-two; a pretty, girlish chap with huge blue eyes over which hung +long black lashes like those painted on Nurnberg dolls. No one with a +shadow of faith in human nature left would have believed him capable of +any crime; any one at all acquainted with Spaniards must have known he +could not shoot a hare, would in fact be afraid to fire off a gun. + +The fear in his big blue eyes struggled with his ingenuous, girlish +smile as I marched him through the long hall full of white beds and +darker inmates. The Peruvian sat bolstered up in his cot, a stoical, +revengeful glare on his reddish-brown swollen face. He gazed a long +minute at the boy's face, across which flitted the flush of fear and +embarrassment, at the big doll's eyes, then shook a raised forefinger +slowly back and forth before his nose--the negative of Spanish-speaking +peoples. Then he groaned, spat in a tin-can beside him, and called for +paper and pencil. In the note-book I handed him he wrote in atrociously +spelled Spanish: + +"The man that came to the dance with this man is the man that shot me +with a bullet." + +The blue-eyed boy promised to point out his companion of that night. We +took the 10:55 and reached Pedro Miguel during the noon hour. Down in a +box-car camp between the railroad and the canal the boy called for +"Jose" and there presented himself immediately a tall, studious, +solemn-faced Spaniard of spare frame, about forty, dressed in overalls +and working shirt. Here was even less a criminal type than the boy. + +"Senor," I asked, "did you go to the dance in Miraflores last Saturday +night with this youth?" + +"Si, senor." + +"Then I place you under arrest. We will take the one o'clock train." + +He opened his mouth to protest, but closed it again without having +uttered a sound. He opened it a second time, then sat suddenly down on +the low edge of the box-car porch. A more genuinely astonished man I +have never seen. No actor could have approached it. Still, whatever my +own conviction, it was my business to bring him before his accuser. +After a time he recovered sufficiently to ask permission to change his +clothes, and disappeared in one of the resident box-cars. The boy was +already being fed in another. Had my prisoners been of almost any one +of the other seventy-one nationalities I should not have thought of +letting them out of my sight. But the Zone Spaniard's respect for law +is proverbial. + +"Jose! Pinched Jose!" cried his American boss, when I explained that he +would find himself a man short that afternoon. "You people are sure +barking up the wrong tree this time. Why, Jose has been my engineer for +over two years, and the steadiest man on the Zone. He writes for some +Spanish paper and tells 'em the truth over there so straight that the +rest of 'em down here, the anarchists and all that bunch, are aching to +get him into trouble. But they'll never get anything on Jose. Have him +tell you about it in Spanish if you sabe the lingo." + +But Jose was a gallego, whence instead of the voluble flood of +protesting words one expects from a Spaniard on such an occasion, he +wrapped himself in a stoical silence. Not until we were on our way to +the railroad station did I get him to talk. Then he explained in quiet, +unflowery, gestureless language. + +He had come to the Canal Zone chiefly to gather literary material. Not +being a man of wealth, however, nor one satisfied with superficial +observation, he had sought employment at his trade as stationary +engineer. Besides laying in a stock for more important writing he hoped +to do in the future, he was Zone correspondent of "El Liberal" of +Madrid and other Spanish cities. In the social life of his +fellow-countrymen on the Isthmus he had taken no part, whatever. He was +too busy. He did not drink. He could not dance; he saw no sense in +squandering time in such frivolities. But ever since his arrival he had +been promising himself to attend one of these wild Saturday-night +debauches in the edge of the jungle that he might use a description of +it in some later work. So he had coaxed his one personal friend, the +boy, to go with him. It was virtually the one thing besides work that +he had ever done on the Zone. They had stayed two hours, and had left +the moment the trouble began. Yet here he was arrested. + +I bade him cheer up, to consider the trip to Ancon merely an afternoon +excursion on government pass. He remained downcast. + +"But think of the experience!" I cried. "Now you can tell exactly how +it feels to be arrested--first-hand literary material." + +But he was not philosopher enough to look at it from that point of +view. To his Spanish mind arrest, even in innocence, was a disgrace for +which no amount of "material" could compensate. It is a common failing. +How many of us set out into the world for experience, yet growl with +rage or sit downcast and silent all the way from Pedro Miguel to Panama +if one such experience gives us a rough half-hour, or robs us of ten +minutes sleep. + +At the hospital the Peruvian gurgled and spat, beckoned for paper and +wrote: + +"This is the man." + +"What man?" I asked. + +"The man who came with that man," he scribbled, nodding his heavy face +toward the blue-eyed boy. + +"But is this the man that shot you?" I demanded. + +"The man who came with that man is the one," he scrawled. + +"Well, then this is the man that shot you?" I cried. + +But he would not answer definitely to that, but sat a long time glaring +out of his swollen, vindictive countenance propped up in his pillows at +the tall, solemn correspondent. By and by he motioned again for paper. + +"I think so. I am not sure," he miswrote. + +I did NOT think so, and as the sum total of his descriptions of his +assailant during the past several days amounted to "a tall man, rather +short, with a face and two eyes"--he was very insistent about the eyes, +which is the reason the doll-eyed boy had fallen into the drag-net--I +permitted myself to accept my own opinion as evidence. The Peruvian was +in all likelihood in no condition to recognize a man from a loup-garou +by the time the fracas started. Much ardent water had flowed that +night. I took the suspects down to Ancon station and let them cool off +in porch rocking-chairs. Then I gave them passes back to Pedro Miguel +for the evening train. The doll-eyed boy smiled girlishly upon me as he +descended the steps, but the correspondent strode slowly away with the +downcast, cheerless countenance of a man who has been hurt beyond +recovery. + +There were strangely contrasted days in the "gum-shoe's" calendar. Two +examples taken almost at random will give the idea. On May twentieth I +lolled all day in a porch rocker at Ancon station, reading a novel. +Along in the afternoon Corporal Castillo drifted in. For a time he +stood leaning against the desk-rail, his felt hat pushed far back on +his head, his eyes fixed on some point in the interior of China. Then +suddenly he snatched up a sheet of I. C. C. stationery, dropped down at +a typewriter, and wrote at express speed a letter in Spanish. Next he +grasped a telephone and, in the words of the deskman, "spit Spig into +the 'phone" for several minutes. That over he caught up an envelope, +sealed the letter and addressed it. An instant later the station was in +an uproar looking for a stamp. One was found, the Corporal stuck it on +the letter, fell suddenly motionless and stared for a long time at +vacancy. Then a new thought struck him. He jerked open a drawer of the +"gum-shoe" desk, flung the letter inside--where I found it accidentally +one day some weeks afterward--and dropping into the swivel-chair laid +his feet on the "gum-shoe" blotter and a moment later seemed to have +fallen asleep. + +By all of which signs those of us who knew him began to suspect that +the Corporal had something on his mind. Not a few considered him the +best detective on the force; at least he was different enough from a +printer's ink detective to be a real one. But naturally the strain of +heading a detective bureau for weeks was beginning to wear upon him. + +"Damn it!" said the Corporal suddenly, opening his eyes, "I can't be in +six places at once. You'll have to handle these cases," and he drew +from a pocket and handed me three typewritten sheets, then drifted away +into the dusk. I looked them over and returned to the porch rocker and +the last chapters of the novel. + +A meek touch on the leg awoke me at four next morning. I looked up to +see dimly a black face under a khaki helmet bent over me whispering, +"It de time, sah," and fade noiselessly away. It was the frontier +policeman carrying out his orders of the night before. For once there +was not a carriage in sight. I stumbled sleepily down into Panama and +for some distance along Avenida Central before I was able to hail an +all night hawk chasing a worn little wreck of a horse along the +macadam. I spread my lanky form over the worn cushions and we spavined +along the graveled boundary line, past the Chinese cemetery where John +can preserve and burn joss to his ancestors to the end of time, out +through East Balboa just awakening to life, and reached Balboa docks as +day was breaking. I was not long there, and the equine caricature +ambled the three miles back to town in what seemed reasonable time, +considering. As we turned again into Avenida Central my watch told me +there was time and to spare to catch the morning passenger. I was not a +little surprised therefore to hear just then two sharp rings on the +station gong. I dived headlong into the station and brought up against +a locked gate, caught a glimpse of two or three ladies weeping and the +tail of the passenger disappearing under the bridge. Americans have +introduced the untropical idea of starting their trains on time, to the +disgust of the "Spig" in general and the occasional discomfiture of +Americans. I dashed wildly out through the station, across Panama's +main street, down a rugged lane to the first steps descending to the +track, and tumbled joyously onto a slowly moving train--to discover +that it was the Balboa labor-train and that the Colon passenger was +already half-way to Diablo Hill. + +A Panama policeman of dusky hue, leaning against a gate-post, eyed me +drowsily as I slowly climbed the steps, mopping my brow and staring at +my watch. + +"What time does that 6:35 train leave?" I demanded. + +"Yo, senor," he said with ministerial dignity, shifting slowly to the +other shoulder, "no tengo conocimiento de esas cosas" (I have no +knowledge of those things). + +He probably did not know there is a railroad from Panama to Colon. It +has only been in operation since 1855. + +Later I found the fault lay with my brass watch. + +With a perspiration up for all day I set out along the track. Hounding +Diablo Hill the realization that I was hungry came upon me +simultaneously with the thought that unless I got through the door of +Corozal hotel by 7:30 I was likely to remain so. Breakfast over, I +caught the morning supply-train to Miraflores, there to dash through +the locks for a five-minute interview. I walked to Pedro Miguel and, +descending from the embankment of the main line, "nailed" a dirt-train +returning empty and stood up for a breezy ride down through the "cut." +It was the same old smoky, toilsome place, a perceptible bit lower. As +in the case of a small boy only those can see its growth who have been +away for a time. The train stopped with a jerk at the foot of Culebra. +I walked a half-mile and caught a loaded dirt-train to Cascadas. The +matter there to be investigated required ten minutes. That over, I "got +in touch" at the nearest telephone, and the Corporal's voice called for +my immediate presence at headquarters. There chanced to be passing +through Cascadas at that moment a Panama-bound freight, the caboose of +which caught me up on the fly; and forty minutes later I was racing up +the long stairs. + +There I learned among other things that a man I was anxious to have a +word with was coming in on the noon train, but would be unavailable +after arrival. I sprang into a cab and was soon rolling away again, +past the Chinese cemetery. At the commissary crossing in East Balboa we +were held up by an empty dirt-train returning from the dump. I tossed a +coin at the cabman and scrambled aboard. The train raced through +Corozal, down the grade and around the curve at unslacking speed. I +dropped off in front of Miraflores police station, keeping my feet, +thanks to practice and good luck, and dashing up through the village, +dragged myself breathlessly aboard the passenger train as its head and +shoulders had already disappeared in the tunnel. + +The ticket-collector pointed out my man to me in the first passenger +coach, the "ladies' car"--he is a school-teacher and tobacco smoke +distresses him--and by the time we pulled into Panama I had the desired +information. Dinner was not to be thought of; I had barely time to dash +through the second-class gate and back along the track to Balboa +labor-train. From the docks a sand-train carried me to Pedro Miguel. + +There was a craneman in Bas Obispo "cut" whose testimony was wanted. I +reached him by two short walks and a ride. His statements suggested the +advisability of questioning his room-mate, a towerman in Miraflores +freight-yards. Luck would have it that my chauffeur friend ---- was +just then passing with an I. C. C. motor-car and only a photographer +for a New York weekly aboard. I found room to squeeze in. The car raced +away through the "cut," up the declivity, and dropped me at the foot of +the tower. The room-mate referred me to a locomotive engineer and, +being a towerman, gave me the exact location of his engine. I found it +at the foot of Cucaracha slide with a train nearly loaded. By the time +the engineer had added his whit of information, we were swinging around +toward the Pacific dump. I dropped off and, climbing up the flank of +Ancon hill, descended through the hospital grounds. + +Where the royal palms are finest and there opens out the broadest view +of Panama, Ancon, and the bay, I gave myself five minutes' pause, after +which a carriage bore me to a shop near Cathedral Plaza where +second-hand goods are bought--and no questions asked. On the way back +to Ancon station I visited two similar establishments. + +I had been lolling in the swivel-chair a full ten minutes, perhaps, +when the telephone rang. It was "the Captain" calling for me. When I +reached the third-story back he handed me extradition papers to the +Secretary of Foreign Affairs in Panama. A half-hour later, wholly +outstripping the manana idea, I had signed a receipt for the Jap in +question and transferred him from Panama to Ancon jail. Whereupon I +descended to the evening passenger and rode to Pedro Miguel for five +minutes' conversation, and caught the labor-train Panamaward. At +Corozal I stepped off for a word with the officer on the platform and +the labor-train plunged on again, after the fashion of labor-trains, +spilling the last half of its disembarking passengers along the way. +Ten minutes later the headlight of the last passenger swung around the +curve and carried me away to Panama. + +That might have done for the day, but I had gathered a momentum it was +hard to check. Not long after returning from the police mess to the +swivel chair a slight omission in the day's program occurred to me. I +called up Corozal police station. + +"What?" said a mashed-potato voice at the other end of the wire. + +"Who's talking?" + +"Policeman Green, sah." + +"Station commander there?" + +"No, sah. Station commander he gone just over to de Y. M. to play +billiards, sah. Dey one big match on to-night." + +Of course I could have "got" him there. But on second thoughts it would +be better to see him in person and clear up at the same time a little +matter in one of the labor camps, and not run the risk of causing the +loss of the billiard championship. Besides Corozal is cooler to sleep +in than Ancon. In a black starry night I set out along the invisible +railroad for the first station. + +An hour later, everything settled to my satisfaction, I had discovered +a vacant bed in Corozal bachelor quarters and was pulling off my coat +preparatory to the shower-bath and a well-earned night's repose. +Suddenly I heard a peculiar noise in the adjoining room, much like that +of a seal coming to the surface after being long under water. My +curiosity awakened, I sauntered a few feet along the veranda. Beside +one of the cots stood a short, roly-poly little man, the lower third of +whom showed rosy pink below his bell-shaped white nightie. As he turned +his face toward the light to switch it off I swallowed the roof of my +mouth and clawed at the clap-boarding for support. It was "the Sloth!" +He had been transferred. I slipped hastily into my coat and, turning up +the collar, plunged out into the rain and the night and stumbled +blindly away on weary legs towards Panama. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +There were four of us that Sunday. "Bish" and I always went for an +afternoon swim unless police or mess duties forbade. Then there was +Bridgley, who had also once displayed his svelte form in a Z. P. +uniform to admiring tourists, but was now a pursuer of "soldiering" +Hindus on Naos Island. I wish I could describe Bridgley for you. But if +you never knew him ten pages would give you no clearer idea, and if you +ever did, the mere mention of the name Bridgley will be full and ample +description. Still, if you must have some sort of a lay figure to hang +your imaginings on, think of a man who always reminds you of a slender, +delicate porcelain vase of great antiquity that you know a strong wind +would smash to fragments,--yet when you accidentally swat it off the +mantelpiece to the floor it bobs up without a crack. Then you grow +bolder and more curious and jump on it with both feet in your +hob-nailed boots, and to your astonishment it not only does not break +but-- + +Well, Bridgley was one of us that Sunday afternoon; and then there was +"the Admiral," well-dressed as always, who turned up at the last +moment; for which we were glad, as any one would be to have "the +Admiral" along. So we descended into Panama by the train-guard +short-cut and across the bridge that humps its back over the P. R. R. +like a cat in unsocial mood, and on through Caledonia out along the +beach sands past the old iron hulls about which Panamanian laborers are +always tinkering under the impression that they are working. This time +we walked. I don't recall now whether it was quarter-cracks, or the +Lieutenant hadn't slept well--no, it couldn't have been that, for the +Lieutenant never let his personal mishaps trample on his good +nature--or whether "Bish" had decided to try to reduce weight. At any +rate we were afoot, and thereby hangs the tale--or as much of a tale as +there is to tell. + +We tramped resolutely on along the hard curving beach past the +disheveled bath-houses before which ladies from the Zone gather in some +force of a Sunday afternoon. For this time we were really out for a +swim rather than to display our figures. On past the light-brown +bathers, and the chocolate-colored bathers, and the jet black bathers +who seemed to consider that color covering enough, till we came to the +big silent saw-mill at the edge of the cocoanut grove that we had been +invited long since to make a Z. P. dressing-room. + +Before us spread the reposing, powerful, sun-shimmering Pacific. Across +the bay, clear as an etching, lay Panama backed by Ancon hill. In +regular cadence the ocean swept in with a hoarse, resistless roll on +the sands. + +We dived in, keeping an eye out for the sharks we knew never come so +far in and probably wouldn't bite if they did. The sun blazed down +white hot from a cloudless sky. This time the Lieutenant and Sergeant +Jack had not been able to come, but we arranged the races and jumps on +the sand for all that, and went into them with a will and-- + +A rain-drop fell. Nor was it long lonesome. Before we had finished the +hundred-yard dash we were in the midst of ---- it was undeniably +raining. Half a moment later "bucketsful" would have been a weak +simile. All the pent up four months of an extra long rainy season +seemed to have been loosed without warning. The blanket of water +blotted out Panama and Ancon hill across the bay, blotted out the +distant American bathers, then the light-brown ones, then the +chocolate-tinted, then even the jet black ones close at hand. + +We remained under water for a time to keep dry. But the rain whipped +our faces as with thousands of stinging lashes. We crawled out and +dashed blindly up the bank toward the saw-mill, the rain beating on our +all but bare skins, feeling as it might to stand naked in Miraflores +locks and let the sand pour down upon us from sixty feet above. When at +last we stumbled under cover and up the stairs to where our clothing +hung, it was as if a weight of many tons had been lifted from our +shoulders. + +The saw-mill was without side-walls; consisted only of a sheet-iron +roof and floors, on the former of which the storm pounded with a roar +that made only the sign language feasible. It was now as if we were +surrounded on all sides by solid walls of water and forever shut off +from the outer world--if indeed that had survived. Sheets of water +slashed in further and further across the floor. We took to huddling +behind beams and under saw-benches--the militant storm hunted us out +and wetted us bit by bit. "The Admiral" and I tucked ourselves away on +the 45-degree eye-beams up under the roaring roof. The angry water +gathered together in columns and swept in and up to soak us. + +At the end of an hour the downpour had increased some hundred per cent. +It was as if an express train going at full speed had gradually doubled +its rapidity. That was the day when little harmless streams tore +themselves apart into great gorges and left their pathetic little +bridges alone and deserted out in the middle of the gulf. That was the +famous May twelfth, 1912, when Ancon recorded the greatest rainfall in +her history,--7.23 inches, virtually all within three hours. Three of +us were ready to surrender and swim home through it. But there was "the +Admiral" to consider. He was dressed clear to his scarf-pin--and Panama +tailors tear horrible holes in a police salary. So we waited and dodged +and squirmed into closer holes for another hour; and grew steadily +wetter. + +Then at length dusk began to fall, and instead of slacking with the day +the fury of the storm increased. It was then that "the Admiral" +capitulated, seeing fate plainly in league with his tailor; and +wigwagging the decision to us beside him, he led the way down the +stairs and dived into the world awash. + +Wet? We had not taken the third step before we were streaming like fire +hose. There was nearly an hour of it, splashing knee-deep through what +had been when we came out little dry sandy hollows; steering by guess, +for the eye could make out nothing fifty yards ahead, even before the +cheese-thick darkness fell; bowed like nonogenarians under the burden +of water; staggering back and forth as the storm caught us crosswise or +the earth gave way under us. "The Admiral's" patent-leather shoes--but +why go into painful details? Those who were in Panama on that memorable +afternoon can picture it all for themselves, and the others will never +know. The wall of water was as thick as ever when we fought our bowed +and weary way up over the railroad bridge and, summoning up the last +strength, splurged tottering into "Angelini's." + +When our streaming had so far subsided that they recognised us for +solvent human beings, encouraging concoctions were set before us. +Bridgley, fearing the after effects, acquired a further quart bottle of +protection, and when we had gathered force for the last dash we plunged +out once more toward our several goals. As the door of 111 slammed +behind me, the downpour suddenly slackened. As I paused before my room +to drain, it stopped raining. + +I supped on bread, beer, and cheese from over the frontier--we had +arrived thirty seconds too late for Ancon police mess. Then when I had +saved what was salvable from the wreckage and reclad in such wardrobe +as had luckily remained at home, I strolled over toward the police +station to put in a serene and quiet evening. + +But it has long since been established that troubles flock together. As +I crunched up the gravel walk between the hedge-rows, wild riot broke +on my ear. Ancon police station was in eruption. From the Lieutenant to +the newest uniformless "rookie" every member of the force was swarming +in and out of the building. The Zone and Panama telephones were ringing +in their two opposing dialects, the deskman was shouting his own +peculiar brand of Spanish into one receiver and bawling English at the +other, all hands were diving into old clothes, the most apathetic of +the force were girding up their loins with the adventurous fire of the +old Moro-hunting days in their eyes, and all, some ahorse, more afoot, +were dashing one by one out into the night and the jungle. + +It was several minutes before I could catch the news. At last it was +shouted at me over a telephone. Murder! A white Greek--who ever heard +of a colored Greek?--with a white shirt on had shot a man at Pedro +Miguel at 6:35. Every road and bypath of escape to Panama was already +blocked, armed men would meet the assassin whatever way he might take. +I went down to meet the evening train, resolved after that to strike +out into the night in the random hope of having my share in the chase. +It had begun to rain again, but only moderately, as if it realized it +could never again equal the afternoon record. + +Then suddenly the excitement exploded. It was only a near-murder. Two +Colombians had been shot, but would in all probability recover. The +news reached me as I stood at the second-class gate scanning the faces +of the great multicolored river of passengers that poured out into the +city. For two hours, one by one with crestfallen mien, the manhunters +leaked back into Ancon station and, the case having dwindled to one of +regular daily routine, by eleven we were all abed. + +In the morning the "Greek chase" fell to me. More detailed description +of the culprit had come in during the night, including the bit of +information that he was a bad man from the Isle of Crete. The +belt-straining No. 38 oiled and loaded, I set off on an assignment that +was at least a relief after pursuing stolen necklaces for negro women, +or crowbars lost by the I. C. C. + +By nine I was climbing to Pedro Miguel police station on its knoll with +the young Greek who had exchanged hats with the assassin after the +crime. That afternoon a volunteer joined me. He was a friend of the +wounded men, a Peruvian black as jade, but without a suggestion of the +negro in anything but his outward appearance. He was of the size and +build of a Sampson in his prime, spoke a Spanish so clear-cut it seemed +to belie his African blood, and had the restless vigor acquired in a +youth of tramping over the Andine ranges. + +I piled him into a cab and we rolled away to East Balboa, to climb upon +an empty dirt-train and drop off as it raced through Miraflores, the +sturdy legs of the Peruvian saving him where his practice would not +have. Up in the bush between Pedro Miguel and Paraiso we found a hut +where the Greek had stopped for water and gone on up a gully. We set +out to follow, mounting partly on hands and knees, partly dragging +ourselves by grass and bushes up what had been and would soon be again +a torrential mountain stream. For hours we tore through the jungle, up +hills steeper than the path of righteousness, following now a few faint +foot-prints or trampled bushes, now a hint from some native bush +dweller. The rain outside vied with the sweat within as to which would +first soak us through. To make things merrier I had not only to wear an +arsenal but a coat atop to conceal it from the general public. + +To mention the holes I crawled into and the clues I followed during the +next few days would be more tiresome than a Puritan prayer. By day I +was dashing back and forth through all Ancon district, by night +prowling about the grimier sections of Panama city. Almost daily I got +near enough to sniff the prey. Now it was a Greek confectioner on +Avenida Central who admitted that the fugitive had called on him during +the night, now a Panamanian pesquisa whose stool-pigeon had seen him +out in the bush, then the information that he had stopped to shave and +otherwise alter his appearance in some shack half-way across the Zone +and afterward struck off for Panama by an unused route. The clues were +pendulum-like. They took me a half-dozen times at least out the winding +highway to Corozal, on to Miraflores and even further. The rainy season +and the reign of umbrellas had come. It had been formally opened on +that memorable Sunday afternoon. There was still sunshine at times, but +always a wet season heaviness to the atmosphere; and the rains were +already giving the rolling jungle hills a tinge of new green. There was +nothing to be gained by hurrying. The fugitive was as likely to crawl +forth from one place as another along the rambling road. Here I paused +to kill a lizard or to watch the clumsy march of one of the huge purple +and many-colored land-crabs, there to gaze away across a jungled valley +soft and fuzzy in the humid air like some Corot painting. + +I even sailed for San Francisco in the quest. For of course each +outgoing ship must be searched. One day I had word that a "windjammer" +was about to sail; and racing out to Balboa I was soon set aboard the +fore and aft schooner Meteor far out in the bay. When I plunged down +into the cabin the peeled-headed German captain was seated at a table +before a heap of "Spig" dollars, paying off his black shore hands. He +solemnly asserted he had no Greek aboard, and still more solemnly swore +that if he found one stowed away he would turn him over to the police +in San Francisco--which was kind of him but would not have helped +matters. There are several men running gaily about San Francisco +streets who would be very welcome in certain quarters on the Zone and +sure of lodging and food for a long time to come. + +By this time the tug Bolivar had us in tow, the captain went racing +over his ship like any of his crew, tugging at the ropes, and we were +gliding out across Panama bay, past the little greening islands, the +curving panorama of the city and Ancon hill growing smaller and smaller +behind--bound for 'Frisco. What ho! the merry "windjammer" with her +stowed sails and smell of tar awakened within me old memories, hungry +and grimy for the most part. But this was no independent, +self-respecting member of the Wind-wafted sisterhood. Far out in the +offing lay a steamer of the same line that was to TOW the Meteor to the +Golden Gate! How is the breed of sailors fallen! The few laborers +aboard would take an occasional wheel, pick oakum, and yarn their +unadventurous yarns. As we drew near, a boat was lowered to set me +aboard the steamer, to the rail-crowding surprise of her passengers, +who fancied they had hours since seen the last of Zone and "Zoners." +The captain asserted he had nothing aboard grown nearer Greece than +three Irishmen, any one of whom--facetiousness seemed to be one of the +captain's characteristics--I might have and welcome. A few moments +later I was back aboard the tug waving farewell to steamer and +"windjammer" as they pushed away into the twilight sea, and the Bolivar +turned shoreward. + +I received a "straight tip" one evening that the fugitive Greek was +hiding in a hovel on the Cruces trail. What part of the Cruces trail, +the informant did not hint; but he described the hut in some detail. So +next morning as the thick gray dawn of this tropical land was melting +into day, I descended at Bas Obispo, through the canal to Gamboa and +struck off into the dense dripping jungle. The rainy season had greened +things up and gone--temporarily, of course, for in a day or two it +would be on us again in all tropical fury. In the few days since the +first rain the landscape had changed like a theater decoration, a green +not even to be imagined in the temperate zone. + +It turned out that the ancient village of Cruces was a mere two-mile +stroll from the canal, a thatch-roofed native town of some thirty +dwellings on the rocky shore of an inner curve of the Chagres, where +travelers from Balboa to the last "Forty-niner" disembarked from their +thirty-six mile ride up the river and struck on along the ten-mile road +through the jungle to Panama--the famous Cruces trail. Except for its +associations the village was without interest--except some personal +Greek interest. Sour looks were chiefly my portion, for the villagers +have never taken kindly to Americans. + +I soon sought out the trail, here a mere path undulating through rank, +wet-hot, locust singing jungle. Here in the tangled somber mystery of +the wilderness grew every tropical thing; countless giant ferns, +draping tangles of vines, the mango tree with its rounded dome of +leaves like the mosque of Omar done in greenery, the humble pineapple +with its unproportionate fruit, everywhere the banana, king of +vegetables, clothed in its own immense leaves, the frondy zapote, now +and then in a hollow a clump of yellowish-green bamboo, though not +numerous or nearly so large as in many another tropical land, above all +else the symmetrical Gothic fronds of the palm nodding in a breeze the +more humble vegetation could not know. The constant music of insect +life sounded in my ears; everywhere were flowers of brilliant hue, +masses of bush blossoms not unlike the lilac in appearance, but like +all down on the Isthmus, odorless--or rather with a pungent scent, like +strong catsup. + +Four months earlier I should have been chary of diving back into the +Panamanian "bush" alone, above all on a criminal hunt. But it needs +only a little time on the Zone to make one laugh at the absurd stories +of danger from the bush native that are even yet appearing in many U. +S. papers. They are not over friendly to whites, it is true. But they +were all of that familiar languid Central American type, blinking at me +apathetically out of the shade of their huts, crowding to one edge of +the trail as I passed, eying me silently, a bit morosely, somewhat +frightened because their experience of Americans is of a discourteous +creature who shouts at them in a strange tongue and swears at them +because they do not understand it. The moment they heard their own +customary greetings they changed to children delighted to do anything +to oblige--even to the extent of dragging their indolent forms erect to +lead the way a quarter-mile through the bush to some isolated shack. +Far from contemplating any injury, all these wayward children of the +jungle ask is to be let alone to drift through life in their own way. +Still more absurd is the notion of danger from wild beasts--other than +the tiny wild beast that burrows its painful way under the skin. + +So I pushed on, halting at many huts to make covert inquiries. It was a +joyous, brilliant day overhead. Down in the dense, rampant, singing +jungle I sweated profusely--and enjoyed it. Choking for a drink in a +hutless section, I took one of the crooked, tunnel-like trails to the +left in the direction of the Chagres. But it squirmed off through thick +jungle, through banana groves and untended pineapple gardens to come +out at last at an astonished hut on a knoll, from which was not to be +seen a sign of the river. I crawled through another struggling +side-trail further on and this time reached the stream, but at a bank +too sheer and bush-matted to descend. The third attempt brought me to +where the river made a graceful bend at my feet and I descended an +abrupt jungle bank to drink and stroll a bit along the stony shore; +then plunged in for a swim. It was just the right temperature, with +dense jungle banks on either side like great green unscalable walls, +the water clear and a bit over waist deep in the middle of the stream. +Now and then around the one or the other bend came a cayuca, the native +dug-out made of the hollowed trunk of a tree, usually the cedro--though +to a jungle native any tree is a "cedro" if he does not happen to think +of its right name. Twenty to thirty feet long, sometimes piled high +with vegetables, sometimes with several natives seated Indian file in +the bottom, the gunwales a bare two or three inches above the water, +they needed nice management, especially in the rapids below Cruces. The +locomotive power, generally naked to the waist, stood up in the craft +and climbed his polanca, or long pike pole, hand over hand, every naked +brown muscle in play, moving in perfect rhythm and apparent ease even +up-stream against the powerful current. + +Soon after Chagres and trail parted company, the former to wind on up +through the jungle hills to its birthplace in the land of Darien and +wild Indians, the latter to strike for the Pacific. Over a mildly rough +country it led, down into tangled ravines, up over dense forested +hillocks where the jungle had been fought back by Uncle Sam and on the +brows of which I halted to drink of the fresh breeze sweeping across +from the Atlantic. All this time not a suggestion of anything Greek, +though I managed by some simple strategy to cast a sweeping glance into +every hovel along the way. + +Then came the real Cruces trail--the rest only follows the general +direction. I fell upon it unexpectedly. It is still there as it was +when the Peruvian viceroys and their glittering trains clattered along +it, surprisingly well preserved; a cobbled way some three feet wide of +that rough and bumpy variety the Spaniard even to-day fancies a real +road, broken in places but still well marked, leading away southward +through the wilderness. + +Overhead were tall spreading trees laden with blossomless orchids. +Under some of them was broad grassy shade; but the surrounding wall of +vegetation cut off all breeze. The way was intersected by many roads of +leaf-cutting ants, as level, wide and well-built in their proportion as +the old Roman highways, with such an industrious throng going and +coming upon them as one could find nowhere equaled, unless it be on the +Grand Trunk Road of India. + +Then suddenly there appeared the hut that had been described to me. I +surrounded it and, hand upon the butt of my No. 38, closed in upon the +place, then rushed it with all forces. + +There was not a sign of human life in the vicinity. The door was tied +shut with a single strand of old rope, but there was no question that +the fugitive might be hiding inside, for the reed walls had holes in +them large enough to drive a sheep through, and there was nothing +within to hide behind. I thrust an arm through an opening and dragged +the large and heavy earthenware water-jar to me for a drink, and pushed +on. + +Squatter's cabins were now appearing, as contrasted with the native +bushman's peaked hut; sleeping-places thrown together of tin cans, +boxes and jungle rubbish, many negro shanties built of I. C. C. +scraps--all of which announced the vicinity of the canal. Any hut might +be a hiding-place. I made ostensibly casual inquiries, interlarded +between stories, at several of them, and at length established that the +Greek had been there not long before, but was elsewhere now. Then about +four of the afternoon I burst out suddenly in sight of a broad modern +highway, and leaving the ancient route as it headed away toward Old +Panama, I turned aside to the modern city. + +Then I was "called off the Greek chase"; and a couple of evenings +later, along with the evening train and the evening fog, the Inspector +"blew in" from his forty-two days' vacation in the States, like a +breath from far-off Broadway. Buffalo Bill had been duly opened and +started on his season's way, the absent returned, and Corporal Castillo +suddenly dwindled again to a mere corporal. + +As everything must have its flaws, perhaps the chief one that might be +charged against the Z. P. is "red tape." Strictly speaking it is no Z. +P. fault at all, but a weakness of all government. One example will +suffice. + +During the month of May I was assigned the investigation of certain +alleged conditions in Panama's restricted district. The then head of +the plain-clothes division gave me carte blanche, but suggested that I +need not spare my expense account in libating the various +establishments until I "got acquainted" sufficiently with the inmates +to pick up indirectly the information desired. + +Which general line I followed and, the information having been gathered +and the report made up, I proceed to make out my expenditures of $45 +for the month to forward to Empire for reimbursement. Now it needs no +deep detective experience to know that in such cases you naturally +begin with, "Well, what you going to drink, girls?" and end by paying +the bill in a lump sum--a large lump sum--and go your way in peace. +What more then could I do than set down such items as: + +"May 12, Liquor, investigation, Panama--$6.50?" + +But here I began to feel the tangling strands. Was it not stated that +all applications for reimbursement required an exact itemized account +of each separate expenditure, with the price of each? It did. But in +the first place I did not know half the beverages consumed in that +investigation by sight, smell, or name. In the second place I came +ostensibly as a "rounder"; it would perhaps have been advisable at the +close of each evening's entertainment to draw out note-book and pencil +and starting the round of the table announce: + +"Now, girls, I'm a dee-tective. No, keep yer places, I ain't going to +pinch nobody. Anyhow I'm only a Zone detective. But I just want to ask +you a few questions. Now, Mamie, what's that you're drinking? Ah! A gin +ricky. And just how much does that cost--here? And you, Flossie? An +absinthe frappe? Ah! Very good. And what is the retail price of that +particular drink?"--and so on ad nauseum. + +"Very true," replied authority, "that would of course be impossible. +But to be reimbursed you must set down in detail every item of +expenditure, and its price." + +Reason and government red tape move in two parallel lines, with the +usual meeting-place. + +Nor was that all. While the black Peruvian was on my staff I gave him +money for food. It was not merely expected, it was definitely so +ordered. Yet when I set down: + +"May 27, To Peruvian for food--$.50." authority threw up its hands in +horror. Did I not know that reimbursements were ONLY for "liquor and +cigars, cab or boat hire, and meals away from home?" I did. But I also +knew that superiors had ordered me to feed the Peruvian. "To be sure!" +cried astounded authority. "But you set down such an expenditure as +follows: + +"'May 27, Two bottles of beer, Pan., investigation--$.50.' + +"And as you are allowed cab fare ONLY for yourself, when you take the +Peruvian or any one else out to Balboa in a cab you set down the item: + +"'May 26, Cab, Ancon to Balboa AND RETURN, investigation--$1.'" + +The upshot of all which was, not feeling able with all my patriotism to +"set up" $45 worth of mixed drinks for Uncle Sam, I was forced to open +another investigation and gather from all the Z. P. authorities on the +subject, from Naos Island to Paraiso, the name and price of every known +beverage. Then when I had fitted together a picture puzzle of these +that summed up to the amount I had actually spent, I was called upon to +sign a statement thereunder that "this is a true and exact account of +expenditures during the month of May. So help me God." + +But then, as I have said before, these things are not Z. P. faults, +they are the faults of government since government began. + +It had become evident soon after the Inspector's return that unless +crime began to pick up down at the Pacific end of the Zone, I should +find myself again banished to the foreign land of Gatun. For there had +been a distinct rise in the criminal commodity at that end during the +past weeks. The premonition soon fell true. + +"Take the 10:55 to Gatun," said the Inspector one morning, without +looking up from his filing case, "Corporal Macey will tell you about it +when you get there." + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +"Why, the fact is," said Corporal Macey, lighting his meerschaum pipe +until the match burned down to his fingers, "several little burglary +stunts have been pulling themselves off since the sergeant went on +vacation. But the most aggrayvaatin' is this new one of twinty-two +quarts of good Canadian Club bein' maliciously extracted from St. +Martin's saloon last night." + +From which important beginning I fell quickly back into the old life +again, derelicting about Gatun and vicinity by day, wandering the +nights away in black, noisy New Gatun and along the winding back road +under the cloud-scudding sky. Yet it was a different life. Gatun had +changed. Even her concrete light-house was winking all night now up +among the I. C. C. dwellings. The breeze from off the Caribbean was +heavy and lifeless. The landscape looked wet and lush and rampant, of a +deep-seated green, and instead of the china-blue skies the dull, +leaden-gray heavens seemed to hang low and heavy overhead, like a +portending fate. On the winding back road the jungle trees still stood +out against the night sky, at times, too, there was a moon, but only a +pale silver one that peered weakly here and there through the scudding +gray clouds. The air grew more thick and sultry day by day, the heat +was sticky, the weather dripping, with the sun only an irregular +whitish blotch in the sky. Through the open windows the heavy, damp +night came miasmically floating in, the very cigarettes mildewed in my +pockets. Earth and air seemed heavy and toil-bowed by comparison with +other days. The jungle still hummed busily, yet, it seemed, a bit +mournfully as if preparing for production and unhilarious with the task +before it, like a woman first learning of her pregnancy. Life seemed to +hang more heavily even on humanity; "Zoners" looked less gay and +carefree than in the sunny dry season, though still far more so than in +the north. One could not shake off a premonition of impending disaster +in I know not what form--like that of Teufelsdroeck before he entered +the "Center of Indifference." + +Dr. O---- of the Sanitary Department had gone up into the interior +along the Trinidad river to hunt mosquitoes. Why he went so far away +for them in this season was hard to understand. There he was, however, +and the order had come to bring him back to civilization. The execution +thereof fell, of course, to my friend B----, who to the world at large +is merely Policeman No. ----, to the force "Admiral of the Inland +Fleet," and in the general scheme of things is a luckier man than +Vanderchild to have for his task in life the patrolling of Gatun Lake. +B---- invited me to go along. There was nothing particular doing in the +criminal line around Gatun just then; moreover the doctor was known to +be well armed and there was no telling just how much resistance he +might offer a single policeman. I accepted. + +I was at the appointed rendezvous promptly at seven, a pocket filled +with commissary cigars. Strict truthfulness demands the admission that +it was really eight, however, when B---- came wandering down the muddy +steps behind the railroad station, followed by a black prisoner with a +ten-gallon can of gasoline on his head. When that had been poured into +the tank, we were off across the ever-rising waters of Gatun Lake. For +Gatun police launch is one of those peculiar motor-boats that starts +the same day you had planned to. + +It was such a day as could not have been bettered had it been made to +order, with a week to think out the details,--a dry-season day even to +the Atlantic breeze that goes with it, a sort of Indian summer of the +rainy season; though the heavy battalions of gray clouds that hung all +around the horizon as if awaiting the order to charge warned the Zone +to make merry while it might, for to-morrow it would surely rain--in +deluges. The lake, much higher now than in my former Gatun days, was +licking at the 27-foot level that morning. Under the brilliant blue sky +it looked like some vast unruffled mirror--which is no figure of +speech, but plain fact. + +"Through a Forest in a Motor-boat" we might have dubbed the trip. We +had soon crossed the unbroken expanse of the lake and were moving +through a submerged forest. Splendid royal palms stood up to their +necks in the water, corpulent, century-old giants of the jungle stood +on tip-toe with their jagged noses just above the surface, gasping +their last. Great mango-trees laden with fruit were descending into the +flood. The lake was so mirror-like we could see the heads of drowning +palm-trees and the blue sky with its wisps of snow-white feathery +clouds as plainly below as above, so mirror-like the protruding stump +of a palm looked like a piece of just double that length and exactly +equal ends floating upright like a water thermometer, so reflective +that the broken end of a branch showing above the surface appeared to +be an acute angle of wood floating exactly at the angle in impossible +equilibrium. + +Our prisoner and crew were from "Bahbaydos"--only you can't pronounce +it as he did, nor make the "a" broad enough, nor show the inside of +your red throat clear back to the soft palate to contrast with the +glistening black skin of your carefree, grinning face. Theoretically he +was being punished for assault and battery. But if this is punishment +to be sentenced to cruise around on Gatun Lake I wonder crime on the +Zone is so rare and unusual. This much I am sure, if I were in that +particular "Badgyan's" shoes--no, he had none; but his tracks, say--the +day my time ran out I should pick a quarrel with a Jamaican and leave +his countenance in such a condition that the judge could find no +grounds for a reasonable doubt in the matter. + +We were mounting the river Trinidad. River, yes, but we followed it +only because it had kept back the jungle and left a way free of +tree-tops, not because there was not water enough anywhere, in any +direction, to float a boat of many times our draught. Turns so sharp we +rocked in our own wake; once we passed acres upon acres of big, +cod-like fish floating dead upon the water among the branches and the +forest rubbish. It seems the lake in rising spread over some poisonous +mineral in the soil. But life there was none, except the rampant green +dying plant life in every direction to the horizon. There were not even +birds, other than now and then a stray snow-white slender one of the +heron species that fled majestically away across the face of the +nurtureless waters as we steamed--no, gasolined down upon it. Soon +after leaving Gatun we had passed a couple of jungle families on their +way to market in their cayucas laden with mounds of produce,--plump +mangoes with a maidenly blush on either cheek, fat yellow bananas, +grass-green plantains, a duck or a chicken standing tied by one leg on +top of it all and gazing complacently around at the scene with the air +of an experienced tourist. It was two hours later that we sighted the +next human being. He was a solitary old native paddling about at the +entrance to the "grass-bird region" in a huge dugout as time-scarred as +himself. + +It was near here that weeks before I had turned with "Admiral" B---- up +a little stream now forever gone to a knoll on which sat the thatched +shelter of a negro who had "taken to the bush" and refused to move even +when notified that he was living on U. S. public domain. When we had +knocked from the trees a box of mangoes and turkey-red maranones, B---- +touched a match to the thatch roof and almost before we could regain +the launch the shack was pouring skyward in a column of smoke. Even the +squatter's old table and chair and a barrel of tumbled odds and ends +entirely outside the hut--it had no walls--caught fire, and when, we +lost sight of the knoll only the blazing stumps of the four poles that +had supported the roof remained. + +B---- had burned whole villages in this lake territory, after the +owners with legal claims had been paid condemnation damages. Long ago +the natives had been warned to move, and the banks of the lake-to-be +specified. But many of these skeptical children of nature had taken +this as a vain "yanqui" boast and either refused to move until burned +out or had rebuilt their hovels on land that in a few months more would +also be flooded. + +The rescue expedition proceeded. Once we got caught in the top-most +branches of a tree, released from which we pushed on along the sinuous +river that had no banks. It was not hot, even at noonday. We sweated a +bit in poling a thirty-foot boat out of a tree-top, but cooled again +directly we were off. My kodak was far away at the other end of the +Zone. But then, on second thought it was better for once to enjoy +nature as it was without trying to carry it away. Kodaking is a species +of covetousness, anyway, an attempt to bear away home with us and hoard +for our own the best we come upon in our travels. Whereas here, of +course, it was impossible. The greatest of artists could not have +carried away a tenth of that scene, a scene so fascinating that though +we had tossed into the bottom of the boat at the start a bundle of +fresh New York papers--and fresh New York papers are not often scorned +down on the Zone--they still lay in the bottom of the boat when the +trip ended. + +At length little thatched cottages began to appear on knolls along the +way, and as we chugged our way around the tree-tops upon them the +inhabitants slipped quickly into some clothes that were evidently kept +for just such emergencies. Then we began nearing higher land, so that +the upper and then the lower branches of the forest stood out of water, +then only the ends of the lower limbs dipped in the rising flood, +downcast, as if they knew the sentence of death was upon them also. For +though there was sunk already beneath the flood a forest greater than +ten Fontainebleaus, the lake was steadily rising a full two inches a +day. Where it touched that morning the 27-foot level, in a few months +more, says "the Colonel," it will reach the 87-foot level and spread +over one hundred and sixty-four square miles of territory--and when +"the Colonel" makes an assertion wise men hesitate to put their money +on the other horse. Then will all this vast area with more green than +in all the state of Missouri disappear forever beneath the flood and +man may dive down, down into the forest and see what the world was like +in Noah's time, and fancy the sunken cities of Holland, for many a +famous route, and villages older than the days of Pizarro will be +forever wiped out by the rising waters--a scene to be beheld today +nowhere else, and in a few years not even here. At last we were really +in a river, an overflowed river, to be sure, where it would have been +hard to find a landing-place or a bank among those tree trunks +knee-deep in water. We had long since crossed the Zone line, but our +badges were still valid. For it has pleased the Republic of Panama, at +a whispered word from "Tio Sam," to cede to the Z. P. command over all +Gatun Lake and for three miles around it, as far as ever it may spread. + +Then all at once we were startled by a hearty hail from among the trees +and I looked up to see Y----, of the Smithsonian, fully dressed, +standing waist-deep in the water at the edge of the forest, waving an +insect trap in one hand. + +"What the devil are you doing there?" I gasped. + +"Doing? I'm taking a walk along the old Gatun-Chorrera trail, and I +fancy I 'll be about the last man to travel it. Come on up to camp." + +On a mango-shaped knoll thirty miles from Gatun that will also soon be +lake bottom, we found a native shack transformed into the headquarters +of a scientific expedition. We sat down to a frontier lunch which +called for none of the excuses made for it by Y---- when he appeared in +his dripping full-dress and joined us without even bothering to change +his water-spurting shoes. In his boxes he had carefully stuck away side +by side an untold number of members of the mosquito family. Queer +vocation; but then, any vocation is good that gives an excuse to live +out in this wild tropical world. + +By one we had Dr. O---- aboard and were waving farewell to the camp. +The return, of course, was not the equal of the outward trip; even +nature cannot duplicate so perfect a thing. But two raging showers gave +us views of the drowning jungle under another aspect, and between them +we awakened vast rolling echoes across the silent flooded world by +shooting at flocks of little birds with an army rifle that would have +killed an elephant. + +It is not hard to realize why the bush native does not love the +American. Put yourself in his breechclout. Suppose a throng of +unsympathetic foreigners suddenly appeared resolved to turn all the +world you knew into a lake, just because that absurd outside world +wanted to float steamers you never knew the use of, from somewhere you +never heard of, to somewhere you did not know. Suppose a representative +of that unsympathetic government came snorting down upon you one day in +a wild fearful invention they called a motor-boat, as you were lolling +under the thatch roof your grandfather built, and cried: + +"Come on! Get out of here! We're going to burn your house and turn this +country into a lake." + +Flood the land which was your great-grand-father's, the spot where you +used to play leap-frog under the banana trees, the jungle lane where +your mother's courtship days were passed and the ceiga tree under which +she was wedded--if matters were ever carried to that ceremonious +length. What though this foreign nation gave you a bag of peculiar +pieces of metal for your trouble, when you had never seen a score of +such coins in your life and barely knew the use of them, being +acquainted with life only as it is picked from a mango-tree? The +foreigners had cried, "Take this money and go buy a farm somewhere +else," and you looked around you and saw all the world you had ever +really known the existence of sinking beneath the rising waters. Where +would you go, think you, to buy that new farm? Even if you fled and +found another unknown land high and dry, or a town, what could you do, +having not the remotest idea how to live in a town with only pieces of +metal to get food out of instead of the mango-tree that had stood +behind the house your grandfather built ever since you were born and +dropped mangoes whenever you were hungry? To say the least you would be +some peeved. + +It was midafternoon when the white bulk of Gatun locks rose on the +horizon. Then the lake opened out, the great dam, that is rather a +connecting link between two ranges of hills, spread across all the +landscape, and at four I raced up the muddy steps behind the station to +a telephone. Five minutes later I was hurrying away across locks and +dam to the marshland beyond the Spillway to inquire who, and wherefore, +had attempted to burn up the I. C. C. launch attached to dredge No. +----. + +My Canal Zone days were drawing rapidly to a close. I could have +remained longer without regret, but the world is wide and life is +short. Soon came the day, June seventeenth, when I must go back across +the Isthmus to clear up the last threads of my existence as a "Zoner." +Chiefly for old times' sake I dropped off at Empire. But it was not the +same Empire of the census. Almost all the old crowd was gone; one by +one they had "kissed the Zone good-by." "The boss" of those days had +never returned, "smiling Johnny" had been transferred, even Ben had +"done quit an' gone back to Bahbaydos." The Zone is like a small +section of life; as in other places where generations are short one +catches there a hint of what old age will be. It was like wandering +over the old campus when those who were freshmen in our day had hawked +their gowns and mortarboards and gone their way; I felt like a man in +his dotage with only the new, unknown, and indifferent generation about +him. + +I went down to the old suspension bridge. Far down below was the same +struggling energy, the same gangs of upright human ants, the "cut" with +its jangle and jar of steam-shovels and trains still stretching away +endless in either direction. Here as in the world at large generations +of us may come and pass away, but the tearing of the shovels at the +rocky earth, the racing of dirt-laden trains for the Pacific goes +unbrokenly on, as the world and its work will continue without a pause +when we are gone indeed. + +Soon the water will be turned in and nine-tenths of all this labor will +be submerged and forever hidden from view. The swift growth of the +tropics will quickly heal the scars of the steam-shovels, and +palm-trees will wave the steamer on its way through what will seem +almost a natural channel. Then blase travelers lolling in their deck +chairs will gaze about them and snort: + +"Huh! Is that all we got for nine years' work and half a billion +dollars?" They will have forgotten the scrubbing of Panama and Colon, +forgotten the vast hospitals with great surgeons and graduate nurses, +the building of hundreds of houses and the furnishing of them down to +the last center table, they will not recall the rebuilding of the +entire P. R. R., nor scores of little items like $43,000 a year merely +for oil and negroes to pump it on the pestilent mosquito, the thousand +and one little things so essential to the success of the enterprise yet +that leave not a trace behind. Greater perhaps than the building of the +canal is the accomplishment of the United States in showing the natives +how life can be lived safely and healthily in tropical jungles. Yet the +lesson will not be learned, and on the heels of the last canal builder +will return all the old slovenliness and disease, and the native will +sink back into just what he would have been had we never come. + +I caught a dirt-train to Balboa. There the very town at which I had +landed on the Zone five months before was being razed to give place to +the permanent, reenforced-concrete city that is to be the canal +headquarters. Balboa police station was only a pile of lumber, with a +band of negroes drilling away the very rock on which it had stood. I +took a last view of the Pacific and her islands to far Taboga, where +Uncle Sam sends his recuperating children to enjoy the sea baths, hill +climbs, and unrivaled pine-apples. It was never my good fortune to get +to Taboga. With thirty days' sick leave a year and countless ailments +of which I might have been cured free of charge and with the best of +care, I could not catch a thing. I had not even the luck of my +friend--who, by dint of cross-country runs in the jungle at noonday and +similar industrious efforts, worked up at last a temperature of 99 +degrees and got his week at Taboga. I stuck immovable at 98.6 degrees. + +Soon after five I had bidden Ancon farewell and set off on the last +ride across the Isthmus. There was a memory tucked away in every +corner. Corozal hotel was still rattling with dishes, Paraiso peeped +out from its lap of hills, Culebra with its penitentiary where +burglarizing negroes go, sunk away into the past. Railroad Avenue in +Empire was still lined with my "enumerated" tags; through an open door +I caught a glimpse of a familiar short figure, one foot resting lightly +and familiarly on a misapplied gas-pipe, the elbow crooked as if +something were held between the fingers. At Bas Obispo I strained my +eyes in vain to make out a familiar face in the familiar uniform, there +was a glimpse of "Old Fritz" water-gauge as we rumbled across the +Chagres, and the train churned away into the heavy green uninhabited +night. + +Only once more was I aroused, as the lights of Gatun flashed up; then +we rolled past the noisy glaring corner of New Gatun and on to Colon. +In Cristobal police station I put badge and passes into a heavy +envelope and dropped them into the train-guard's box; then turned in +for my last night on the Zone. For the steamer already had her fires up +that would bear me, and him who was the studious corporal of +Miraflores, away in the morning to South America. My police days were +ended. + +Then a last hand to you all, oh, Z. P. May you live long and continue +to do your duty frankly and unafraid. I found you men when I expected +only policemen. I reckon my days among you time well spent and I left +you regretting that I could stay no longer with you--and when I leave +any place with regret it must be possessed of some exceeding subtle +charm. But though the world is large, it is also small. + + "So I'll meet you later on, + In the place where you have gone, + Where--" + +Well, say at San Francisco in 1915, anyway, Hasta luego. + + + + +THE END + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Zone Policeman 88, by Harry A. Franck + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ZONE POLICEMAN 88 *** + +***** This file should be named 4786.txt or 4786.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/4/7/8/4786/ + +Produced by Robert Rowe, Charles Franks and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Zone Policeman 88 + [Panama Canal] + +Author: Harry A. Franck + +Release Date: December, 2003 [EBook #4786] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on March 19, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ZONE POLICEMAN 88 *** + + + + +Produced by Robert Rowe, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + +ZONE POLICEMAN 88 + +A CLOSE RANGE STUDY OF THE PANAMA CANAL AND ITS WORKERS + +BY HARRY A. FRANCK + +Author of "A Vagabond Journey Around the World" and "Four Months +Afoot in Spain" + + + + + +TO A HOST OF GOOD FELLOWS THE ZONE POLICE + +Quito, December 31, 1912 + + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +Strip by strip there opened out before me, as I climbed the +"Thousand Stairs" to the red-roofed Administration Building, the +broad panorama of Panama and her bay; below, the city of closely +packed roofs and three-topped plazas compressed in a scallop of +the sun-gleaming Pacific, with its peaked and wooded islands to +far Taboga tilting motionless away to the curve of the earth; +behind, the low, irregular jungled hills stretching hazily off +into South America. On the third-story landing I paused to wipe +the light sweat from forehead and hatband, then pushed open the +screen door of the passageway that leads to police headquarters. + +"Emm--What military service have you had?" asked "the Captain," +looking up from the letter I had presented and swinging half round +in his swivel-chair to fix his clear eyes upon me. + +"None." + +"No?" he said slowly, in a wondering voice; and so long grew the +silence, and so plainly did there spread across "the Captain's" +face the unspoken question, "Well, then what the devil are you +applying here for?" that I felt all at once the stern necessity of +putting in a word for myself or lose the day entirely. + +"But I speak Spanish and--" + +"Ah!" cried "the Captain," with the rising inflection of awakened +interest, "That puts another face on the matter." + +Slowly his eyes wandered, with the far-away look of inner +reflection, to the vacant chair of "the Chief" on the opposite +side of the broad flat desk, then out the wide-open window and +across the shimmering roofs of Ancon to the far green ridges of +the youthful Republic, ablaze with the unbroken tropical sunshine. +The whirr of a telephone bell broke in upon his meditation. In +sharp, clear-cut phrases he answered the questions that came to +him over the wire, hung up the receiver, and pushed the apparatus +away from him with a forceful gesture. + +"Inspector:" he called suddenly; but a moment having passed +without response, he went on in his sharp-cut tones, "How do you +think you would like police work?" + +"I believe I should." + +"The Captain" shuffled for a moment one of several stacks of +unfolded letters on his desk. + +"Well, it's the most thankless damned job in Creation," he went +on, almost dreamily, "but it certainly gives a man much touch with +human nature from all angles, and--well, I suppose we do some +good. Somebody's got to do it, anyway." + +"Of course I suppose it would depend on what class of police work +I got," I put in, recalling the warning of the writer of my letter +of introduction that, "You may get assigned to some dinky little +station and never see anything of the Zone,"--"I'm better at +moving around than sitting still. I notice you have policemen on +your trains, or perhaps in special duty languages would be--" + +"Yes, I was thinking along that line, too," said "the Captain." + +He rose suddenly from his chair and led the way into an adjoining +room, busy with several young Americans over desks and +typewriters. + +"Inspector," he said, as a tall and slender yet muscular man of +Indian erectness and noticeably careful grooming rose to his feet, +"Here's one of those rare people, an American who speaks some +foreign languages. Have a talk with him. Perhaps we can arrange to +fix him up both for his good and our own." + +"Ever done police duty?" began the Inspector, when "the Captain" +had returned to the corner office. + +"No." + +"Military ser--" + +"Nor that either." + +"Well, we usually require it," mused the Inspector slowly, +flashing his diamond ring, "but with your special qualifications +perhaps-- + +"You'd probably be of most use to us in plain clothes," he +continued, after a dozen questions as to my former activities; "We +could put you in uniform for the first month or six weeks until +you know the Isthmus, and then-- + +"Our greatest trouble is burglary," he broke off abruptly, rising +to reach a copy of the "Canal Zone Laws"; "If you have nothing +else on hand you might run these over; and the 'Police Rules and +Regulations,'" he added, handing me a small, flat volume bound in +light brown imitation leather. + +I sat down in an arm-chair against the wall and fell to reading, +amid the clickity-click of typewriters, telephone calls even from +far-off Colon on the Atlantic, and the constant going and coming +of a negro orderly in shiningly ironed khaki uniform. By and by +the Inspector drifted into the main office, where his voice +blended for some time with that of "the Captain," At length he +came back bearing a copy of the day's Star and Herald, turned back +to the "Estrella de Panama" pages so rarely opened in the Zone. + +"Just run us off a translation of that, if you don't mind," he +said, pointing to a short paragraph in Spanish. + +Some two minutes later I handed him the English version of the +account of a near-duel between two Panamanians, and took once more +to reading. It was more than an hour later that I was again +interrupted. + +"You'll want to catch the 5:25 back to Corozal?" inquired the +Inspector;" Mr.---, give him transportation to Culebra and back, +and an order for physical examination. + +"You might fill out this application blank," he added, handing me +a long legal sheet, "then in case you are appointed that much will +be done." + +The document began with the usual, "Name----, Birthplace----, and +so on." There followed the information that the appointee "must be +at least five feet eight; weigh one hundred and forty, chest at +least thirty-four inches--" Then suddenly near the bottom of the +back of the sheet my eyes caught the startling words;--"Unless you +are sure you are a man of physical appearance far above the +average do not fill out this application." + +I was suddenly aware of a sinking feeling in the pit of my +stomach; the blank all but slipped from my nerveless fingers. Then +all at once there came back to me the words of some chance +acquaintance of some far-off time and place, words which were the +only memory that remained to me of the speaker, except that he had +lived long and gathered much experience, "Bluff, my boy, is what +carries a man through the world. Act as if you're sure you are and +can and you'll generally make the other fellow think so." I sat +down at a desk and filled out the application in my most self- +confident flourish. + +"Go to Culebra to-morrow," said the Inspector, as I bade the room +good-day and stepped forth with my most military stride and +bearing, "and report back here Friday morning." + +I descended to the world below, not by the long perspective of +stairs that leads down and across the gully to the heart of Ancon, +but by a short-cut that took me quickly into a foreign land. The +graveled highway at the foot of the hill I might not have guessed +was an international boundary had I not chanced to notice the +instant change from the trim, screened Zone buildings, each in its +green lawn, to the featureless architecture of a city where grass +is all but unknown; for the formalities of crossing this frontier +are the same as those of crossing any village street. It was my +first entrance into the land of the panamenos, technically known +on the Zone as "Spigoties," and familiarly, with a tinge of +despite, as "Spigs"; because the first Americans to arrive in the +land found a few natives and cabmen who claimed to "Speaga dee +Eng-leesh." + +To Americans direct from the States Panama city ranks still as +rather a miserable dawdling village. But that is due chiefly to +lack of perspective. Against the background of Central America it +seemed almost a great, certainly a flourishing, city. Even to-day +there are many who complain of its unpleasant odors; to those who +have lived in other tropical cities its scent is like the perfumes +of Araby; and none but those can in any degree realize what "Tio +Sam" has done for the place. + +Toward sunset I passed through a gateway with scores of fellow- +countrymen, all as composedly at home as in the heart of their +native land. Across the platform stood a train distinctively +American in every feature, a bilious-yellow train divided by the +baggage car into two sections, of which the five second-class +coaches behind the engine, with their wooden benches, were densely +packed in every available space with workmen and laborer's wives, +from Spaniards to ebony negroes, with the average color decidedly +dark. In the first-class cars at the Panama end were Americans, +all but exclusively white Americans, with only here and there a +"Spigoty" with his long greased hair, his finger rings, and his +effeminate gestures, and even a negro or two. For though Uncle Sam +may permit individual states to do so, he may not himself openly +abjure before the world his assertion as to the equality of all +men by enacting "Jim Crow" laws. + +We were soon off. Settled back in the ample seat of the first real +train I had boarded in months, with the roar of its length over +the smooth and solid road-bed, the deep-voiced, masculine whistle +instead of the painful, puerile screech that had recently assailed +my ear, I all but forgot I was in a foreign land. The fact was +recalled by the passing of the train-guard,--an erect and self- +possessed young American in "Texas" hat, khaki uniform, and +leather leggings, striding along the aisle with a jerking, half- +arrogant swing of the shoulders. So, perhaps, might I too soon be +parading across the Isthmus! It was not, to be sure, exactly the +role I had planned to play on the Zone. I had come rather with the +hope of shouldering a shovel and descending into the canal with +other workmen, that I might some day solemnly raise my right hand +and boast, "I helped dig IT." But that was in the callow days +before I had arrived and learned the awful gulf that separates the +sacred white American from the rest of the Canal Zone world. +Besides, had I not always wanted to be a policeman and twirl a +club and stalk with heavy, law-compelling tread ever since I had +first stared speechless upon one of those noble beings on my first +trip out into the world twenty-one years before? + +It was not without effort that I rose in time next morning to +continue on the 6:37 from Corozal across another bit of the Zone. +Exactly thus should one first see the Great Work, piece-meal, +slowly; unless he will go home with it all in an undigested lump. +The train rolled across a stretch of almost uninhabited country, +with a vast plain of broken rock on the right, plunged +unexpectedly through a short tunnel, and stopped at a station +perched on the edge of a ridge above a small Zone town backed by +some vast structure, above which here and there a huge crane +loomed against the sky of dawn. Another mile and the collectors +were announcing as brazenly as if they challenged the few "Spigs" +on board to correct them, "Peter M'Gill! Peter M'Gill!" We were +already moving on again before I had guessed that by this noise +they designated none other than the famous Pedro Miguel. The sun +rose suddenly as we swung sharply to the left and rumbled across a +girderless bridge. Barely had I time to discover that we were +crossing the great canal itself and to catch a brief glimpse of +the jagged gulf in either direction, before the train had left it +behind, as if the sight of the world-famous channel were not worth +a pause, and was roaring on through a hilly country of perpetual +summer. A peculiarly shaped reservoir sped past on the left, twice +or thrice more the green horizon rose and fell, and at 7:30 we +drew up at the base of Culebra, the Zone capital. + +On the screened veranda of a somewhat sooty and dismal building +high up near the summit of the town, another and I were pacing +anxiously back and forth when, well on in the morning, an abrupt +and rather gloomy-faced American dashed into the building and one +of the rooms thereof, snapping over his shoulder as he +disappeared, "One of you!" The other had precedence. Then soon +from behind the wooden shutters came a growl of "Next!" and two +moments later I was standing in the reputed costume of Adam on the +scales within. At about ten-second intervals a monosyllable fell +from the lips of the morose American as he delved into my personal +make-up from crown to toe with all the instrumental circumspection +known to his secret-discovering profession. Then with a gruff +"Dress!" he sat down at a table to scratch a few fantastic marks +on the blank I had brought, and hand it to me as I caught up my +last garment and turned to the door. But, alas--tight sealed! and +all the day, though carrying the information in my pocket, I must +live in complete ignorance of whether I had been found lacking an +eye or a lung. For sooner would one have asked his future of the +scowling Parques than venture to invoke a hint thereof from that +furrow-browed being from the Land of Bruskness. + +Meanwhile, as if it had been thus planned to give me such +opportunity, I stood at the very vortex of canal interest and +fame, with nearly an entire day before the evening train should +carry me back to Corozal. I descended to the "observation +platform." Here at last at my very feet was the famous "cut" known +to the world by the name of Culebra; a mighty channel a furlong +wide plunging sheer through "Snake Mountain," that rocky range of +scrub-wooded hills; severing the continental divide. At first view +the scene was bewildering. Only gradually did the eye gather +details out of the mass. Before and beyond were pounding rock +drills, belching locomotives, there arose the rattle and bump of +long trains of flat-cars on many tracks, the crash of falling +boulders, the snort of the straining steam-shovels heaping the +cars high with earth and rock, everywhere were groups of little +men, some working leisurely, some scrambling down into the rocky +bed of the canal or dodging the clanging trains, all far below and +stretching endless in either direction, while over all the scene +hovered a veritable Pittsburg of smoke. + +All long-heralded sights--such is the nature of the world and man +--are at first glimpse disappointing. To this rule the great +Culebra "cut" was no exception. After all this was merely a hill, +a moderate ridge, this backbone of the Isthmus the sundering of +which had sent its echoes to all corners of the earth. The long- +fed imagination had led one to picture a towering mountain, a very +Andes. + +But as I looked longer, noting how little by comparison were the +trains I knew to be of regulation U. S. size, how literally tiny +were the scores upon scores of men far down below who were doing +this thing, its significance regained bit by bit its proper +proportions. Train after train-load of the spoil of the "cut" +ground away towards the Pacific; and here man had been digging +steadily, if not always earnestly, since a year before I was born. +The gigantic scene recalled to the mind the "industrial army" of +which Carlyle was prone to preach, with the same discipline and +organization as an army in the field; and every now and then, to +bear out the figure, there burst forth the mighty cannonade, not +of war, but of peace and progress in the form of earth-upheaving +and house-rocking blasts of dynamite, tearing away the solid rock +below at the very feet of the town. + +I took to the railroad and struck on further into the unknown +country. Almost before I was well started I found myself in +another town, yet larger than Culebra and with the name "Empire" +in the station building; and nearly every rod of the way between +had been lined with villages of negroes and all breeds and colors +of canal workers. So on again along a broad macadamized highway +that bent and rose through low bushy ridges, past an army encamped +in wood and tin barracks on a hillside, with khaki uniformed +soldiers ahorse and afoot enlivening all the roadway and the +neighboring fields. Never a mile without its town--how different +will all this be when the canal is finished and all this community +is gone to Alaska or has scattered itself again over the face of +the earth, and dense tropical solitude has settled down once more +over the scene. + +Panama, they had said, is insupportably hot. Comparing it with +other lands I knew I could not but smile at the notion. Again it +was the lack of perspective. Sweat ran easily, yet so fresh the +air and so refreshing the breeze sweeping incessantly across from +the Atlantic that even the sweating was almost enjoyable. Hot! +Yes, like June on the Canadian border--though not like July. It is +hot in St. Louis on an August Sunday, with all the refreshment +doors tight closed--to strangers; hot in the cotton-fields of +Texas, but with these plutonic corners the heat of the Zone shows +little rivalry. + +The way led round a cone-shaped hill crowned by another military +camp with the Stars and Stripes flapping far above, until I came +at last in sight of the renowned Chagres, seven miles above +Culebra, to all appearances a meek and harmless little stream +spanned by a huge new iron bridge and forbidden to come and play +in the unfinished canal by a little dam of earth that a steam- +shovel will some day eat up in a few hours. Here, where it ends +and the flat country begins, I descended into the "cut," dry and +waterless, with a stone-quarry bottom. A sharp climb out on the +opposite side and I plunged into rampant jungle, half expecting +snake-bites on my exposed ankles--another pre-conceived notion-- +and at length falling into a narrow jungle trail that pitched down +through a dense-grown gully, came upon a fenced compound with +several Zone buildings on the banks of the Chagres, down to which +sloped a broad green lawn. + +Here dwells hale and ruddy "Old Fritz," for long years keeper of +the fluviograph that measures and gives warning of the rampages of +the Chagres. Fritz will talk to you in almost any tongue you may +choose, as he can tell you of adventures in almost any land, all +with a captivating accent and in the vocabulary of a man who has +lived long among men and nature. Nor are Fritz' opinions those +gleaned from other men or the printed page. So we fell to fanning +ourselves this January afternoon on the screened and shaded +veranda above the Chagres, and "Old Fritz," lighting his pipe, +raised his slippered feet to the screen railing and, tossing away +the charred remnant of a match, began:-- + +"Vidout var dere iss no brogress. Ven all der vorld iss at peace, +all der vorld goes to shleep." + +Police headquarters looked all but deserted on Friday morning. +There had been "something doing" in Zone criminal annals the night +before, and not only "the Captain" but both "the Chief" and the +Inspector were "somewhere out along the line." I sat down in the +arm-chair against the wall. A half-hour, perhaps, had I read when +"Eddie"--I am not entitled, perhaps, to such familiarity, but the +solemn title of "chief clerk" is far too stiff and formal for that +soul of good-heartedness striving in vain to hide behind a bluff +exterior--"Eddie," I say, blew a last cloud of smoke from his +lungs to the ceiling, tossed aside the butt of his cigarette, and +motioned to me to take the chair beside his desk. + +"It's all off!" said a voice within me. For the expression on +"Eddie's" face was that of a man with an unpleasant duty to +perform, and his opening words were in exactly that tone of voice +in which a man begins, "I am sorry, but--" Had I not often used it +myself? + +"The Captain," is how he really did begin, "called me up from +Colon last night, and--" + +"Here's where I get my case nol prossed," I found myself +whispering. In all probability that sealed document I had sent in +the day before announced me as a physical wreck. + +"--and told me," continued "Eddie" in his sad, regretful tone, "to +tell you we will take you on the force as a first-class policeman. +It happens, however, that the department of Civil Administration +is about to begin a census of the Zone, and they are looking for +any men that can speak Spanish. If we take you on, therefore, the +Captain would assign you to the census department until that work +is done--it will probably take something over a month--and then +you would be returned to regular police duty. The Chief says he'd +rather have you learn the Isthmus on census than on police pay. + +"Or," went on "Eddie," just as I was about to break in with, "All +right, that suits me,"--"or, if you prefer, the census department +will enroll you as a regular enumerator and we'll take you on the +force as soon as that job is over. The--er--pay," added "Eddie," +reaching for a cigarette but changing his mind, "of enumerators +will be five dollars a day, and--er--five a day beats eighty a +month by more than a nose." + +We descended a story and I was soon in conference with a slender, +sharp-faced young man of mobile features and penetrating eyes +behind which a smile seemed always to be lurking. On the Canal +Zone, as in British colonies, one is frequently struck by the +youthfulness of men in positions of importance. + +"I'll probably assign you to Empire district," the slender young +man was saying, "there's everything up there and almost any +language will sure be some help to us. This time we are taking a +thorough, complete census of all the Zone clear back to the Zone +line. Here's a sample card and list of instructions." + +In other words kind Uncle Sam was about to give me authority to +enter every dwelling in the most cosmopolitan and thickly +populated district of his Canal Zone, and to put questions to +every dweller therein, note-book and pencil in hand; authority to +ramble around a month or more in sunshine and jungle--and pay me +for the privilege. There are really two methods of seeing the +Canal Zone; as an employee or as a guest at the Tivoli, both of +them at about five dollars a day--but at opposite ends of the +thermometer. + +There remained a week-end between that Friday morning and the last +day of January, set for the beginning of the census. Certainly I +should not regret the arrival of the day when I should become an +employee, with all the privileges and coupon-books thereunto +appertained. For the Zone is no easy dwelling-place for the non- +employee. Our worthy Uncle of the chin whiskers makes it quite +plain that, while he may tolerate the mere visitor, he does not +care to have him hanging around; makes it so plain, in fact, that +a few weeks purely of sight-seeing on the Zone implies an +adamantine financial backing. In his screened and full-provided +towns, where the employee lives in such well-furnished comfort, +the tourist might beat his knuckles bare and shake yellow gold in +the other hand, and be coldly refused even a lodging for the +night; and while he may eat a meal in the employees' hotels--at +near twice the employee's price--the very attitude in which he is +received says openly that he is admitted only on suffrance-- +permitted to eat only because if he starved to death our Uncle +would have the bother of burying him and his Zone Police the +arduous toil of making out an accident report. + +Meanwhile I must change my dwelling-place. For the quartermaster +of Corozal had need of all the rooms within his domain, need so +imperative that seventeen bona fide and wrathy employees were even +then bunking in the pool-room of Corozal hotel. Work on the Zone +was moving steadily Pacificward and the accommodations refused to +come with it--at least at the same degree of speed. + +Nor was I especially averse to the transfer. The room-mate with +whom fate had cast me in House 81 was a pleasant enough fellow, a +youth of unobjectionable personal manners even though his "eight- +hour graft" was in the sooty seat of a steam-crane high above +Miraflores locks. But he had one slight idiosyncrasy that might in +time have grown annoying. On the night of our first acquaintance, +after we had lain exchanging random experiences till the evening +heat had begun a retreat before the gentle night breeze, I was +awakened from the first doze by my companion sitting suddenly up +in his cot across the room. + +"Say, I hope you're not nervous?" he remarked. + +"Not immoderately." + +"One of my stunts is night-mare," he went on, rising to switch on +the electric light, "and when I get 'em I generally imagine my +room-mate is a burglar trying to go through my junk and--" + +He reached under his pillow and brought to light a "Colt's" of 45 +caliber; then crossing the room he pointed to three large +irregular splintered holes in the wall some three or four inches +above me, and which I had not already seen simply because I had +not chanced to look that way. + +"There's the last three. But I'm tryin' to break myself of 'em," +he concluded, slipping the revolver back under his pillow and +turning off the light again. + +Which is among the various reasons why it was without protest +that, with "the Captain's" telephoned consent on the ground that I +was now virtually on the force, I took up my residence in Corozal +police station. 'T is a peaceful little building of the usual Zone +type on a breezy knoll across the railroad, with a spreading tree +and a little well-tended flower plot before it, and the broad +world stretching away in all directions behind. Here lived +Policeman T----and B---." First-class policemen" perhaps I should +take care to specify, for in Zone parlance the unqualified noun +implies African ancestry. But it seems easier to use an adjective +of color when necessary. Among their regular duties was that of +weighing down the rocking-chairs on the airy front veranda, whence +each nook and cranny of Corozal was in sight, and of strolling +across to greet the train-guard of the seven daily passengers; +though the irregular ones that might burst upon them at any moment +were not unlikely to resemble a Moro expedition in the +Philippines. B--- and I shared the big main room; for T----, being +the haughty station commander, occupied the parlor suite beside +the office. That was all, except the black Trinidadian boy who sat +on the wooden shelf that was his bed behind a huge padlocked door +and gazed dreamily out through the bars--when he was not carrying +a bundle to the train for his wardens or engaged in the janitor +duties that kept Corozal station so spick and span. Oh! To be sure +there were also a couple of negro policemen in the smaller room +behind the thin wooden partition of our own, but negro policemen +scarcely count in Zone Police reckonings. + +"By Heck! They must use a lot o' mules t' haul aout all thet +dirt," observed an Arkansas farmer to his nephew, home from the +Zone on vacation. He would have thought so indeed could he have +spent a day at Corozal and watched the unbroken deafening +procession of dirt-trains scream by on their way to the Pacific,-- +straining Moguls dragging a furlong of "Lidgerwood flats," swaying +"Oliver dumps" with their side chains clanking, a succession as +incessant of "empties" grinding back again into the midst of the +fray. On the tail of every train lounged an American conductor, +dressed more like a miner, though his "front" and "hind" negro +brakemen were as apt to be in silk ties and patent-leathers. To +say nothing of the train-loads that go Atlanticward and to jungle +"dumps" and to many an unnoticed "fill." Then when he had thus +watched the day through it would have been of interest to go and +chat with some of the "Old Timers" who live here beside the track +and who have seen, or at least heard, this same endless stream of +rock and earth race by six days a week, fifty-two weeks a year for +six years, as constant and heavily-laden to-day as in the +beginning. He might discover, as not all his fellow-countrymen +have as yet, that the little surgical operation on Mother Earth we +are engaged in is no mule job. + +The week-end gave me time to get back in touch with affairs in the +States among the newspaper files at the Y. M. C. A. building. +Uncle Sam surely makes life comfortable for his children wherever +he takes hold. It is not enough that he shall clean up and set in +order these tropical pest-holes; he will have the employee fancy +himself completely at home. Here I sat in one of the dozen big +airy recreation halls, well stocked with man's playthings, which +the government has erected on the Zone; I, who two weeks before +had been thankful for lodging on the earth floor of a Honduranean +hut. The Y. M. C. A. is the chief social center on the Isthmus, +the rendezvous and leisure-hour headquarters of the thousands that +inhabit bachelor quarters--except the few of the purely barroom +type. "Everybody's Association" it might perhaps more properly be +called, for ladies find welcome and the laughter of children over +the parlor games is rarely lacking. It is not the circumspect +place that are many of its type in the States, but a real man's +place where he can buy his cigarettes and smoke his pipe in peace, +a place for men as men are, not as the fashion plates that mama's +fond imagination pictures them. With all its excellences it would +be unjust to complain that the Zone "Y. M." is a trifle "low-brow" +in its tastes, that the books on its shelves are apt to be +"popular" novels rather than reading matter, that its phonographs +are most frequently screeching vaudeville noises while the Slezak +and Homer disks lie tucked away far down near the bottom of the +stack. + +With the new week I moved to Empire, the "Rules and Regulations" +in a pocket and the most indispensable of my possessions under an +arm. Once more we rumbled through Miraflores tunnel through a +mole-hill, past her concrete light-house among the astonished +palms, and her giant hose of water wiping away the rock hills, +across the trestleless bridge with its photographic glimpse of the +canal before and behind for the limber-necked, and again I found +myself in the metropolis of the Canal Zone. At the quartermaster's +office my "application for quarters" was duly filed without a word +and a slip assigning me to Room 3, House 47, as silently returned. +I climbed by a stone-faced U. S. road to my new home on the slope +of a ridge overlooking the railway and its buildings below. + +It was the noon-hour. My two room-mates, therefore, were on hand +for inspection, sprawlingly engrossed in a--quite innocent and +legal--card game on a table littered with tobacco, pipes, matches, +dog-eared wads of every species of literature from real estate +pamphlets to locomotive journals, and a further mass of +indiscriminate matter that none but a professional inventory man +would attempt to classify. About the room was the usual clutter of +all manner of things in the usual unarranged, "unwomaned" Zone +way, which the negro janitor feels it neither his duty nor +privilege to bring to order; while on and about my cot and bureau +were helter-skeltered the sundry possessions of an absent +employee, who had left for his six-weeks' vacation without hanging +up his shirt--after the fashion of "Zoners." So when I had wiped +away the dust that had been gathering thereon since the days of de +Lesseps and chucked my odds and ends into a bureau drawer, I was +settled,--a full-fledged Zone employee in the quarters to which +every man on the "gold roll" is entitled free of charge. + +Just here it may be well to explain that the I. C. C. has very +dexterously dodged the necessity of lining the Zone with the +offensive signs "Black" and "White." 'T would not be exactly the +distinction desired anyway. Hence the line has been drawn between +"Gold" and "Silver" employees. The first division, paid in gold +coin, is made up, with a few exceptions, of white American +citizens. To the second belong any of the darker shade, and all +common laborers of whatever color, these receiving their wages in +Panamanian silver. 'T is a deep and sharp-drawn line. The story +runs that Liza Lawsome, not long arrived from Jamaica, entering +the office of a Zone dentist, paused suddenly before the +announcement: + + Crownwork. Gold and Silver Fillings. + Extractions wholly without Pain. + +There was deep disappointment in face and voice as she sat down +with a flounce of her starched and snow-white skirt, gasping: + +"Oh, Doctah, does I HAVE to have silver fillings?" + +My room-mates, "Mitch" and "Tom," sat respectively at the throttle +of a locomotive that jerked dirt-trains out of the "cut" and +straddled a steam-shovel that ate its way into Culebra range. +Whence, of course, they were covered with the grease and grime +incident to those occupations. Which did not make them any the +less companionable--though it did promise a distinct increase in +my laundry bill. When they had descended again to the labor-train +and been snatched away to their appointed tasks, I sat a short +hour in one of the black "Mission" rocking-chairs on the screened +veranda puzzling over a serious problem. The quarters of the +"gold" employee is as completely furnished as any reasonable man +could demand, his iron cot with springs and mattress +unimpeachable--but just there the maternal generosity of the +government ceases. He must furnish his own sheets and pillow--MUST +because placards on the wall sternly warn him not to sleep on the +bare mattress; and the New York Sunday edition that had served me +thus far I had carelessly left behind at Corozal police station. +To be sure there were sheets for sale in Empire, at the +Commissary--where money has the purchasing-power of cobble-stones, +and coupon-books come only to those who have worked a day or more +on the Zone. Then the Jamaican janitor, drifting in to potter +about the room, evidently guessed the cause of my perplexity, for +he turned to point to the bed of the absent "Mitch" and gurgled: + +"Jes' you make lub to dat man what got dat bed. Him got plenty ob +sheets." Which proved a wise suggestion. + +Empire hotel sat a bit down the hill. There the "gold" ranks were +again subdivided. The coatless ate and sweltered inside the great +dining-room; the formal sat in haughty state in what was virtually +a second-story veranda overlooking the railroad yards and a part +of the town, where were tables of four, electric fans, and "Ben" +to serve with butler formality. I found it worth while to climb +the hill for my coat thrice a day. As yet I was jangling down a +Panamanian dollar at each appearance, but the day was not far +distant when I should receive the "recruits" hotel-book and soon +grow as accustomed as the rest to having a coupon snatched from it +by the yellow negro at the door. Uncle Sam's boarding scale on the +Zone is widely varied. Three meals cost the non-employee $1.50, +the "gold" employee $.90, the white European laborer $.40, and +negroes in general $.30. + +That afternoon, when the sun had begun to bow its head on the +thither side of the canal, I climbed to the newly labeled census +office on the knoll behind the police station, from the piazza of +which all native Empire lies within sweep of the eye. "The boss," +a smiling youth only well started on his third decade, whose +regular duties were in the sanitary department, had already moved +bed, bag, and baggage into the room that had been assigned the +census, that he might be "always on the job." + +Not till eight that evening, however, did the force gather to look +itself over. There was the commander-in-chief of the census +bureau, sent down from Washington specifically for the task in +hand, under whom as chairmen we settled down into a sort of +director's meeting, a wholly informal, coatless, cigarette-smoking +meeting in which even the chief himself did not feel it necessary +to let his dignity weigh upon him. He had been sent down alone. +Hence there had been great scrambling to gather together on the +Zone men enough who spoke Spanish--and with no striking success. +Most noticeable of my fellow-enumerators, being in uniform, were +three Marines from Bas Obispo, fluent with the working Spanish +they had picked up from Mindanao to Puerto Rico, and flush-cheeked +with the prospect of a full month on "pass," to say nothing of the +$4.40 a day that would be added to their daily military income of +$.60. Then there were four of darker hue,--Panamanians and West +Indians; and how rare are Spanish-speaking, Americans on the Zone +was proved by the admittance of such complexions to the "gold" +roll. + +Of native U. S. civilians there were but two of us. Of whom +Barter, speaking only his nasal New Jersey, must perforce be +assigned to the "gold" quarters, leaving me the native town of +Empire. At which we were both satisfied, Barter because he did not +like to sully himself by contact with foreigners, I because one +need not travel clear to the Canal Zone to study the ways of +Americans. As for the other seven, each was assigned his strip of +land something over a mile wide and five long running back to the +western boundary of the Zone. That region of wilderness known as +"Beyond the Canal" was to be left for special treatment later. The +Zone had been divided for census purposes into four sections, with +headquarters and supervisor in Ancon, Empire, Gorgona, and +Cristobal respectively. Our district, stretching from the +trestleless bridge over the canal to a great tree near Bas Obispo, +was easily the fat of the land, the most populous, most +cosmopolitan, and embracing within its limits the greatest task on +the Zone. + +Meanwhile we had fallen to studying the "Instructions to +Enumerators," the very first article of which was such as to give +pause and reflection; + +"When you have once signed on as an enumerator you cannot cease to +exercise your functions as such without justifiable cause under +penalty of $500 fine." Which warning was quickly followed by the +hair-raising announcement: + +"If you set down the name of a fictitious person"--what can have +given the good census department the notion of such a +possibility?--"you will be fined $2,000 or sentenced to five +years' imprisonment, or both." + +From there on the injunctions grew less nerve-racking: "You must +use a medium soft black pencil (which will be furnished)"--law- +breaking under such conditions would be absurdity--"use no ditto +marks and"--here I could not but shudder as there passed before my +eyes memories of college lecture rooms and all the strange marks +that have come to mean something to me alone--" take pains to +write legibly!" + +Then we arose and swarmed upstairs to an empty court-room, where +Judge G---, throwing away his cigarette and removing his Iowa feet +from the bar of justice, caused us each to raise a right hand and +swear an oath as solemn as ever president on March fourth. An +oath, I repeat, not merely to uphold and defend the constitution +against all enemies, armed or armless, but furthermore "not to +share with any one any of the information you gather as an +enumerator, or show a census card, or keep a copy of same." Yet, I +trust I can spin this simple yarn of my Canal Zone days without +offense to Uncle Sam against the day when mayhap I shall have +occasion to apply to him again for occupation. For that reason I +shall take abundant care to give no information whatsoever in the +following pages. + + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +"The boss" and I initiated the Canal Zone Census that very night. +Legally it was to begin with the dawning of February, but there +were many labor camps in our district and the hours bordering on +midnight the only sure time to "catch 'em in." Up in House 47 I +gathered together the legion paraphernalia of this new +occupation,--some two hundred red cards a foot long and half as +wide, a surveyor's field notebook for the preservation of +miscellaneous information, tags for the tagging of canvassed +buildings, tacks for the tacking of the same, the necessary tack- +hammer, the medium soft black pencil, above all the awesome legal +"Commission," impressively signed and sealed, wherein none other +than our weighty nation's chief himself did expressly authorize me +to search out, enter, and question ad libitum. All this swung over +a shoulder in a white canvas sack, that carried memory back +through the long years to my newsboy days, I descended to the +town. + +"The boss" was ready. It was nearly eleven when we crossed the +silent P. R. R. tracks and, plunging away into the night past +great heaps of abandoned locomotives huddled dim and uncertain in +the thin moonlight like ghosts of the French fiasco, dashed into a +camp of the laborer's village of Cunette, pitched on the very edge +of the now black and silent void of the canal. Eighteen thick- +necked negroes in undershirts and trousers gazed up white-eyed +from a suspended card game at the long camp table. But we had no +time for explanations. + +"Name?" I shouted at the coal-hued Hercules nearest at hand. + +"David Providence," he bleated in trembling voice, and the great +Zone questionnaire was on. + +We had enrolled the group before a son of wisdom among them +surmised that we were not, after all, plain-clothes men in quest +of criminals; and his announcement brought visible relief. Twice +as many blacks were sprawled in the two rows of double-sided, +three-story bunks,--mere strips of canvas on gas-pipes that could +be hung up like swinging shelves when not in use. Mere noise did +not even disturb their dreams. We roused them by pencil-jabs in +the ribs, and they started up with savage, animal-like grunts and +murderous glares which instantly subsided to sheepish grins and +voiceless astonishment at sight of a white face bending over them. +Now and again open-mouthed guffaws of laughter greeted the mumbled +admission of some powerful buck that he could not read, or did not +know his age. But there was nothing even faintly resembling +insolence, for these were all British West Indians without a +corrupting "States nigger" among them. A half-hour after our +arrival we had tagged the barracks and dived into the next camp, +blacker and sleepier and more populous than the first. It was +February morning before I climbed the steps of silent 47 and +stepped under the shower-bath that is always preliminary, on the +Zone, to a night's repose. + +A dream of earthquake, holocaust, and general destruction +developed gradually into full consciousness at four-thirty. House +47 was in riotous uproar. No, neither conflagration nor foreign +invasion was pending; it was merely the houseful of engineers in +their customary daily struggle to catch the labor-train and be +away to work by daylight. When the hour's rampage had subsided I +rose to switch off the light and turned in again. + +The rays of the impetuous Panama sun were spattering from them +when I passed again the jumbled rows of invalided locomotives and +machinery, reddish with rust and bound, like Gulliver, by green +jungle strands and tropical creepers. By day the arch-roofed +labor-camps were silent and empty, but for a lonely janitor +languidly mopping a floor. Before the buildings a black gang was +dipping the canvas and gas-pipe bunks one by one into a great +kettle of scalding water. But there are also "married quarters" at +Cunette. A row of six government houses tops the ridge, with six +families in each house, and--no, I dare not risk nomination to an +ever expanding though unpopular club by stating how many in a +family. I will venture merely to assert that when noon-time came I +was not well started on the second house, yet carried away more +than sixty filled-out cards. + +More than two days that single row of houses endured, varied by +nights spent with "the boss" in the labor-camps of Lirio, Culebra +way. Then one morning I tramped far out the highway to the old +Scotchman's farm-house that bounds Empire on the north and began +the long intricate journey through the private-owned town itself. +It was like attending a congress of the nations, a museum +exhibition of all the shapes and hues in which the human vegetable +grows. Tenements and wobbly-kneed shanties swarming with exhibits +monopolized the landscape; strange the room that did not yield up +at least a man and woman and three or four children. Day after +blazing day I sat on rickety chairs, wash-tubs, ironing-boards, +veranda railings, climbing creaking stairways, now and again +descending a treacherous one in unintentional haste and ungraceful +posture, burrowing into blind but inhabited cubby-holes, hunting +out squatters' nests of tin cans and dry-goods boxes hidden away +behind the legitimate buildings, shouting questions into +dilapidated ear-drums, delving into the past of every human being +who fell in my way. West Indian negroes easily kept the lead of +all other nationalities combined; negroes blacker than the +obsidian cutlery of the Aztecs, blonde negroes with yellow hair +and blue eyes whose race was betrayed only by eyelids and the dead +whiteness of skin, and whom one could not set down as such after +enrolling swarthy Spaniards as "white" without a smile. + +They lived chiefly in windowless, six-by-eight rooms, always a +cheap, dirty calico curtain dividing the three-foot parlor in +front from the five-foot bedroom behind, the former cluttered with +a van-load of useless junk, dirty blankets, decrepit furniture, +glittering gewgaws, a black baby squirming naked in a basket of +rags with an Episcopal prayerbook under its pillow--relic of the +old demon-scaring superstitions of Voodoo worship. Every inch of +the walls was "decorated," after the artistic temperament of the +race, with pages of illustrated magazines or newspapers, half- +tones of all things conceivable with no small amount of text in +sundry languages, many a page purely of advertising matter, the +muscular, imbruted likeness of a certain black champion rarely +missing, frequently with a Bible laid reverently beneath it. +Outside, before each room, a tin fireplace for cooking +precariously bestrided the veranda rail. + +Often a tumble-down hovel where three would seem a crowd yielded +up more than a dozen inmates, many of whom, being at work, must be +looked for later--the "back-calls" that is the bete-noire of the +census enumerator. West Indians, however, are for the most part +well acquainted with the affairs of friends and room-mates, and +enrolment of the absent was often possible. Occasionally I ran +into a den of impertinence that must be frowned down, notably a +notorious swarming tenement over a lumber-yard. But on the whole +the courtesy of British West Indians, even among themselves, was +noteworthy. Of the two great divisions among them, Barbadians +seemed more well-mannered than Jamaicans--or was it merely more +subtle hypocrisy? Among them all the most unspoiled children of +nature appeared to be those from the little island of Nevis. + +"You ain't no American?" + +"Yes, ah is." + +"Why, you de bery furst American ah eber see dat was perlite." + +Which spoke badly indeed for the others, that not being one of the +virtues I strive particularly to cultivate. + +But "perlite" or not, there can be no question of the astounding +stupidity of the West Indian rank and file, a stupidity amusing if +you are in an amusable mood, unendurable if you neglect to pack +your patience among your bag of supplies in the morning. Tropical +patience, too, is at best a frail child. The dry-season sun rarely +even veiled his face, and there were those among the enumerators +who complained of the taxing labor of all-day marching up and down +streets and stairs and Zone hills beneath it; but to me, fresh +from tramping over the mountains of Central America with twenty +pounds on my shoulders, this was mere pastime. Heat had no terrors +for the enumerated, however. Often in the hottest hour of the day +I came upon negroes sleeping in tightly closed rooms, the sweat +running off them in streams, yet apparently vastly enjoying the +situation. + +Sunday came and I chose to continue, though virtually all the Zone +was on holiday and even "the boss," after what I found later to be +his invariable custom, had broken away from his card-littered +dwelling-place on Saturday evening and hurried away to Panama, +drawn thither and held till Monday morning--by some irresistible +attraction. Sunday turns holiday completely on the Zone, even to +hours of trains and hotels. The frequent passengers were packed +from southern white end to northern black end with all nations in +gladsome garb, bound Panamaward to see the lottery drawing and buy +a ticket for the following Sunday, across the Isthmus to breezy +Colon, or to one of a hundred varying spots and pastimes. Others +in khaki breeches fresh from the government laundry in Cristobal +and the ubiquitous leather leggings of the "Zoner" were off to +ride out the day in the jungles; still others set resolutely forth +afoot into tropical paths; a dozen or so, gleaned one by one from +all the towns along the line were even on their way to church. Yet +with all this scattering there still remained a respectable +percentage lounging on the screened verandas in pajamas and +kimonas, "Old Timers" of four or five or even six years' standing +who were convinced they had seen and heard, and smelt and tasted +all that the Zone or tropical lands have to offer. + +Well on in the morning there was a general gathering of all the +ditch-digging clans of Empire and vicinity in a broad field close +under the eaves of the town, and soon there came drifting across +to me at my labor, hoarse, frenzied screams; sounding strangely +incongruous beneath the swaying palm-trees; + + "Come on! Get down with his arm! Aaaaahrrr!" + +But my time was well chosen. In the Spanish camps above the canal, +still and silent with Sunday, men at no other time to be run to +earth were entrapped in their bunks, under their dwelling-places +in the shade, shaving, exchanging hair-cuts, washing workaday +clothes, reminiscing over far-off homes and pre-migratory days, or +merely loafing. The same cheery, friendly, quick-witted fellows +they were as in their native land, even the few Italians and rare +Portuguese scattered among them inoculated with their +cheerfulness. + +Came sudden changes to camps of Martiniques, a sort of wild, +untamed creature, who spoke a distressing imitation of French +which even he did not for a moment claim to be such, but frankly +dubbed patois. Restless-eyed black men who answered to their names +only at the question "Cummun t'appelle?" and give their age only +to those who open wide their mouths and cry, "Caje-vous?" Then on +again to the no less strange, sing-song "English" of Jamaica, the +whining tones of those whose island trees the conquesting +Spaniards found bearded--"barbados"--now and again a more or less +dark Costa Rican, Guatemalteco, Venezuelan, stray islanders from +St. Vincent, Trinidad, or Guadalupe, individuals defying +classification. But the chief reward for denying myself a holiday +were the "back-calls" in the town itself which I was able to check +out of my field-book. Many a long-sought negro I roused from his +holiday siesta, dashing past the tawdry calico curtains to pound +him awake--mere auricular demonstration having only the effect of +lulling him into deeper child-like slumber. The surest and often +only effective means was to tickle the slumberer gently on the +soles of the bare feet with some airy, delicate instrument such as +my tack-hammer, or a convenient broom-handle or flat-iron. +Frequently I came upon young negro men of the age and type that in +white skins would have been loafing on pool-room corners, reading +to themselves in loud and solemn voices from the Bible, with a +far-away look in their eyes; always I was surrounded by a never- +broken babble of voices, for the West Indian negro can let his +face run unceasingly all the day through, and the night, though he +have never a word to say. + +Thus my "enumerated" tags spread further and wider over the city +of Empire. I reached in due time the hodge-podge shops and stores +of Railroad Avenue. Chinamen began to drift into the rolls, there +appeared such names as Carmen Wah Chang, cooks and waitresses +living in darksome back cupboards must be unearthed, negro +shoemakers were caught at their stands on the sidewalks, shiny- +haired bartenders gave up their biographies in nasal monosyllables +amid the slop of "suds" and the scrape of celluloid froth- +eradicators. Rare was the land that had not sent representatives +to this great dirt-shoveling congress. A Syrian merchant gasped +for breath and fell over his counter in delight to find that I, +too, had been in his native Zakleh, five Punjabis all but died of +pleasure when I mispronounced three words of their tongue. +Occasionally there came startling contrast as I burst unexpectedly +into the ancestral home of some educated native family that had +withstood all the tides of time and change and still lived in the +beloved "Emperador" of their forefathers. Anger was usually near +the surface at my intrusion, but they quickly changed to their +ingrown politeness and chatty sociability when addressed in their +own tongue and treated in their own extravagant gestures. It was +almost sure to return again, however, at the question whether they +were Panamanians. Distinctly not! They were Colombians! There is +no such country as Panama. + +Thus the enrolling of the faithful continued. Chinese laundrymen +divulged the secrets of their mysterious past between spurts of +water at steaming shirt-bosoms; Chinese merchants, of whom there +are hordes on the Zone, cueless, dressed and betailored till you +must look at them twice to tell them from "gold" employees, the +flag of the new republic flapping above their doors, the new +president in their lapels, left off selling crucifixes and +breastpin medallions of Christ to negro women, to answer my +questions. One evening I stumbled into a nest of eleven Bengali +peddlers with the bare floor of their single room as bed, table, +and chairs; in one corner, surmounted by their little embroidered +skull-caps, were stacked the bundles with which they pester Zone +housewives, and in another their god wrapped in a dirty rag +against profaning eyes. + +Many days had passed before I landed the first Zone resident I +could not enroll unassisted. He was a heathen Chinee newly +arrived, who spoke neither Spanish nor English. It was "Chinese +Charlie" who helped me out. "Chinese Charlie" was a resident of +the Zone before the days of de Lesseps and at our first meeting +had insisted on being enrolled under that pseudonym, alleging it +his real name. Upstairs above his store all was sepulchral silence +when I mounted to investigate--and I came quickly and quietly down +again; for the door had opened on the gaudy Oriental splendor of a +joss-house where dwelt only grinning wooden idols not counted as +Zone residents by the materialistic census officials. On the +Isthmus as elsewhere "John" is a law-abiding citizen--within +limits; never obsequious, nearly always friendly, ready to answer +questions quite cheerily so long as he considers the matter any of +your business, but closing infinitely tighter than the maltreated +bivalve when he fancies you are prying too far. + +In time I reached the Commissary--the government department store +--and enrolled it from cash-desk to cold-storage; Empire hotel, +from steward to scullions, filed by me whispering autobiography; +the police station on its knoll fell like the rest. I went to +jail--and set down a large score of black men and a pair of +European whites, back from a day's sweaty labor of road building, +who lived now in unaccustomed cleanliness in the heart of the +lower story of a fresh wooden building with light iron bars, easy +to break out of were it not that policemen, white and black, sleep +on all sides of them. Crowded old Empire not only faces her +streets but even her back yards are filled with shacks and +inhabited boxes to be hunted out. On the hem of her tattered +outskirts and the jungle edges I ran into heaps of old abandoned +junk,--locomotives, cars, dredges, boilers (some with the letters +"U. S." painted upon them, which sight gave some three-day +investigator material to charge the I. C. C. with untold waste); +all now soon to be removed by a Chicago wrecking company. + +Then all the town must be done again--"back calls." By this time +so wide and varied was my acquaintance in Empire that wenches +withdrew a dripping hand from their tubs to wave at me with a +sympathetic giggle, and piccaninnies ran out to meet me as I +returned in quest of one missing inmate in a house of fifty. For +the few laborers still uncaught I took to coming after dark. But +West Indians rarely own lamps, not even the brass tax-numbers +above the doors were visible, and as for a negro in the dark-- + +Absurd rumors had begun early to circulate among the darker +brethren. In all negrodom the conviction became general that this +individual detailed catechising and house-branding was really a +government scheme to get lists of persons due for deportation, +either for lack of work as the canal neared completion or for +looseness of marital relations. Hardly a tenement did I enter but +laughing voices bandied back and forth and there echoed and +reechoed through the building such remarks as: + +"Well, dey gon' sen' us home, Penelope," or "Yo an' Percival +better hurry up an' git married, Ambrosia." + +Several dusky females regularly ran away whenever I approached; +one at least I came a-seeking in vain nine times, and found her +the tenth behind a garbage barrel. Many fancied the secret marks +on the "enumerated" tag--date, and initials of the enumerator-- +were intimately concerned with their fate. So strong is the fear +of the law imbued by the Zone Police that they dared not tear down +the dreaded placard, but would sometimes sit staring at it for +hours striving to penetrate its secret or exorcise away its power +of evil, and now and then some bolder spirit ventured out--at +midnight--with a pencil and put tails and extra flourishes on the +penciled letters in the hope of disguising them against the fatal +day. + +Except for the chaos of nationalities and types on the Zone, +enumerating would have become more than monotonous. But the +enumerated took care to break the monotony. There was the wealth +of nomenclature for instance. What more striking than a shining- +black waiter strutting proudly about under the name of Levi +McCarthy? There was no necessity of asking Beresford Plantaganet +if he were a British subject. Naturally the mother of Hazarmaneth +Cumberbath Smith, baptized that very week, had to claw out the +family Bible from among the bed-clothes and look up the name on +the fly-leaf. + +To the enumerator, who must set down concise and exact answers to +each of his questions, fifty or sixty daily scenes and replies +something like these were delightful; + +Enumerator (sitting down on the edge of a barrel): "How many +living in this room?" + +Explosive laughter from the buxom, jet-black woman addressed. + +Enumerator (on a venture): "What's the man's name?" + +"He name 'Rasmus Iggleston." + +"What's his metal-check number?" + +"Lard, mahster, ah don' know he check number." + +"Haven't you a commissary-book with it in?" + +"Lard no, mah love, commissary-book him feeneesh already befo' +las' week." + +"Is he a Jamaican?" + +"No, him a Mont-rat, mahster." (Monsterratian.) + +"What color is he?" + +"Te! He! Wha' fo' yo as' all dem questions, mahster?" + +"For instance." + +"Oh, him jes' a pitch darker'n me." + +"How old is he?" + +(Loud laughter) "Law', ah don' know how ol' him are!" + +"Well, about how old?" + +"Oh, him a ripe man, mah love, him a prime man." + +"Is he older than you?" + +"Oh, yes, him older 'n me." + +"And how old are you?" + +"Te! He! 'Deed ah don' know how ol' ah is; ah gone los' mah age +paper." + +"Is he married?" + +(Quickly and with very grave face) "Oh, yes indeed, mahster, Ah +his sure 'nough wife." + +"Can he read?" + +(Hesitatingly) "Er--a leetle, sir, not too much, sir." (Which +generally means he can spell out a few words of one syllable and +make some sort of mark representing his name.) + +"What kind of work does he do?" + +(Haughtily) "Him employed by de I. C. C." + +"Yes, naturally. But what kind of work does he do. Is he a +laborer?" + +(Quickly and very impressively) "Laborer! Oh, no, mah sweet +mahster, he jes' shovel away de dirt befo' de steam shovel." + +"All right. That 'll do for 'Rasmus. Now your name?" + +"Mah name Mistress Jane Iggleston." + +"How long have you lived on the Canal Zone?" + +"Oh, not too long, mah love." + +"Since when have you lived in this house?" + +"Oh, we don' come to dis house too long, sah." + +"Can you read and write?" + +"No, ah don' stay in Jamaica. Ah come to Panama when ah small." + +"Do you do any work besides your own housework?" + +(Evasively) "Work? If ah does any work? No, not any." + +Enumerator looks hard from her to washtub. + +"Ah--er--oh, ah washes a couple o' gentlemen's clot'es." + +"Very good. Now then, how many children?" + +"We don' git no children, sah." + +"What! How did that happen?" + +Loud, house-shaking laughter. + +Enumerator (looking at watch and finding it 12:10): "Well, good +afternoon." + +"Good evenin', sah. Thank you, sah. Te! He!" + +Variations on the above might fill many pages: + +"How old are you?" + +Self-appointed interpreter of the same shade; "He as' how old is +yo?" + +"How old _I_ are? Ah don rightly know mah age, mahster, mah mother +never tol' me." + +St. Lucian woman, evidently about forty-five, after deep thought, +plainly anxious to be as truthful as possible: "Er--ah's twenty, +sir." + +"Oh, you're older than that. About sixty, say?" + +"'Bout dat, sah." + +"Are you married?" + +(Pushing the children out of the way.) "N-not as yet, mah sweet +mahster, bu-but--but we go 'n' be soon, sah." + +To a Barbadian woman of forty: "Just you and your daughter live +here?" + +"Dat's all, sir." + +"Doesn't your husband live here?" + +"Oh, ah don't never marry as yet, sah." + +Anent the old saying about the partnership of life and hope. + +To a Dominican woman of fifty-two, toothless and pitted with +small-pox: "Are you married?" + +(With simpering smile) "Not as yet, mah sweet mahster." + +To a Jamaican youth; + +"How many people live in this room?" + +"Three persons live here, sir." + +"I stand grammatically corrected. When did you move here?" + +"We remove here in April." + +"Again I apologize for my mere American grammar. Now, Henry, what +is your room-mate's name?" + +"Well, we calls him Ethel, but I don't know his right title. +Peradventure he will not work this evening [afternoon] and you can +ask him from himself." + +"Do his parents live on the Zone?" + +"Oh, yes, sah, he has one father and one mother." + +An answer: "Why HIMSELF [emphatic subject pronoun among +Barbadians] didn't know if he'd get a job." + +To a six-foot black giant working as night-hostler of steam- +shovels: + +"Well, Josiah, I suppose you're a Jamaican?" + +"Oh, yes, boss, ah work in Kingston ten years as a bar-maid." + +"Married?" + +"No, boss, ah's not 'xactly married. Ah's livin' with a person." + +A colored family: + +Sarah Green, very black, has a child named Edward White, and is +now living with Henry Brown, a light yellow negro. + +West Indian wit: + +A shop-sign in Empire: "Don't ask for credit. He is gone on +vacation since January 1, 1912." + +Laughter and carefree countenances are legion in the West Indian +ranks, children seem never to be punished, and to all appearances +man and wife live commonly in peace and harmony. Dr. O----tells +the following story, however: + +In his rounds he came upon a negro beating his wife and had him +placed under arrest. The negro: "Why, boss, can't a man chastize +his wife when she desarves and needs it?" + +Dr. O---: "Not on the Canal Zone. It's against the law." + +Negro (in great astonishment): "Is dat so, boss. Den ah'll never +do it again, boss--on de Canal Zone." + +One morning in the heart of Empire a noise not unlike that of a +rocky waterfall began to grow upon my ear. Louder and louder it +swelled as I worked slowly forward. At last I discovered its +source. In a lower room of a tenement an old white-haired Jamaican +had fitted up a private school, to which the elite among the +darker brethren sent their children, rather than patronize the +common public schools Uncle Sam provides free to all Zone +residents. The old man sat before some twenty wide-eyed children, +one of whom stood slouch-shouldered, book in hand, in the center +of the room, and at regular intervals of not more than twenty +seconds he shouted high above all other noises of the +neighborhood: + +"Yo calls dat Eng-leesh! How eber yo gon' l'arn talk proper lika +dat, yo tell me?" + +Far back in the interior of an Empire block I came upon an old, +old negro woman, parchment-skinned and doddering, living alone in +a stoop-shouldered shanty of boxes and tin cans. "Ah don' know how +ol' ah is, mahster," was one of her replies, "but ah born six +years befo' de cholera diskivered." + +"When did you come to Panama?" + +"Ah don' know, but it a long time ago." + +"Before the Americans, perhaps?" + +"Oh, long befo'! De French ain't only jes' begin to dig. Ah's +ashamed to say how long ah been here" (just why was not evident, +unless she fancied she should long ago have made her fortune and +left). "Is you a American? Well, de Americans sure have done one +thing. Dey mak' dis country civilize. Why, chil', befo' dey come +we have all de time here revolutions. Ah couldn't count to how +many revolutions we had, an' ebery time dey steal all what we +have. Dey even steal mah clothes. Ah sure glad fo' one de +Americans come." + +It was during my Empire enumerating that I was startled one +morning to burst suddenly from the tawdry, junk-jumbled rooms of +negroes into a bare-floored, freshly scrubbed room containing some +very clean cots, a small table and a hammock, and a general air of +frankness and simplicity, with no attempt to disguise the +commonplace. At the table sat a Spaniard in worn but newly washed +working-clothes, book in hand. I sat down and, falling +unconsciously into the "th" pronunciation of the Castilian, began +blithely to reel off the questions that had grown so automatic. + +"Name?"-;-Federico Malero. "Check Number?"--"Can you read?" "A +little." The barest suggestion of amusement in his voice caused me +to look up quickly. "My library," he said, with the ghost of a +weird smile, nodding his head slightly toward an unpainted shelf +made of pieces of dynamite boxes, "Mine and my room-mates." The +shelf was filled with four--REAL Barcelona paper editions of +Hegel, Fichte, Spencer, Huxley, and a half-dozen others accustomed +to sit in the same company, all dog-eared with much reading. + +"Some ambitious foreman," I mused, and went on with my queries: + +"Occupation?" + +"Pico y pala," he answered. + +"Pick and shovel!" I exclaimed--"and read those?" + +"No importa," he answered, again with that elusive shadow of a +smile, "It doesn't matter," and as I rose to leave, "Buenos dias, +senor," and he turned again to his reading. + +I plunged into the jumble of negroes next door, putting my +questions and setting down the answers without even hearing them, +my thoughts still back in the clean, bare room behind, wondering +whether I should not have been wiser after all to have ignored the +sharp-drawn lines and the prejudices of my fellow-countrymen and +joined the pick and shovel Zone world. There might have been pay +dirt there. A few months before, I remembered, a Spanish laborer +killed in a dynamite explosion in the "cut" had turned out to be +one of Spain's most celebrated lawyers. I recalled that EL UNICO, +the anarchist Spanish weekly published in Miraflores contains some +crystal-clear thinking set forth in a sharp-cut manner that shows +a real inside knowledge of the "job" and the canal workers, +however little one may agree with its philosophy and methods. + +Then it was due to the law of contrasts, I suppose, that the +thought of "Tom," my room-mate, suddenly flashed upon me; and I +discovered myself chuckling at the picture, "Tom, the Rough-neck," +to whom all such as Federico Malero with his pick and shovel were +mere "silver men," on whom "Tom" looked down from his high perch +on his steam-shovel as far less worthy of notice than the rock he +was clawing out of the hillside. How many a silent chuckle and how +many a covert sneer must the Maleros on the Zone indulge in at the +pompous airs of some American ostensibly far above them. + + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Meanwhile my fellow enumerators were reporting troubles "in the +bush." I heard particularly those of two of the Marines, "Mac" and +Renson, merry, good-natured, earnest-by-spurts, even modest +fellows quite different from what I had hitherto pictured as an +enlisted man. + +"Mac" was a half and half of Scotch and Italian. Naturally he was +constantly effervescing, both verbally and temperamentally, his +snapping black eyes were never still, life played across his +excitable, sunny boyish face like cloud shadows on a mountain +landscape, whoever would speak to him at any length must catch him +in a vice-like grip and hold his attention by main force. He spoke +with a funny little almost-foreign accent, was touching on forty, +and was the youngest man at that age in the length and breadth of +the Canal Zone. + +At first sight you would take "Mac" for a mere roustabout, like +most who go a'soldiering. But before long you'd begin to wonder +where he got his rich and fluent vocabulary and his warehouse of +information. Then you'd run across the fact that he had once +finished a course in a middle-western university--and forgotten +it. The schools had left little of their blighting mark upon him, +yet "pump" "Mac" on any subject from rapid-fire guns to grand +opera and you'd get at least a reasonable answer. Though you +wouldn't guess the knowledge was there unless you did pump for it, +for "Mac" was not of the type of those who overwork the first +person pronoun, not because of foolish diffidence but merely +because it rarely occurred to him as a subject of conversation. +Seventeen years in the marine corps--you were sure he was +"jollying" when he first said it--had taken "Mac" to most places +where warships go, from Pekin and "the Islands" to Cape Town and +Buenos Ayres, and given him not merely an acquaintance with the +world but--what is far more of an acquisition--the gift of getting +acquainted in almost any stratum of the world in the briefest +possible space of time. + +"Mac" spoke not only his English and Italian but a fluent +"Islands" Spanish; he knew enough French to talk even to +Martiniques, and he could moreover make two distinct sets of +noises that were understood by Chinese and Japanese respectively. +He was a man just reckless enough in all things to be generous and +alive, yet never foolishly wasteful either of himself or his +meager substance. "Mac" first rose to fame in the census +department by appearing one afternoon at Empire police station +dragging a "bush" native by the scruff of the neck with one hand, +and carrying in the other the machete with which the bushman had +tried to prove he was a Colombian and not subject to questioning +by the agents of other powers. + +Renson--well, Renson was in some ways "Mac's" exact antithesis and +in some his twin brother. He was one of those youths who believe +in spending prodigally and in all possible haste what little +nature has given them. Wherefore, though he was younger than "Mac" +appeared to be, he already looked older than "Mac" was. In Zone +parlance "he had already laid a good share of the road to Hell +behind him." Yet such a cheery, likable chap was Renson, so large- +hearted and unassuming--that was just why you felt an itching to +seize him by the collar of his olive-drab shirt and shake him till +his teeth rattled for tossing himself so wantonly to the infernal +bow-wows. + +Renson's "bush" troubles were legion. Not only were there the +seducing brown "Spigoty" women out in the wilderness to help him +on his descending trail, but when and wherever fire-water of +whatever nationality or degree of voltage showed its neck--and it +is to be found even in "the bush"--there was Renson sure to give +battle--and fall. "It's no use bein' a man unless you're a hell of +a man," was Renson's "influenced" philosophy. How different this +was from his native good sense when the influence was turned off +was demonstrated when he returned from cautiously reconnoitering a +cottage far back in the wilds one dark night and reported as his +reason for postponing the enumerating: "If you'd butt in on one o' +them Martinique booze festivals they'd crown you with a bottle." + +Already one or two enumerators had gone back to private life--by +request. Particularly sad was the case of our dainty, blue-blooded +Panamanian. As with many Panamanians, and not a few of the self- +exalted elsewhere, he was more burdened with blue corpuscles than +with gray matter. At any rate-- + +On our cards, after the query "Color?" was a small space, a very +small space in which was to be written quite briefly and +unceremoniously "W," "B," or "Mx" as the case might be. Uncle Sam +was in a hurry for his census. Early one afternoon our Panamanian +helpmate burst upon one of his numerous aristocratic relatives in +his royal thatched domains in the ancestral bush. When he had +embraced him the customary fifteen times on the right side and the +fifteen accustomed times on the left side, and had performed the +eighty-five gestures of greeting required by the social manual of +the bush, and asked the three hundred and sixty-five questions de +rigueur regarding the honorable health of his honorable horde of +offspring, and his eye had fallen again on the red cards in his +hand, the fact struck him that the relative was of precisely the +same shade of complexion as himself. Could he set him down as he +had many a mere red-blooded person and thereby perhaps establish a +precedent that might result in his own mortification? Yet could he +stretch a shade--or several shades--and set him down as "white"? +No, there was the oath of office, and the government that +administered it had been found long-armed and Argus-eyed. Long he +sat in deepest meditation. Being a Panamanian, he could not of +course know that Uncle Sam was in a hurry for his census. Till at +length, as the sun was firing the western jungle tree-tops, a +scintillating idea rewarded his unwonted cogitation. He caught up +the medium soft pencil and wrote in aristocratic hand down across +the sheet where other information is supposed to find place: + +"Color;--A very light mixture," and taking his leave with the +requisite seventy-five gestures and genuflexions, he drifted +Empireward with the dozen cards the day had yielded. + +Which is why I was shocked next morning by the disrespectful +report of Renson that "my friend the boss had tied a can to the +Spig's tail," and our dainty and lamented comrade went back to the +more fitting blue-blood occupation of swinging a cane in the +lobbies of Panama's famous hostelries. + +But what mattered such small losses? Had not "Scotty" been engaged +to fill the breach--or all of them, one or two breaches more or +less made small difference to "Scotty." He was a cozy little +barrel of a man, born in "Doombahrton," and for some years past +had been dispensing good old Dumbarton English in Panama's +proudest educational institution. But Panama's school vacation is +during her "summer," her dry season from February to April. What +more natural then than that "Scotty" should have concluded to pass +his vacation taking census, for obviously--"a mon must pick up a +wee bit o' change wherever he can." + +I seemed to have been appointed to a purely sight-seeing job. One +February noon I reported at the office to find that passes to +Gatun had been issued to five of us, "Scotty," "Mac," Renson, and +Barter among the number. The task in the "town by the dam site" it +seemed, was proving too heavy for the regular enumerators of that +district. + +We left by the 2:10 train. Cascadas and Bas Obispo rolled away +behind us, across the canal I caught a glimpse of the wilderness +surrounding the abode of "Old Fritz," then we entered a to me +unknown land. I could easily have fancied myself a tourist, +especially so at Matachin when "Mac" solemnly attempted to +"spring" on me the old tourist hoax of suicided Chinamen as the +derivation of the town's name. Through Gorgona, the Pittsburg of +the Zone with its acres of machine-shops, rumbled the train and +plunged beyond into a deep, if not exactly rank, endless jungle. +The stations grew small and unimportant. Bailamonos and San Pablo +were withering and wasting away, "'Orca L'garto," or the Hanged +Alligator was barely more than a memory, Tabernilla a mere heap of +lumber being tumbled on flatcars bound for new service further +Pacificward. Of Frijoles there remained barely enough to shudder +at, with the collector's nasal bawl of "Free Holys!" and +everywhere the irrepressible tropical greenery was already rushing +back to engulf the pigmy works of man. It seemed criminally +wasteful to have built these entire towns with all the detail and +machinery of a well governed and fully furnished city from police +station to salt cellars only to tear them down again and utterly +wipe them out four or five years after their founding. A +forerunner of what, in a few brief years, will have happened to +all the Zone--nay, is not this the way of life itself? + +For soon the Spillway at Gatun is to close its gates and all this +vast region will be flooded and come to be Gatun Lake. Villages +that were old when Pizarro began his swine-herding will be wiped +out, even this splendid double-tracked railroad goes the way of +the rest, for on February fifteenth, a bare few days away, it was +to be abandoned and where we were now racing northwestward through +brilliant sunshine and Atlantic breezes would soon be the bottom +of a lake over which great ocean steamers will glide, while far +below will be tall palm-trees and the spreading mangoes, the +banana, king of weeds, gigantic ferns and--well, who shall say +what will become of the brilliant parrots, the monkeys and the +jaguars? + +For nearly an hour we had not a glimpse of the canal, lost in the +jungle to the right. Then suddenly we burst out upon the growing +lake, now all but licking at the rails beneath us, the Zone city +of Gatun climbing up a hillside on its edge and scattering over +several more. To the left I caught my first sight of the world- +famous locks and dam, and at 3:30 we descended at the stone +station, first mile-post of permanency, for being out of reach of +the coming flood it is built to stay and shows what Canal Zone +stations will be in the years to come. There remained for me but +seven miles of the Isthmus still unseen. + +On the cement platform was a great foregathering of the census +clans from all districts, whence we climbed to the broad porch of +the administration building above. There before me, for the first +time in--well, many months, spread the Atlantic, the Caribbean +perhaps I should say, seeming very near, so near I almost fancied +I could have thrown a stone to where it began and stretched away +up to the bluish horizon, while the entrance to the canal where +soon great ships will enter poked its way inland to the locks +beside us. Across the tree-tops of the flat jungle, also seeming +close at hand though the railroad takes seven miles--and thirty- +five cents if you are no employee--to reach it, was Colon, the +tops of whose low buildings were plainly visible above the +vegetation. Not many "Zoners," I reflected, catch their first view +of Colon from the veranda of the Administration Building at Gatun. + +We had arrived with time to spare. Fully an hour we loafed and +yarned and smoked before a whistle blew and long lines of little +figures began to come up out of the depths and zigzag across the +landscape until soon a line of laborers of every shade known to +humanity began to form, pay-checks in hand; its double head at the +pay-windows on the two sides of the veranda, its tail serpentining +off down the hillside and away nearly to the edge of the mammoth +locks. Packs of the yellow cards of Cristobal district in hand--a +relief to eyes that had been staring for days at the pink ones of +Empire--we lined up like birds of prey just beyond the windows. As +the first laborer passed this, one--nay, several of us pounced +upon him, for all plans we had laid to line up and take turns were +thus quickly overthrown and wild competition soon reigned. From +then on each dived in to snatch his prey and, dragging him to the +nearest free space, began in some language or other: "Where d'ye +live?" + +That was the overwhelming problem,--in what language to address +each victim. Barter, speaking only his nasal New Jersey, took to +picking out negroes, and even then often turned away in disgust +when he landed a Martinique or a Haytian. West Indian "English" +alternated with a black patois that smelt at times faintly of +French, muscular, bullet-headed negroes appeared slowly and +laboriously counting their money in their hats, eagle-nosed +Spaniards under the boina of the Pyrenees, Spaniards from Castile +speaking like a gatling-gun in action, now and again even a +snappy-eyed Andalusian with his s-less slurred speech, slow, +laborious Gallegos, Italians and Portuguese in numbers, Colombians +of nondescript color, a Slovak who spoke some German, a man from +Palestine with a mixture of French and Arabic noises I could guess +at, and scattered here and there among the others a Turk who +jabbered the lingua franca of Mediterranean ports. I "got" all who +fell into my hands. Once I dragged forth a Hindu, and shuddered +with fear of a first failure. But he knew a bit of a strange +English and I found I recalled six or seven words of my forgotten +Hindustanee. + +Then suddenly a flood of Greeks broke upon us, growing deeper with +every moment. Above the pandemonium my companions were howling +hoarsely and imploringly for the interpreter, while clutching +their trembling victim by the slack of his labor-stained shirt +lest he escape un-enrolled. The interpreter, in accordance with a +well-known law of physics and the limitations of human nature, +could not be in sixteen places at once. I crowded close, caught +his words, memorized the few questions, and there was I with my +"Poomaynes?" "Poseeton?" and "Padremaynos?" enrolling Greeks +unassisted, not only that but haughtily acting as interpreter for +my fellows--not only without having studied the tongue of Achilles +but never even having graced a Greek letter fraternity. + +Quick tropical twilight descended, and still the labor-smeared +line wound away out of sight into the darkness, still workmen of +every shade and tongue jingled their brass-checks timidly on the +edge of the pay-window, from behind which came roaring noises that +the Americans within fancied Spaniards, or Greeks, or Roumanians +must understand because they were not English noises; still we +pounced upon the paid as upon a tackling-dummy in the early days +of spring practice. + +The colossal wonder of it all was how these deep-chested, muscle- +knotted fellows endured us, how they refrained from taking us up +between a thumb and forefinger and dropping us over the veranda +railing. For our attack lacked somewhat in gentle courtesy, +notably so that of "the Rowdy." He was a chestless youth of the +type that has grown so painfully prevalent in our land since the +soft-hearted abolishment of the beech-rod of revered memory; of +that all too familiar type whose proofs of manhood are cigarettes +and impudence and discordant noise, and whose national superiority +is demonstrated by the maltreating of all other races. But the +enrolled were all, black, white, or mixed, far more gentlemen than +we. Some, of brief Zone experience, were sheepish with fear and +the wonder as to what new mandate this incomprehensible U. S. was +perpetrating to match its strange sanitary laws that forbade a man +even to be uncleanly in his habits, after the good old sacred +right of his ancestors to remotest ages. Then, too, there was a +Zone policeman in dressy, new-starched khaki treading with +dangling club and the icy-eye of public appearance, waiting all +too eagerly for some one to "start something." But the great +percentage of the maltreated multitude were "Old Timers," men of +four or five years of digging who had learned to know this strange +creature, the American, and the world, too; who smiled indulgently +down upon our yelping and yanking like a St. Bernard above the +snapping puppy he well knows cannot seriously bite him. + +Dense black night had fallen. Here and there lanterns were hung, +under one of which we dragged each captive. The last passenger +back to Empire roared away into the jungle night; still we +scribbled on, "backed" a yellow card and dived again into the +muscular whirlpool to emerge dragging forth by the collar a Greek, +a Pole, or a West Indian. It was like business competition, in +which I had an unfair advantage, being able to understand any +jargon in evidence. When at last the pay-windows came down with a +bang and an American curse, and the serpentining tail squirmed for +a time in distress and died away, as a snake's tail dies after +sundown, I turned in more than a hundred cards. To-morrow the tail +would revive to form the nucleus of a new serpent, and we should +return by the afternoon train to the lock city, and so on for +several days to come. + +It was after nine of a black pay-day night. We were hungry. "The +Rowdy," familiar with the lay of the land, volunteered to lead the +foraging expedition. We stumbled down the hill and away along the +railroad. A faint rumbling that grew to a confused roar fell on +our ears. We climbed a bank into a wild conglomeration of wood and +tin architecture, nationalities, colors, and noises, and across a +dark, bottomless gully from the high street we had reached lights +flashed amid a very ocean of uproar. "The Rowdy," as if to make +the campaign as real as possible, led us racing down into the +black abyss, whence we charged up the further slope and came +sweating and breathless into the rampant rough and tumble of pay- +day night in New Gatun, the time and place that is the vortex of +trouble on the Isthmus. Merely a short street of one of the half- +dozen Zone towns in which liquor licenses are granted, lined with +a few saloons and pool-rooms; but such a singing, howling, +swarming multitude as is rivaled almost nowhere else, except it be +on Broadway at the passing of the old year. But this mob, +moreover, was fully seventy percent black, and rather largely +French--and when black and French and strong drink mix, trouble +sprouts like jungle seeds. Now and then Policeman G----drifted by +through the uproar, holding his "sap" loosely as for ready use and +often half consciously hitching the heavy No. 38 "Colt" under his +khaki jacket a bit nearer the grasp of his right hand. I little +knew how familiar every corner of this scene would one day be to +me. + +A Chinese grocer sold us bread and cheese. Down on the further +corner of the hubbub we entered a Spanish saloon and spread +ourselves over the "white" bar, adding beer to our humble +collation. Beyond the lattice-work that is the "color line" in +Zone dispensaries, West Indians were dancing wild, crowded "hoe- +downs" and "shuffles" amid much howling and more liquidation; on +our side a few Spanish laborers quietly sipped their liquor. The +Marines of course were "busted." The rest of us scraped up a few +odd "Spigoty" dimes. The Spanish bar-tender--who is never the +"tough" his American counterpart strives to show himself--but +merely a cheery good-fellow--drifted into our conversation, and +when we found I had slept in his native village he would have it +that we accept a round of Valdepenas. Which must have been potent, +for it moved "Scotty" to unbutton an inner pocket and set up an +entire bottle of amontillado. So midnight was no great space off +when we turned out again into the howling night and, having helped +Renson to reach a sleeping-place, scattered to the bachelor +quarters that had been found for us and lay down for the few hours +that remained before the 5:51 should carry us back to Empire. + +At last I had crossed all the Isthmus and heard the wash of the +Caribbean at my feet. It was the Sunday following our Gatun days, +and nearly a month since my landing on the Zone. The morning train +from Empire left me at the lake-side city for a run over locks and +dam which the working days had not allowed, and there being no +other train for hours I set off along the railroad to walk the +seven miles to Colon. On either side lay hot, rampant jungle, low +and almost swampy. It was noon when I reached the broad railroad +yards and Zone storehouses of Mt. Hope and turned aside to +Cristobal hotel. + +Cristobal is built on the very fringe of the ocean with the roll +of waves at the very edge of its windows, and a far-reaching view +of the Caribbean where the ceaseless Zone breeze is born. There +stands the famous statue of Columbus protecting the Indian maid, +crude humor in bronze; for Columbus brought Indian maids anything +but protection. Near at hand in the joyous tropical sunshine lay a +great steamer that in another week would be back in New York tying +up in sleet and ice. A western bronco and a lariat might perhaps +have dragged me on board, with a struggle. + +There is no more line of demarkation between Cristobal and Colon +than between Ancon and Panama. A khaki-clad Zone policeman patrols +one sidewalk, a black one in the sweltering dark blue uniform and +heavy wintry helmet of the Republic of Panama lounges on the other +side of a certain street; on one side are the "enumerated" tags of +the census, on the other none. Cross the street and you feel at +once a foreigner. It is distinctly unlawful to sell liquor on +Sunday or to gamble at any time on the Canal Zone; it is therefore +with something approaching a shock that one finds everything "wide +open" and raging just across the street. + +I wandered out past "Highball's" merry-go-round, where huge negro +bucks were laughing and playing and riding away their month's pay +on the wooden horses like the children they are, and so on to the +edge of the sea. Unlike Panama, Colon is flat and square-blocked, +as it is considerably darker in complexion with its large mixture +of negroes from the Caribbean shores and islands. Uncle Sam seems +to have taken the city's fine beach away from her. But then, she +probably never took any other advantage of it than to turn it into +a garbage heap as bad as once was Bottle Alley. On one end is a +cement swimming pool with the announcement, "Only for gold +employees of the I. C. C. or P. R. R. and guests of Washington +Hotel." It is merely a softer way of saying, "Only white Americans +with money can bathe here." + +Then beyond are the great hospitals, second only to those of +Ancon, the "white" wards built out over the sea, and behind them +the "black" where the negroes must be content with second-hand +breezes. Some of the costs of the canal are here,--sturdy black +men in a sort of bed-tick pajamas sitting on the verandas or in +wheel chairs, some with one leg gone, some with both. One could +not but wonder how it feels to be hopelessly ruined in body early +in life for helping to dig a ditch for a foreign power that, +however well it may treat you materially, cares not a whistle- +blast more for you than for its old worn-out locomotives rusting +away in the jungle. + +Under the beautiful royal palms beyond, all bent inland in the +constant breeze are park benches where one can sit with the +Atlantic spreading away to infinity before, breaking with its +ages-old, mysterious roll on the shore just as it did before the +European's white sails first broke the gleaming skyline. Out to +sea runs the growing breakwater from Toro Point, the great +wireless tower, yet just across the bay on a little jutting, +dense-grown tongue of land is the jungle hut of a jungle family as +utterly untouched by civilization as was the verdant valley of +Typee on the day Melville and Toby came stumbling down into it +from the hills above. + +But meanwhile I was not getting the long hours of unbroken sleep +the heavy mental toil of enumeration requires. Free government +bachelor quarters makes strange bed-fellows--or at least room- +fellows. Quartermasters, like justice, are hopelessly blind or I +might have been assigned quarters upon the financial knoll where +habits and hours were a bit more in keeping with my own. But a +bachelor is a bachelor on the Zone, and though he be clerk to his +highness "the Colonel" himself he may find himself carelessly +tossed into a "rough-neck" brotherhood. + +House 47 was distinctly an abode of "rough-necks." A "rough-neck," +it may be essential to explain to those who never ate at the same +table with one, is a bull-necked, whole-hearted, hard-headed, +cast-iron fellow who can ride the beam of a snorting, rock-tearing +steam-shovel all day, wrestle the night through with various +starred Hennessey and its rivals, and continue that round +indefinitely without once failing to turn up to straddle his beam +in the morning. He seems to have been created without the +insertion of nerves, though he is never lacking in "nerve." He is +a fine fellow in his way, but you sometimes wish his way branched +off from yours for a few hours, when bed-time or a mood for quiet +musing comes. He is a man you are glad to meet in a saloon--if you +are in a mood to be there--or tearing away at the cliffs of +Culebra; but there are other places where he does not seem exactly +to fit into the landscape. + +House 47, I say, was a house of "rough-necks." That fact became +particularly evident soon after supper, when the seven phonographs +were striking up their seven kinds of ragtime on seven sides of +us; and it was the small hours before the poker games, carried on +in much the same spirit as Comanche warfare, broke up through all +the house. Then, too, many a "rough-neck" is far from silent even +after he has fallen asleep; and about the time complete quiet +seemed to be settling down it was four-thirty; and a jarring +chorus of alarm-clocks wrought new upheaval. + +Then there was each individual annoyance. Let me barely mention +two or three. Of my room-mates, "Mitch" had sat at a locomotive +throttle fourteen years in the States and Mexico, besides the four +years he had been hauling dirt out of the "cut." Youthful ambition +"Mitch" had left behind, for though he could still look forward to +forty, railroad rules had so changed in the States during his +absence that he would have had to learn his trade over again to be +able to "run" there. Moreover four years on the Zone does not make +a man look forward with pleasure to a States winter. So "Mitch," +like many another "Zoner," was planning to buy with the savings of +his $210 a month "when the job is done" a chunk of land on some +sunny slope of a southern state and settle down for an easy +descent through old age. There was nothing objectionable about +"Mitch"--except perhaps his preference for late-hour poker. But he +had a way of stopping with one leg out of his trousers when at +last all the house had calmed down and cots were ceasing to creak, +to make some such wholly irrelevant remark as; "By----, that---- +dispatcher give me 609 to-day and she wouldn't pull a greased +string out of a knot-hole"--and thereby always hung a tale that +was sure to range over half the track mileage of the States and +wander off somewhere into the sandy cactus wilderness of Chihuahua +at least before "Mitch" succeeded in getting out of the other +trouser leg. + +The cot directly across from my own groaned--occasionally--under +the coarse-grained bulk of Tom. Tom was a "rough-neck" par +excellence, so much so that even in a houseful of them he was +known as "Tom the Rough-neck," which to Tom was high tribute. Some +preferred to call him "Tom the Noisy." He was built like a steam +caisson, or an oil-barrel, though without fat, with a neck that +reminded you of a Miura bull with his head down just before the +estoque; and when he neglected to button his undershirt--a not +infrequent oversight--he displayed the hairy chest of a mammoth +gorilla. + +Tom's philosophy of getting through life was exactly the same as +his philosophy of getting through a rocky hillside with his steam- +shovel. When it came to argument Tom was invariably right; not +that he was over-supplied with logic, but because he possessed a +voice and the bellows to work it that could rise to the roar of +his own steam-shovel on those weeks when he chose to enter the +shovel competition, and would have utterly overthrown, drowned +out, and annihilated James Stewart Mill himself. + +Tom always should have had money, for your "rough-neck" on the +Zone has decidedly the advantage over the white-collared college +graduate when the pay-car comes around. But of course being a +genuine "rough-neck" Tom was always deep in debt, except on the +three days after pay-day, when he was rolling in wealth. + +Once I fancied the bulk of my troubles was over. Tom disappeared, +leaving not a trace behind--except his working-clothes tumbled on +and about his cot. Then it turned out that he was not dead, but in +Ancon hospital taking the Keeley cure; and one summer evening he +blew in again, his "cure" effected--with a bottle in his coat +pocket and two inside his vest. So the next day there was Tom +celebrating his recovery all over House 47 and when next morning +he did finally go back to his shovel there were scattered about +the room six empty quart bottles each labeled "whiskey." Luckily +Tom ran a shovel instead of a passenger train and could claw away +at his hillside as savagely as he chose without any danger +whatever, beyond that of killing himself or an odd "nigger" or +two. + +We had other treasures on exhibition in 47. There was "Shorty," +for instance. "Shorty" was a jolly, ugly open-handed, four-eyed +little snipe of a roughneck machinist who had lost "in the line of +duty" two fingers highly useful in his trade. In consequence he +was now, after the generous fashion of the I.C.C., on full pay for +a year without work, providing he did not leave the Zone. And +while "Shorty," like the great majority of us, was a very +tolerable member of society under the ordinary circumstances of +having to earn his "three squares a day," paid leisure hung most +ponderously upon him. + +The amusements in Empire are few--and not especially amusing. +There is really only one unfailing one. That is slid in glass +receptacles across a yellow varnished counter down on Railroad +Avenue opposite Empire Machine Shops. So it happened that "Shorty" +was gradually winning the title of a thirty-third degree "booze- +fighter," and passengers on any afternoon train who took the +trouble to glance in at a wide-open door just Atlanticward of the +station might have beheld him with his back to the track and one +foot slightly raised and resting lightly and with the nonchalance +of long practice on a gas-pipe that had missed its legitimate +mission. In fact "Shorty" had come to that point where he would +rather be caught in church than found dead without a bottle on +him, and arriving home overflowing with joy about midnight slept +away most of the day in 47 that he might spend as much of the +night as the early closing laws of the Zone permitted at the +amusement headquarters of Empire. + +With these few hints of the life that raged beneath the roof of 47 +it may perhaps be comprehensible, without going into detail, why I +came to contemplate a change of quarters. I detest a kicker. I +have small use for any but the man who will take his allotted +share with the rest of the world without either whining or +snarling. Yet when an official government census enumerator falls +asleep on the edge of a tenement washtub with a question dead on +his lips, or solemnly sets down a crow-black Jamaican as "white," +it is Uncle Sam who is suffering and time for correction. + +But it is one thing for a Canal Zone employee to resolve to move, +and quite another to carry out that resolution. Nero was a meek, +unassertive, submissive, tractable little chap, keenly sensible to +the sufferings of his fellows, compared with a Zone quartermaster. +So the first time I ventured to push open the screen door next to +the post office I was grateful to escape unmaimed. But at last, +when I had done a whole month's penance in 47, I resorted to +strategy. On March first I entered the dreaded precinct shielded +behind "the boss" with his contagious smile, and the musical +quartermaster of Empire was overthrown and defeated, and I marched +forth clutching in one hand a new "assignment to quarters." + +That night I moved. The new, or more properly the older, room was +in House 35, a one-story building of the old French type, many of +which the Americans revamped upon taking possession of the +Isthmian junk-heap, across and a bit down the graveled street. It +was a single room, with no roommate to question, which I might +decorate and otherwise embellish according to my own personal +idiosyncrasies. At the back, with a door between, dwelt the +superintendent of the Zone telephone system, with a convenient +instrument on his table. In short, fortune seemed at last to be +grinning broadly upon me. + +But--the sequel. I hate to mention it. I won't. It's absurdly +commonplace. Commonplace? Not a bit of it. He was a champion, an +artist in his specialty. How can I have used that word in +connection with his incomparable performance? Or attempt to give a +hint of life on the Canal Zone without mentioning the most +conspicuous factor in it? + +He lived in the next room south, a half-inch wooden partition +reaching half-way to the ceiling between his pillow and mine. By +day he lay on his back in the right hand seat of a locomotive cab +with his hand on the throttle and the soles of his shoes on the +boiler plate--he was just long enough to fit into that position +without wrinkling. During the early evening he lay on his back in +a stout Mission rocking-chair on the front porch of House 35, +Empire, C.Z. And about 8 P. M. daily he retired within to lie on +his back on a regulation I.C.C. metal cot--they are stoutly built +--one pine half-inch from my own. Obviously twenty-four hours a day +of such onerous occupation had left some slight effects on his +figure. His shape was strikingly similar to that of a push-ball. +Had he fallen down at the top of Ancon or Balboa hill it would +have been an even bet whether he would have rolled down sidewise +or endwise--if his general type of build and specifications will +permit any such distinction. + +When I first came upon him, reposing serenely in the porch +rocking-chair on the cushion that upholstered his spinal column, I +was pleased. Clearly he was no "rough-neck"--he couldn't have been +and kept his figure. There was no question but that he was +perfectly harmless; his stories ought to prove cheerful and laugh- +provoking and kindly. His very presence seemed to promise to raise +several degrees the merriment in that corner of House 85. + +It did. Toward eight, as I have hinted, he transferred from +rocking-chair to cot. He was not afflicted with troublesome +nerves. At times he was an entire minute in falling asleep. +Usually, however, his time was something under the half; and he +slept with the innocent, undisturbed sleep of a babe for at least +twelve unbroken hours, unless the necessity of getting across the +"cut" to his engine absolutely prohibited. Just there was the +trouble. His first gentle, slumberous breath sounded like a small +boy sliding down the sheet-iron roof of 35. His second resembled a +force of carpenters tearing out the half-grown partitions. His +third--but mere words are an absurdity. At times the noises from +his gorilla-like throat softened down till one merely fancied +himself in the hog-corral of a Chicago stockyards; at others we +prayed that we might at once be transferred there. A thousand +times during the night we were certain he was on the very point of +choking to death, and sat up in bed praying he wouldn't, and +offering our month's salary to charity if he would; and through +all our fatiguing anguish he snorted undisturbedly on. In House 35 +he was known as "the Sloth." It was a gentle and kindly title. + +There were a few inexperienced inmates who had not yet utterly +given up hope. The long hours of the night were spent in solemn +conference. Pounding on the walls with hammers, chairs, and shoe- +heels was like singing a lullaby. One genius invented a species of +foghorn which proved very effective--in waking up all Empire east +of the tracks, except "the Sloth." Some took to dropping their +heavier and more dispensable possessions over the partition. One +memorable night a fellow-sufferer cast over a young dry-goods box +which, bouncing from the snorer's figure to the floor, caused him +to lose a beat--one; and the feat is still one of the proud +memories of 35. On Sundays when all the rest of the world was up +and shaved and breakfasted and off on the 8:39 of a brilliant, +sunny day to Panama, "the Sloth" would be still imperturbably +snorting and choking in the depths of his cot. And in the evening, +as the train roamed back through the fresh cool jungle dusk and +deposited us at Empire station, and we crossed the wooden bridge +before the hotel and began to climb the graveled path behind, +hoping against hope that we might find crape on that door, from +the night ahead would break on our cars a sound as of a +hippopotamus struggling wildly against going down for the third +and last time. + +Most annoying of all, "the Sloth" was not even a bona fide +bachelor. He proudly announced that, though he was a model of +marital virtue, he had not lived with his wife in many years. I +never heard a man who knew him by night ask why. It was close upon +criminal negligence on the part of the I.C.C. to overlook its +opportunity in this matter. There were so many, many uninhabited +hilltops on the Zone where a private Sloth-dwelling might have +been slapped together from the remains of falling towns at Gatun +end; near it a grandstand might even have been erected and +admission charged. Or at least the daily climb to it would have +helped to reduce a push-ball figure, and thereby have improved the +general appearance of the Canal Zone force. + + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +One morning early in March "the boss" and I crossed the suspension +bridge over the canal. A handcar and six husky negroes awaited us, +and we were soon bumping away over temporary spurs through the +jungle, to strike at length the "relocation" opposite the giant +tree near Bas Obispo that marked the northern limit of our +district. + +The P.R.R., you will recall, has been operating across the Isthmus +since 1855. When the United States took over the Zone in 1904 it +built a new double-tracked line of five-foot gauge for nearly the +whole forty-seven miles. Much of this, however, runs through +territory soon to be covered by Gatun Lake, nearly all the rest of +it is on the wrong side of the canal. An almost entirely new line, +therefore, is being built through the virgin jungle on the South +American side of the canal, which is to be the permanent line and +is known in Zone parlance as the "relocation." This is forty-nine +miles in length from Panama to Colon, and is single track only, as +freight traffic especially is expected, very naturally, to be +lighter after the canal is opened. Already that portion from the +Chagres to the Atlantic had been put in use--on February +fifteenth, to be exact; and the time was not far off when the +section within our district--from Gamboa to Pedro Miguel--would +also be in operation. + +That portion runs through the wilderness a mile or more back from +the canal, through jungled hills so dense with vegetation one +could only make one's way through it with the ubiquitous machete +of the native jungle-dweller, except where tiny trails appear that +lead to squatters' thatched huts thrown together of tin, dynamite +and dry-goods boxes and jungle reeds in little scattered patches +of clearing. Some of these hills have been cut half away for the +new line--great generous "cuts," for to the giant 90-ton steam- +shovels a few hundred cubic yards of earth more or less is of +slight importance. All else is virtually impenetrable jungle. +Travelers by rail across the Isthmus, as no doubt many ships' +passengers will be in the years to come while their steamer is +being slowly raised and lowered to and from the eighty-five-foot +lake, will see little of the canal,--a glimpse of the Bas Obispo +"cut" at Gamboa and little else from the time they leave Gatun +till they return to the present line at Pedro Miguel station. But +in compensation they will see some wondrous jungle scenery,--a +tangled tropical wilderness with great masses of bush flowers of +brilliant hues, gigantic ferns, countless palm and banana trees, +wonderfully slender arrow-straight trees rising smooth and +branchless more than a hundred feet to end in an immense bouquet +of brilliant purplish-hue blossoms. + +"The boss" barely noticed these things. One quickly grows +accustomed to them. Why, Americans who have been down on the Zone +for a year don't know there's a palm-tree on the Isthmus--or at +least they do not remember there were no palm-trees in Keokuk, +Iowa, when they left there. + +Along this new-graveled line, still unused except by work-trains, +we rode in our six negro-power car, dropping off in the gravel +each time we caught sight of any species of human being. Every +little way was a gang, averaging some thirty men, distinct in +nationality,--Antiguans shoveling gravel, Martiniques snarling and +quarreling as they wallowed thigh-deep in swamps and pools, a +company of Greeks unloading train-loads of ties, Spaniards +leisurely but steadily grading and surfacing, track bands of +"Spigoties" chopping away the aggressive jungle with their +machetes--the one task at which the native Panamanian (or +Colombian, as many still call themselves) is worth his brass- +check. Every here and there we caught labor's odds and ends, +diminutive "water-boys," likewise of varying nationality, a negro +switch-boy dozing under the bit of shelter he had rigged up of +jungle ferns, frightening many a black laborer speechless as we +pounced upon him emerging from his "soldiering" in the jungle; +occasionally even a native bushman on his way to market from his +palm-thatched home generations old back in the bush, who has +scarcely noticed yet that the canal is being dug, fell into our +hands and was inexorably set down in spite of all protest unless +he could prove beyond question that he had already been "taken" or +lived beyond the Zone line. + +Thus we scribbled incessantly on, even through the noon hour, +dragging gangs one by one away from their tasks, shaking laborers +out of the brief after-lunch siesta in a patch of shade. "The +boss" was hampered by having only two languages where ten were +needed. In the early afternoon he went on to Paraiso to feed +himself and the traction power, while I held the fort. Soon after +rain fell, a sort of advance agent of the rainy season, a sudden +tropical downpour that ran in rivulets down across the pink card- +boards and my victims. Yet strange to note, the writing of the +medium soft pencil remained as clear and unsmudged as in the +driest weather, and so clean a rain was it that it did not even +soil my white cotton shirt. I continued unheeding, only to note +with surprise a few minutes later that the sun was shining on the +dense green jungle about me as brilliantly as ever and that I was +dry again as when I had set out in the morning. + +"The boss" returned, and when I had eaten the crackers and the +bottle of pink lemonade he brought, we pushed on toward the +Pacific. Till at length in mid-afternoon we came to the top of the +descent to Pedro Miguel and knew that the end of our district was +at hand. So powerful was the breeze from the Atlantic that our six +man-power engine sweated profusely as they toiled against it, even +on the downgrade of the return to Empire. + +To "Scotty" had been assigned my Empire "recalls" and I had been +given a new and virgin territory,--namely, the town of Paraiso. It +lies "somewhat back from the village street," that is, the P.R.R. +Indeed, trains do not deign to notice its existence except on +Sundays. But there is the temporary bridge over the canal which +few engineers venture to "snake her across" at any great speed, +and the enumerator housed in Empire need not even be a graduate +"hobo" to be able to drop off there a bit after seven in the +morning and prance away up the chamois path into the town. + +Wherever on the Zone you espy a town of two-story skeleton +screened buildings scattered over hills, with winding gravel roads +and trees and flowers between there you may be sure live American +"gold" employees. Yet somehow the Canal Commission had dodged the +monotony you expected, somehow they have broken up the grim lines +that make so dismal the best-intentioned factory town. There are +hints that the builders have heard somewhere of the science of +landscape gardening. At times these same houses are deceiving, for +all I. C. C. buildings bear a strong family resemblance, and it is +only at the door that you know whether it is bachelors' quarters, +a family residence, or the supreme court. + +From the outside world "P'reeso" scarcely draws a glance of +attention; but once in it you find a whole Zone town with all the +accustomed paraphernalia of I. C. C. hotel and commissary, +hospital and police station, all ruled over and held in check by +the famous "Colonel" in command of the latter. Moreover Paraiso +will some day come again into her own, when the "relocation" opens +and brings her back on the main line, while proud Culebra and +haughty Empire, stranded on a railless shore of the canal, will +wither and waste away and even their broad macadamed roads will +sink beneath a second-growth jungle. + +Renson had come to lend assistance. He set to work among the negro +cabins, the upper gallery seats of Paraiso's amphitheater of +hills, for Renson had been a free agent for more than a month now +and was not exactly in a condition to interview American +housewives. My own task began down at the row of inhabited box- +cars, and so on through shacks and tenements with many Spanish +laborers' wives. Then toward noon the labor-train screamed in, +with two "gold" coaches and many open cattle-cars with long +benches jammed with sweaty workmen, easily six hundred men in the +six cars, who swept in upon the town like a flood through a +suddenly opened sluiceway as the train barely paused and shrieked +away again. + +Renson and I dashed for the laborers' mess-halls, where hundreds +of sun-bronzed foreigners, divided only as to color, packed pell- +mell around a score of wooden tables heavily stocked with rough +and tumble food--yet so different from the old French catch as +catch can days when each man owned his black pot and toiled all +through the noon-hour to cook himself an unsanitary lunch. We +jotted them down at express speed, with changes of tongue so +abrupt that our heads were soon reeling, and in the place where +our minds should have been sounded only a confused chaotic uproar +like a wrangling within the covers of a polyglot dictionary. Then +suddenly I landed a Russian! It was the final straw. I like to +speak Spanish, I can endure the creaking of Turks attempting to +talk Italian, I can bend an ear to the excruciating "French" of +Martinique negroes, I have boldly faced sputtering Arabs, but I +will NOT run the risk of talking Russian. It was the second and +last case during my census days when I was forced to call for +interpretative assistance. + +At best we caught only a small percentage at each table before the +crowd had wolfed and melted away. An odd half dozen more, perhaps, +we found stretched out in the shade under the mess-hall and +neighboring quarters before the imperative screech of the labor- +train whistle ended a scene that must be several times repeated, +and now left us silent and alone, to wander wet and weary to the +nearest white bachelor quarters, there to lie on our backs an hour +or more till the polyglot jumble of words in the back of our heads +had each climbed again to its proper shelf. + +Speaking of white bachelor quarters, therein lay the enumerator's +greatest problem. The Spaniard or the Jamaican is in nine cases +out of ten fluently familiar with his companion's antecedents and +pedigree. He can generally furnish all the information the census +department calls for. But it is quite otherwise with the American +bachelor. He may know his room-mate's exact degree of skill at +poker, he probably knows his private opinion of "the Colonel," he +is sure to know his degree of enmity to the prohibition movement; +but he is not at all certain to know his name and rarely indeed +has he the shadow of a notion when and in what particular corner +of the States he began the game of existence. So loose are ties +down on the Zone that a man's room-mate might go off into the +jungle and die and the former not dream of inquiring for him for a +week. Especially we world-wanderers, as are a large percentage of +"Zoners," with virtually no fixed roots in any soil, floating +wherever the job suggests or the spirit moves, have the facts of +our past in our own heads only. No wanderer of experience would +dream of asking his fellow where he came from. The answer would be +too apt to be, "from the last place." So difficult did this matter +become that I gave up rushing for the bus to Pedro Miguel each +evening and the even more distressing necessity of catching that +premature 6:30 train each morning in Empire and, packing a sheet +and pillow and tooth-brush, moved down to Paraiso that I might +spend the first half of the night in quest of these elusive bits +of bachelor information. + +Meanwhile the enrolling by day continued unabated. I had my first +experience enumerating "gold" married quarters--white American +families; just enough for experience and not enough to suffer +severely. The enrolling of West Indians was pleasanter. The wives +of locomotive engineers and steam-shovel cranemen were not +infrequently supercilious ladies who resented being disturbed +during their "social functions" and lacked the training in +politeness of Jamaican "mammies." Living in Paradise now under a +paternal all-providing government, they seemed to have forgotten +the rolling-pin days of the past. It was here in Paraiso that I +first encountered that strange, that wondrous strange custom of +lying about one's age. Negro women never did. What more absurd, +uncalled-for piece of dishonesty! Does Mrs. Smith fear that Mrs. +Jones next door will succeed in pumping out of me that capital bit +of information? Little does she know the long prison sentence at +"hard labor" that stares me in the face for any such slip; to say +nothing of my naturally incommunicative disposition. Or is she +ashamed to let ME know the truth?--unaware that all such +information goes in at my ears and down my pencil to the pink card +before me like a message over the wires, leaving no more trace +behind. Surely she must know that I care not a pencil-point +whether she is eighteen or fifty-two, nor remember which one +minute after her screen door has slammed behind me--unless she has +caused me to glance up in wonder at her silvering temples of +thirty-five when she simpers "twenty-two"--and to set her down as +forty to be on the safe side. Oh now, please, ladies, do not +understand me as accusing the American wives of Paraiso in general +of this weakness. The large majority were quite pleasant, frank, +and overflowing with cheery good sense. But the percentage who +were not was far larger than I, who am also an American, was +pleased to find it. + +But doubly astonishing were the few cases of lying by proxy. A +"clean-cut," college-graduated civil engineer of thirty-two whom +one would have cited as an example of the best type of American, +gave all data concerning himself in an unimpeachable manner. His +wife was absent. When the question of her age arose he gave it, +with the slightest catch in his voice, as twenty. Now that might +be all very well. Men of thirty-two are occasionally so fortunate +as to marry girls of twenty. But a moment later the gentleman in +question finds himself announcing that his wife has been living on +the Zone with him since 1907; and that she was born in New +England! Thus is he tripped over his own clothes-line. For New +England girls do not marry at fifteen; mother would not let them +even if they would. + +I, too, had gradually worked my way high up among the nondescript +cabins on the upper rim of Paraiso that seem on the very verge of +pitching headlong into the noisy, smoky canal far below with the +jar of the next explosion, when one sunny mid-afternoon I caught +sight of Renson dejectedly trudging down across what might be +called the "Maiden" of Paraiso, back of the two-story lodge-hall. +I took leave of my ebony hostess and descended. Renson's troubles +were indeed disheartening. Back in the jungled fringe of the town +he had fallen into a swarm of Martiniques, and Renson's French +being nothing more than an unstudied mixture of English and +Spanish, he had not gathered much information. Moreover negro +women from the French isles are enough to frighten any virtuous +young Marine. + +"What's the sense o' me tryin' to chew the fat in French?" asked +Renson, with tears in his voice. "I ain't in no condition to work +at this census business any longer anyway. I ain't got to bed +before three in the morning this week"--in his air was open +suggestion that it was some one else's fault--"Some day I'll be +gettin' in bad, too. This mornin' a fool nigger woman asked me if +I didn't want her black pickaninny I was enumeratin', thinkin' it +was a good joke. You know how these bush kids is runnin' around +all over the country before a white man's brat could walk on its +hind legs. 'Yes,' I says, 'if I was goin' alligator huntin' an' +needed bait!' I come near catchin' the brat up by the feet an' +beatin' its can off. I'm out o' luck any way, an'--" + +The fact is Renson was aching to be "fired." More than thirty days +had he been subject only to his own will, and it was high time he +returned to the nursery discipline of camp. Moreover he was out of +cigarettes. I slipped him one and smoothed him down as its fumes +grew--for Renson was as tractable as a child, rightly treated--and +set him to taking Jamaican tenements in the center of town, while +I struck off into the jungled Martinique hills myself. + +There were signs abroad that the census job was drawing to a +close. My first pay-day had already come and gone and I had +strolled up the gravel walk one noon-day to the Disembursing +Office with my yellow pay certificate duly initialed by the +examiner of accounts, and was handed my first four twenty-dollar +gold pieces--for hotel and commissary books sadly reduce a good +paycheck. Already one evening I had entered the census office to +find "the boss" just peeling off his sweat-dripping undershirt and +dotted with skin-pricking jungle life after a day mule-back on the +thither side of the canal; an utterly fruitless day, for not only +had he failed during eight hours of plunging through the +wilderness to find a single hut not already decorated with the +"enumerated" tag, but not even a banana could he lay hands on when +the noon-hour overhauled him far from the ministrations of "Ben" +and the breeze-swept veranda of Empire hotel. + +It was, I believe, the afternoon following Renson's linguistic +troubles that "the boss" came jogging into Paraiso on his sturdy +mule. In his eagerness to "clean up" the territory we fell to +corraling negroes everywhere, in the streets, at work, buying +their supplies at the commissary, sleeping in the shade of wayside +trees, anywhere and everywhere, until at last in his excitement +"the boss" let his medium soft pencil slip by the column for color +and dashed down the abbreviation for "mixed" after the question, +"Married or Single?" Which may have been near enough the truth of +the case, but suggested it was time to quit. So we marked Paraiso +"finished except for recalls" and returned to Empire. + +One by one our fellow-enumerators had dropped by the wayside, some +by mutual agreement, some without any agreement whatever. Renson +was now relieved from census duty, to his great joy, there +remained but four of us,--"the boss" and "Mac" in the office, +"Scotty" and I outside. A deep conference ensued and, as if I had +not had good luck enough already, it was decided that we two +should go through the "cut" itself. It was like offering us a +salary to view all the Great Work in detail, for virtually all the +excavation of any importance on the Zone lay within the confines +of our district. + +So one day "Scotty" and I descended at the girderless railroad +bridge and, taking each one side of the canal, set out to canvass +its every nook and cranny. The canal as it then stood was about +the width of two city blocks, an immense chasm piled and tumbled +with broken rock and earth, in the center a ditch already filled +with grimy water, on either side several levels of rough rock +ledges with sheer rugged stone faces; for the hills were being cut +away in layers each far above the other. High above us rose the +jagged walls of the "cut" with towns hanging by their fingernails +all along its edge, and ahead in the abysmal, smoky distance the +great channel gashed through Culebra mountain. + +The different levels varied from ten to twenty feet one above the +other, each with a railroad on it, back and forth along which +incessantly rumbled and screeched dirt-trains full or empty, +halting before the steam-shovels, that shivered and spouted thick +black smoke as they ate away the rocky hills and cast them in +great giant handsful on the train of one-sided flat-cars that +moved forward bit by bit at the flourish of the conductor's yellow +flag. Steam-shovels that seemed human in all except their mammoth +fearless strength tore up the solid rock with snorts of rage and +the panting of industry, now and then flinging some troublesome, +stubborn boulder angrily upon the cars. Yet they could be dainty +as human fingers too, could pick up a railroad spike or push a +rock gently an inch further across the car. Each was run by two +white Americans, or at least what would prove such when they +reached the shower-bath in their quarters--the craneman far out on +the shovel arm, the engineer within the machine itself with a +labyrinth of levers demanding his unbroken attention. Then there +was of course a gang of negroes, firemen and the like, attached to +each shovel. + +All the day through I climbed and scrambled back and forth between +the different levels, dodging from one track to another and along +the rocky floor of the canal, needing eyes and ears both in front +and behind, not merely for trains but for a hundred hidden and +unknown dangers to keep the nerves taut. Now and then a palatial +motorcar, like some rail-road breed of taxi, sped by with its +musical insistent jingling bells, usually with one of the +countless parties of government guests or tourists in spotless +white which the dry season brings. Dirt-trains kept the right of +way, however, for the Work always comes first at Panama. Or it +might be the famous "yellow car" itself with members of the +Commission. Once it came all but empty and there dropped off +inconspicuously a man in baggy duck trousers, a black alpaca coat +of many wrinkles; and an unassuming straw hat, a white-haired man +with blue--almost babyish blue-eyes, a cigarette dangling from his +lips as he strolled about with restless yet quiet energy. There +has been no flash and glitter of military uniforms on the Zone +since the French sailed for home, but every one knew "the Colonel" +for all that, the soldier who has never "seen service," who has +never heard the shrapnel scream by overhead, yet to whom the world +owes more thanks than six conquering generals rolled into one. + +Scores of "trypod" and "Star" drills, whole battalions of +deafening machines run by compressed air brought from miles away, +are pounding and grinding and jamming holes in the living rock. +After them will presently come nonchalantly strolling along gangs +of the ubiquitous black "powder-men" and carelessly throw down +boxes of dynamite and pound the drill-holes full thereof and tamp +them down ready to "blow" at 11:30 and 5:30 when the workmen are +out of range,--those mighty explosions that twelve times a week +set the porch chairs of every I.C.C. house on the Isthmus to +rocking, and are heard far out at sea. + +Anywhere near the drills is such a roaring and jangling that I +must bellow at the top of my voice to be heard at all. The entire +gamut of sound-waves surrounds and enfolds me, and with it all the +powerful Atlantic breeze sweeps deafeningly through the channel. +Down in the bottom of the canal if one step behind anything that +shuts off the breeze it is tropically hot; yet up on the edge of +the chasm above, the trees are always nodding and bowing before +the ceaseless wind from off the Caribbean. Scores of "switcheros" +drowse under their sheet-iron wigwams, erected not so much as +protection from the sun, for the drowsers are mostly negroes and +immune to that, as from young rocks that the dynamite blasts +frequently toss a quarter-mile. Then over it all hang heavy clouds +of soft-coal dust from trains and shovels, shifting down upon the +black, white and mixed, and the enumerator alike; a dirty, noisy, +perilous, enjoyable job. + +Everywhere are gangs of men, sometimes two or three gangs working +together at the same task. Shovel gangs, track gangs, surfacing +gangs, dynamite gangs, gangs doing everything imaginable with +shovel and pick and crowbar, gangs down on the floor of the canal, +gangs far up the steep walls of cut rock, gangs stretching away in +either direction till those far off look like upright bands of the +leaf-cutting ants of Panamanian jungles; gangs nearly all, +whatever their nationality, in the blue shirts and khaki trousers +of the Zone commissary, giving a peculiar color scheme to all the +scene. + +Now and then the boss is a stony-eyed American with a black cigar +clamped between his teeth. More often he is of the same +nationality as the workers, quite likely from the same town, who +jabbers a little imitation English. Which is one of the reasons +why a force of "time inspectors" is constantly dodging in and out +over the job, time-book and pencil in hand, lest some fellow- +townsman of the boss be earning his $1.50 a day under the shade of +a tree back in the jungle. Here are Basques in their boinas, +preferring their native "Euscarra" to Spanish; French "niggers" +and English "niggers" whom it is to the interest of peace and +order to keep as far apart as possible; occasionally a few +sunburned blond men in a shovel gang, but they prove to be Teutons +or Scandinavians; laborers of every color and degree--except +American laborers, more than conspicuous by their absence. For the +American negro is an untractable creature in large numbers, and +the caste system that forbids white Americans from engaging in +common labor side by side with negroes is to be expected in an +enterprise of which the leaders are not only military men but +largely southerners, however many may be shivering in the streets +of Chicago or roaming hungrily through the byways of St. Louis. It +is well so, perhaps. None of us who feels an affection for the +Zone would wish to see its atmosphere lowered from what it is to +the brutal depths of our railroad construction camps in the +States. + +The attention of certain state legislatures might advantageously +be called to the Zone Spaniard's drinking-cup. It is really a tin +can on the end of a long stick, cover and all. The top is punched +sieve-like that the water may enter as it is dipped in the bucket +with which the water-boy strains along. In the bottom is a single +small hole out of which spurts into the drinker's mouth a little +stream of water as he holds it high above his head, as once he +drank wine from his leather bota in far-off Spain. Many a Spanish +gang comes entirely from the same town, notably Salamanca or +Avila. I set them to staring and chattering by some simple remark +about their birthplace: "Fine view from the Paseo del Rastro, eh?" +"Does the puente romano still cross the river?" But I had soon to +cease such personalities, for picks and shovels lay idle as long +as I remained in sight and Uncle Sam was the loser. + +So many were the gangs that I advanced barely a half-mile during +this first day and, lost in my work, forgot the hour until it was +suddenly recalled by the insistent, strident tooting of whistles +that forewarns the setting-off of the dynamite charges from the +little red electric boxes along the edge of the "cut." I turned +back toward Paraiso and, all but stumbling over little red-wound +wires everywhere on the ground, dodging in and out, running +forward, halting or suddenly retreating, I worked my way gradually +forward, while all the world about me was upheaving and spouting +and belching forth to the heavens, as if I had been caught in the +crater of a volcano as it suddenly erupted without warning. The +history of Panama is strewn with "dynamite stories." Even the +French had theirs in their sixteen per cent, of the excavation of +Culebra; in American annals there is one for every week. Three +days before, one of my Empire friends set off one afternoon for a +stroll through the "cut" he had not seen for a year. In a retired +spot he came upon two negroes pounding an irregular bundle. "What +you doing, boys?" he inquired with idle curiosity. "Jes' a +brealdn' up dis yere dynamite, boss," languidly answered one of +the blacks. My friend was one of those apprehensive, over-cautious +fellows so rare on the Zone. Without so much as taking his leave +he set off at a run. Some two car-lengths beyond an explosion +pitched him forward and all but lifted him off his feet. When he +looked back the negroes had left. Indeed neither of them has +reported for work since. + +Then there was "Mac's" case. In his ambition for census efficiency +"Mac" was in the habit of stopping workmen wherever he met them. +One day he encountered a Jamaican carrying a box of dynamite on +his head and, according to his custom, shouted: + +"Hey, boy! Had your census taken yet?" + +"What dat, boss?" cried the Jamaican with wide-open eyes, as he +threw the box at "Mac's" feet and stood at respectful attention. + +Somehow "Mac" lacked a bit of his old zealousness thereafter. + +On the second day I pushed past Cucaracha, scene of the greatest +"slide" in the history of the canal when forty-seven acres went +into the "cut," burying under untold tons of earth and rock steam- +shovels and railroads, "Star" and "trypod" drills, and all else in +sight--except the "rough-necks," who are far too fast on their +feet to be buried against their will. One by one I dragged shovel +gangs away to a distance where my shouting could be heard, one by +one I commanded drillmen to shut off their deafening machines, all +day I dodged switching, snorting trains, clambered by steep rocky +paths, or ladders from one level to another, howling above the +roar of the "cut" the time-worn questions, straining my ear to +catch the answer. Many a negro did not know the meaning of the +word "census," and must have it explained to him in words of one +syllable. Many a time I climbed to some lofty rock ledge lined +with drills and, gesticulating like a semaphore in signal +practice, caught at last the wandering attention of a negro, to +shout sore-throated above the incessant pounding of machines and +the roaring of the Atlantic breeze: + +"Hello, boy! Census taken yet?" + +A long vacant stare, then at last, perhaps, the answer: + +"Oh, yes sah, boss." + +"When and where?" + +"In Spanish Town, Jamaica, three year ago, sah." + +Which was not an attempt to be facetious but an answer in all +seriousness. Why should not one census, like one baptism, suffice +for a life-time? It was fortunate that enumerators were not +accustomed to carry deadly weapons. + +Quick changes from negro to Spanish gangs demonstrated beyond all +future question how much more native intelligence has the white +man. Rarely did I need to ask a Spaniard a question twice, still +less ask him to repeat the answer. His replies came back sharp and +swift as a pelota from a cesta. West Indians not only must hear +the question an average of three times but could seldom give the +simplest information clearly enough to be intelligible, though +ostensibly speaking English. A Spanish card one might fill out and +be gone in less time than the negro could be roused from his +racial torpor. Yet of the Spaniards on the Zone surely seventy per +cent, were wholly illiterate, while the negroes from the British +Weat Indies, thanks to their good fortune in being ruled over by +the world's best colonist, could almost invariably read and write; +many of those shoveling in the "cut" have been trained in +trigonometry. + +Few are the "Zoners" now who do not consider the Spaniard the best +workman ever imported in all the sixty-five years from the +railroad surveying to the completion of the canal. The stocky, +muscle-bound little fellows come no longer to America as +conquistadores, but to shovel dirt. And yet more cheery, willing +workers, more law-abiding subjects are scarcely to be found. It is +unfortunate we could not have imported Spaniards for all the canal +work; even they have naturally learned some "soldiering" from the +example of lazy negroes who, where laborers must be had, are a bit +better than no labor--though not much. + +The third day came, and high above me towered the rock cliffs of +Culebra's palm-crowned hill, steam-shovels approaching the summit +in echelon, here and there an incipient earth and rock "slide" +dribbling warningly down. He who still fancies the digging of the +canal an ordinary task should have tramped with us through just +our section, halting to speak to every man in it, climbing out of +this man-made canon twice a day, a strenuous climb even near its +ends, while at Culebra one looks up at all but unscalable mountain +walls on either side. + +From time to time we hear murmurs from abroad that Americans are +making light of catastrophies on the Isthmus, that they cover up +their great disasters by a strict censorship of news. The latter +is mere absurdity. As to catastrophies, a great "slide" or a +premature dynamite explosion are serious disaster to Americans on +the job just as they would be to Europeans. But whereas the +continental European would sit down before the misfortune and +weep, the American swears a round oath, spits on his hands, and +pitches in to shovel the "slide" out again. He isn't belittling +the disasters; it is merely that he knows the canal has got to be +dug and goes ahead and digs it. That is the greatest thing on the +Zone. Amid all the childish snarling of "Spigoties," the back- +biting of Europe, the congressional wrangles, the Cabinet +politics, the man on the job,--"the Colonel," the average +American, the "rough-neck"--goes right on digging the canal day by +day as if he had never heard a rumor of all this outside noise. + +Mighty is the job from one point of view; yet tiny from another. +With all his enormous equipment, his peerless ingenuity, and his +feverish activity all little man has succeeded in doing is to +scratch a little surface wound in Mother Earth, cutting open a few +superficial veins, of water, that trickle down the rocky face of +the "cut." + +By March twelfth we had carried our task past and under Empire +suspension bridge, and the end of the "cut" was almost in sight. +That day I clawed and scrambled a score of times up the face of +rock walls. I zigzagged through long rows of negroes pounding +holes in rock ledges. I stumbled and splashed my way through gangs +of Martinique "muckers." I slid down the face of government-made +cliffs on the seat of my commissary breeches. I fought my way up +again to stalk through long lines of men picking away at the dizzy +edge of sheer precipices. I rolled down in the sand and rubble of +what threatened to develop into "slides." I crawled under snorting +steam-shovels to drag out besooted negroes--negroes so besooted I +had to ask them their color--while dodging the gigantic swinging +shovel itself, to say nothing of "dhobie" blasts and rocks of the +size of drummers' trunks that spilled from it as it swung. I +climbed up into the quivering monster itself to interrupt the +engineer at his levers, to shout at the craneman on his beam. I +sprang aboard every train that was not running at full speed, +walking along the running-board into the cab; if not to "get" the +engineer at least to gain new life from his private ice-water +tank. I scrambled over tenders and quarter-miles of "Lidgerwood +flats" piled high with broken rock and earth, to scream at the +American conductor and his black brakemen, often to find myself, +by the time I had set down one of them, carried entirely out of my +district, to Pedro Miguel or beyond the Chagres, and have to "hit +the grit" in "hobo" fashion and catch something back to the spot +where I left off. In short I poked into every corner of the "cut" +known to man, bawling in the November-first voice of a +presidential candidate to everything in trousers: + +"Eh! 'Ad yer census taken yet?" + +And what was my reward? From the northern edge of Empire to where +the "cut" sinks away into the Chagres and the low, flat country +beyond, I enrolled--just thirteen persons. It was then and there, +though it still lacked an hour of noon, that I ceased to be a +census enumerator. With slow and deliberate step I climbed out of +the canal and across a pathed field to Bas Obispo and, sitting +down in the shade of her station, patiently awaited the train that +would carry me back to Empire. + +Four thousand, six hundred and seventy-seven Zone residents had I +enrolled during those six weeks. Something over half of these were +Jamaicans. Of the states Pennsylvania was best represented. +Martinique negroes, Greeks, Spaniards, and Panamanians were some +eighty per cent illiterate; of some three hundred of the first +only a half dozen even claimed to read and write; and non-wedlock +was virtually universal among them. + +Rumor has it that there are seventy-two separate states and +dependencies represented on the Isthmus. My own cards showed a few +less. Most conspicuous absences, besides American negroes, were +natives of Honduras, of four countries of South America, of most +of Africa, and of entire Australia. That this was largely due to +chance was shown by the fact that my fellow-enumerators found +persons from all these countries. + +I had enrolled persons born in the following places: All the +United States except three or four states in the far northwest; +Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, +Panama, Canal Zone, Colombia, Venezuela, British Guiana +(Demarara), French and Dutch Guiana, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and +Chile, Cuba, Hayti and Santo Domingo, Jamaica, Barbados, St. +Vincent, Trinidad, Saint Lucia, Montserrat, Dominica, Nevis, +Nassau, Eleuthera and Inagua, Martinique, Guadalupe, Saint Thomas +(Danish West Indies), Curacao and Tobago, England, Ireland, +Scotland, Holland, Finland, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, +Russia, France, Spain, Andorra, Portugal, Switzerland, Germany, +Italy, Austria, Hungary, Greece, Servia, Turkey, Canary Islands, +Syria, Palestine, Arabia, India (from Tuticorin to Lahore), China, +Japan, Egypt, Sierra Leone, South Africa and--the High Seas. + +"Where you born, boy?" I had run across a wrinkled old negro who +had worked more than thirty years for the P.R.R. + +"'Deed ah don' know, boss," + +"Oh, come! Don't know where you were born?" "Fo' Gawd, boss, ah's +tellin' yo de truff. Ah don know, 'cause ah born to sea." + +"Well, what country are you a subject of?" + +"Truly ah cahn't say, boss." + +"Well what nationality was your father?" + +"Ah neveh see him, sah." "Well then where the devil did you first +land after you were born?" + +"'Deed ah cahn't say, boss. T'ink it were one o' dem islands. +Reckon ah's a subjec' o' de' worl', boss." + +Weeks afterward the population of Uncle Sam's ten by fifty-mile +strip of tropics was found to have been on February first, 1912, +62,810. No, anxious reader, I am not giving away inside +information; the source of my remarks is the public prints. Of +these about 25,000 were British subjects (West Indian negroes with +very few exceptions). Of the entire population 37,428 were +employed by the U. S. government. Of white Americans, of the +Brahmin caste of the "gold" roll, there were employed on the Zone +but 5,228, + + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Police headquarters presented an unusual air of preoccupation next +morning. In the corner office the telephone rang often and +imperatively, several times erect figures in khaki and broad +"Texas" hats flashed by the doorway, the drone of earnest +conference sounded a few minutes, and the figures flashed as +suddenly out again into the world. In the inner office I glanced +once more in review through the "Rules and Regulations." The Zone, +too, was now familiar ground, and as for the third requirement for +a policeman--to know the Zone residents by sight--a strange face +brought me a start of surprise, unless it beamed above the garb +that shouted "tourist." Now all I needed was a few hours of +conference and explanation on the duties, rights, and privileges +of policemen; and that of course would come as soon as leisure +again settled down over headquarters. + +Musing which I was suddenly startled to my feet by "the Captain" +appearing in the doorway. + +"Catch the next train to Balboa;" he said. "You've got four +minutes. You'll find Lieutenant Long on board. Here are the people +to look out for." + +He thrust into my hands a slip of paper, from another direction +there was tossed at me a new brass-check and "First-Class Private" +police badge No. 88, and I was racing down through Ancon. In the +meadow below the Tivoli I risked time to glance at the slip of +paper. On it were the names of an ex-president and two ministers +of a frowsy little South American republic during whose rule a +former president and his henchmen had been brutally murdered by a +popular uprising in the very capital itself. + +In the first-class coach I found Lieutenant Long, towering so far +above all his surroundings as to have been easily recognized even +had he not been in uniform. Beside him sat Corporal Castillo of +the "plain-clothes" squad, a young man of forty, with a high +forehead, a stubby black mustache, and a chin that was decisive +without being aggressive. + +"Now here's the Captain's idea," explained the Lieutenant, as the +train swung away around Ancon hill, "We'll have to take turns +mounting guard over them, of course. I'll have to talk Spanish, +and nobody'd have to look at Castillo more than once to know he +was born up in some crack in the Andes."--Which was one of the +Lieutenant's jokes, for the Corporal, though a Colombian, was as +white, sharp-witted, and energetic as any American on the Zone. +--"But no one to look at him would suspect that Fr--French, is +it?" + +"Franck." + +"Oh, yes, that Franck could speak Spanish. We 'll do our best to +inflate that impression, and when it comes your turn at guard- +mount you can probably let several little things of interest drift +in at your ears." + +"I left headquarters before the Captain had time to explain," I +suggested. + +"Oh!" said the Lieutenant. "Well, here it is in a spectacle-case, +as our friend Kipling would put it. We're on our way to Culebra +Island. There are now in quarantine there three men who arrived +yesterday from South America. They are members of the party of the +murdered president. To-day there will arrive and also be put in +hock the three gents whose names you have there. Now we have a +private inside hunch that the three already here have come up +particularly and specifically to prepare for the funeral of the +three who are arriving. Which is no hair off our brows, except +it's up to us to see they don't pull off any little stunts of that +kind on Zone territory." + +At least this police business was starting well; if this was a +sample it would be a real job. + +The train had stopped and we were climbing the steps of Balboa +police station; for without the co-operation of the "Admiral of +the Pacific Fleet" we could not reach Culebra Island. + +"By the way, I suppose you're well armed?" asked the Lieutenant in +his high querulous voice, as we drank a last round of ice-water +preparatory to setting out again. + +"Em--I've got a fountain pen," I replied. "I haven't been a +policeman twenty minutes yet, and I was appointed in a hurry." + +"Fine!" cried "the Admiral" sarcastically, snatching open the door +of a closet beside the desk. "With a warm job like this on hand! +You know what these South Americans are--" with a wink at the +Lieutenant that was meant also for Castillo, who stood with his +felt hat on the back of his head and a far-away look in his eyes. + +"Yah, mighty dangerous--around meal time," said the Corporal; +though at the same time he drew from a hip pocket a worn leather +holster containing a revolver, and examined it intently. + +Meanwhile "the Admiral" had handed me a massive No. 88 "Colt" with +holster, a box of cartridges, and a belt that might easily have +served as a horse's saddle-girth. When I had buckled it on under +my coat the armament felt like a small boy clinging about my +waist. + +We trooped on down a sort of railroad junction with a score of +abandoned wooden houses. It was here I had first landed on the +Zone one blazing Sunday nearly two months before and tramped away +for some miles on a rusty sandy track along a canal already filled +with water till a short jungle path led me into my first Zone +town. Already that seemed ancient history. + +The police launch, manned by negro prisoners, with "the Admiral" +in a cushioned arm-chair at the wheel, was soon scudding away +across the sunlit harbor, the breakwater building of the spoil of +Culebra "cut" on our left, ahead the cluster of small islands +being torn to pieces for Uncle Sam's fortifications. The steamer +being not yet sighted, we put in at Naos Island, where the bulky +policeman in charge led us to dinner at the I. C. C. hotel, during +which the noonday blasting on the Zone came dully across to us. +Soon after we were landing at the cement sidewalk of the island-- +where I had been a prisoner for a day in January as my welcome to +U. S. territory--and were being greeted by the pocket edition +doctor and the bay-windowed German who had been my wardens on that +occasion. + +We found the conspirators at a table in a corridor of the first- +class quarantine station. In the words of Lieutenant Long "they +fully looked the part," being of distinctly merciless cut of jib. +They were roughly dressed and without collars, convincing proof of +some nefarious design, for when the Latin-American entitled to +wear them leaves off his white collar and his cane he must be +desperate indeed. + +We "braced" them at once, marching down upon them as they were +murmuring with heads together over a mass of typewritten sheets. +The Corporal was delegated to inform them in his most urbane and +hidalguezco Castilian that we were well acquainted with their +errand and that we were come to frustrate by any legitimate means +in our power the consummation of any such project on American +territory. When the first paralyzed stare of astonishment that +plans they had fancied locked in their own breasts were known to +others had somewhat subsided, one of them assumed the +spokesmanship. In just as courtly and superabundant language he +replied that they were only too well aware of the inadvisability +of carrying out any act against its sovereignty on U. S. soil; +that so long as they were on American territory they would conduct +themselves in a most circumspect and caballeroso manner--"but," he +concluded, "in the most public street of Panama city the first +time we meet those three dogs--we shall spit in their faces-- +that's all, nada mas," and the blazing eyes announced all too +plainly what he meant by that figure of speech. + +That was all very well, was our smiling and urbane reply, but to +be on the safe side and merely as a matter of custom we were under +the unfortunate necessity of requesting them to submit to the +annoyance of having their baggage and persons examined with a view +to discovering what weapons-- + +"Como no senores? All the examination you desire." Which was +exceedingly kind of them. Whereupon, when the Lieutenant had +interpreted to me their permission, we fell upon them and amid +countless expressions of mutual esteem gave them and their baggage +such a "frisking" as befalls a Kaffir leaving a South African +diamond mine, and found them armed with--a receipt from the +quarantine doctor for "one pearl-handled Smill and Wilson No. 32." +Either they really intended to postpone their little affair until +they reached Panama, or they had succeeded in concealing their +weapons elsewhere. + +The doctor and his assistant were already being rowed out to the +steamer that was to bring the victims. They were to be lodged in a +room across the corridor from the conspirators, which corridor it +would be our simple duty to patrol with a view to intercepting any +exchange of stray lead. We fell to planning such division of the +twenty-four hours as should give me the most talkative period. The +Lieutenant took the trouble further to convince the trio of my +total ignorance of Spanish by a distinct and elaborate +explanation, in English, of the difference between the words +"muchacho" and "muchacha." Then we wandered down past the grimy +steerage station to the shore end of the little wharf to await the +doctor and our proteges. + +The ocean breeze swept unhampered across the island; on its rocky +shore sounded the dull rumble of waves, for the sea was rolling a +bit now. The swelling tide covered inch by inch a sandy ridge that +connected us with another island, gradually drowning beneath its +waters several rusty old hulls. A little rocky wooded isle to the +left cut off the future entrance to the canal. Some miles away +across the bay on the lower slope of a long hill drowsed the city +of Panama in brilliant sunshine; and beyond, the hazy mountainous +country stretched southwestward to be lost in the molten horizon. +On a distant hill some Indian was burning off a patch of jungle to +plant his corn. + +Meanwhile the Lieutenant and the Corporal had settled some +Lombroso proposition and fallen to reciting poetry. The former, +who was evidently a lover of melancholy, mouth-filling verse, was +declaiming "The Raven" to the open sea. I listened in wonder. Was +this then police talk? I had expected rough, untaught fellows +whose conversation at best would be pornographic rather than +poetic. My astonishment swelled to the bursting point when the +Colombian not only caught up the poem where the Lieutenant left +off but topped it off with that peerless translation by Bonalde +the Venezuelan, beginning: + + Una fosca media noche, cuando en tristes reflexiones + Sobre mas de un raro infolio de olvidados cronicones-- + +And just then the quarantine launch swung around the neighboring +island. I tightened my horse belt and dragged the "Colt" around +within easy reach; and a moment later the doctor and his bulking +understudy stepped ashore--alone. + +"They didn't come," said the former; "they were not allowed to +leave their own country." + +"Hell and damnation," said the Lieutenant at length in a calm, +conversational tone of voice, with the air of a small boy who has +been wantonly robbed of a long-promised holiday but who is +determined not to make a scene over it. The Corporal seemed +indifferent, and stood with the far-away look in his eyes as if he +were already busy with some other plans or worries. But then, the +Corporal was married. As for myself, I had somehow felt from the +first that it was too good to be true. Adventure has steadily +dodged me all my days. + +A half-hour later we were pitching across the bay toward Ancon +hill, scaled bare on one end by the work of fortification like a +Hindu hair-cut. The water came spitting inboard now and then, and +dejected silence reigned within the craft. But spirits gradually +revived and before we could make out the details of the wharf the +Corporal's hearty genuine laughter and the Lieutenant's rousing +carcajada were again drifting across the water. At Balboa I +unburdened myself of my shooting hardware and, catching the labor- +train, was soon mounting the graveled walk to Ancon police +station. In the second-story squad-room of the bungalow were eight +beds. But there were more than enough policemen to go round, and +the legal occupant of the bunk I fell asleep in returned from duty +at midnight and I transferred to the still warm nest of a man on +the "grave-yard" shift. + +"It's customary to put a man in uniform for a while first before +assigning him to plain-clothes duty," the Inspector was saying +next morning when I finished the oath of office that had been +omitted in the haste of my appointment, "but we have waived that +in your case because of the knowledge of the Zone the census must +have given you." + +Thus casually was I robbed of the opportunity to display my manly +form in uniform to tourists of trains and the Tivoli--tourists, I +say, because the "Zoners" would never have noticed it. But we must +all accept the decrees of fate. + +That was the full extent of the Inspector's remarks; no mention +whatever of the sundry little points the recruit is anxious to be +enlightened upon. In government jobs one learns those details by +experience. For the time being there was nothing for me to do but +to descend to the "gum-shoe" desk in Ancon station and sit in the +swivel-chair opposite Lieutenant Long "waiting for orders." + +Toward noon a thought struck me. I swung the telephone around and +"got" the Inspector. + +"All my junk is up in Empire yet," I remarked. + +"All right, tell the desk-man down there to make you out a pass. +Or--hold the wire! As long as you're going out, there's a prisoner +over in Panama that belongs up in Empire. Go over and tell the +Chief you want Tal Fulano." + +I wormed my way through the fawning, neck-craning, many-shaded mob +of political henchmen and obsequious petitioners into the sacred +hushed precincts of Panama police headquarters. A paunched +"Spigoty" with a shifty eye behind large bowed glasses, vainly +striving to exude dignity and wisdom, received me with the oily +smirk of the Panamanian office-holder who feels the painful +necessity of keeping on outwardly good terms with all Americans. I +flashed my badge and mentioned a name. A few moments later there +was presented to me a sturdy, if somewhat flabby, young Spaniard +carefully dressed and perfumed. We bowed like life-long +acquaintances and, stepping down to the street, entered a cab. The +prisoner, which he was now only in name, was a muscular fellow +with whom I should have fared badly in personal combat. I was +wholly unarmed, and in a foreign land. All those sundry little +unexplained points of a policeman's duty were bubbling up within +me. When the prisoner turned to remark it was a warm day should I +warn him that anything he said would be used against him? When he +ordered the driver to halt before the "Panazone" that he might +speak to some friends should I fiercely countermand the order? +What was my duty when the friends handed him some money and a +package of cigars? Suppose he should start to follow his friends +inside to have a drink--but he didn't. We drove languidly on down +the avenue and up into Ancon, where I heaved a genuine sigh of +relief as we crossed the unmarked street that made my badge good +again. The prisoner was soon behind padlocks and the money and +cigars in the station safe. These and him and the transfer card I +took again with me into the foreign Republic in time for the +evening train. But he seemed even more anxious than I to attract +no attention, and once in Empire requested that we take the +shortest and most inconspicuous route to the police station; and +my responsibility was soon over. + +Many were the Z.P. facts I picked up during the next few days in +the swivel-chair. The Zone Police force of 1912 consisted of a +Chief of Police, an Assistant Chief, two Inspectors, four +Lieutenants, eight sergeants, twenty corporals, one hundred and +seventeen "first-class policemen," and one hundred and sixteen +"policemen" (West Indian negroes without exception, though none +but an American citizen could aspire to any white position); not +to mention five clerks at headquarters, who are quite worth the +mentioning. "Policemen" wore the same uniform as "first-class" +officers, with khaki-covered helmet instead of "Texas" hat and +canvas instead of leather leggings, drew one-half the pay of a +white private, were not eligible for advancement, and with some +few notable exceptions were noted for what they did know and the +facility with which they could not learn. One Inspector was in +charge of detective work and the other an overseer of the +uniformed force. Each of the Lieutenants was in charge of one- +fourth of the Zone with headquarters respectively at Ancon, +Empire, Gorgona, and Cristobal, and the sub-stations within these +districts in charge of sergeants, corporals, or experienced +privates, according to importance. + +Years ago when things were yet in primeval chaos and the memorable +sixth of February of 1904 was still well above the western horizon +there was gathered together for the protection of the newly-born +Canal Strip a band of "bad men" from our ferocious Southwest, +warranted to feed on criminals each breakfast time, and in command +of a man-eating rough-rider. But somehow the bad men seemed unable +to transplant to this new and richer soil the banefulness that had +thrived so successfully in the land of sage-brush and cactus. The +gourmandizing promised to be chiefly at the criminal tables; and +before long it was noted that the noxious gentlemen were gradually +drifting back to their native sand dunes, and the rough-riding +gave way to a more orderly style of horsemanship. Then bit by bit +some men--just men without any qualifying adjective whatever-- +began to get mixed up in the matter; one after another army +lieutenants were detailed to help the thing along, until by and by +they got the right army lieutenant and the right men and the Z. P. +grew to what it is to-day,--not the love, perhaps, but the pride +of every "Zoner" whose name cannot be found on some old "blotter." + +There are a number of ways of getting on the force. There is the +broad and general high-way of being appointed in Washington and +shipped down like a nice fresh vegetable in the original package +and delivered just as it left the garden without the pollution of +alien hands. Then there's the big, impressive, broad-shouldered +fellow with some life and military service behind him, and the +papers to prove it, who turns up on the Zone and can't help +getting on if he takes the trouble to climb to headquarters. Or +there are the special cases, like Marley for instance. Marley blew +in one summer day from some uncharted point of the compass with +nothing but his hat and a winning smile on his brassy features, +and naturally soon drifted up the "Thousand Stairs." But Marley +wasn't exactly of that manly build that takes "the Chief" and "the +Captain" by storm; and there were suggestions on his young-old +face that he had seen perhaps a trifle too much of life. So he +wiped the sweat from his brow several times at the third-story +landing only to find as often that the expected vacancy was not +yet. Meanwhile the tropical days slipped idly by and Marley's +"standin" with the owners of I. C. C. hotel-books began to strain +and threaten to break away, and everything sort of gave up the +ghost and died. Everything, that is, except the winning smile. +'Til one afternoon with only that asset left Marley met the +department head on the grass-bordered path in front of the +Episcopal chapel, just where the long descent ends and a man +begins to regain his tractable mood, and said Marley: + +"Say, looka here, Chief. It's a question of eats with me. We can't +put this thing off much longer or--" + +Which is why that evening's train carried Marley, with a police +badge and the little flat volume bound in imitation leather in his +pocket, out to some substation commander along the line for the +corporal in charge to break in and hammer down into that finished +product, a Zone Policeman. + +Incidentally Marley also illustrated some months later one of the +special ways of getting off the force. It was still simpler. Going +"on pass" to Colon to spend a little evening, Marley neglected to +leave his No. 38 behind in the squad-room, according to Z. P. +rules. Which was careless of him. For when his spirits reached +that stage where he recognized what sport it would be to see the +"Spigoty" policemen of Bottle Alley dance a western cancan he +bethought him of the No. 38. Which accounts for the fact that the +name of Marley can no longer be found on the rolls of the Z. P. +But all this is sadly anticipating. + +Obviously, you will say, a force recruited from such dissimilar +sources must be a thing of wide and sundry experience. And +obviously you are right. Could a man catch up the Z. P. by the +slack of the khaki riding breeches and shake out their stories as +a giant in need of carfare might shake out their loose change, +then might he retire to some sunny hillside of his own and build +him a sound-proof house with a swimming pool and a revolving +bookcase and a stable of riding horses, and cause to be erected on +the front lawn a kneeling-place where publishers might come and +bow down and beat their foreheads on the pavement. + +There are men in the Z. P. who in former years have played horse +with the startled markets of great American cities; men whose +voices will boom forth in the pulpit and whisper sage councils in +the professional in years to come; men whom doting parents have +sent to Harvard--on whom it failed to take, except on their +clothes--men who have gone down into the Valley of the Shadow of +Death and crawled on hands and knees through the brackish red brook +that runs at the bottom and come out again smiling on the brink +above. Careers more varied than Mexican sombreros one might hear +in any Z. P. squad-room--were not the Z. P. so much more given to +action than to autobiography. + +They bore little resemblance to what I had expected. My mental +picture of an American policeman was that conglomerate average one +unconsciously imbibes from a distant view of our city forces, and +by comparison with foreign,--a heavy-footed, discourteous, half- +fanatical, half-irreligious clubber whose wits are as slow as his +judgment is honest. Instead of which I found the Z. P. composed +almost without exception of good-hearted, well set up young +Americans almost all of military training. I had anticipated, from +other experiences, a constant bickering and a general striving to +make life unendurable for a new-comer. Instead I was constantly +surprised at the good fellowship that existed throughout the +force. There were of course some healthy rivalries; there were no +angels among them--or I should have fled the Isthmus much earlier; +but for the most part the Z. P. resembled nothing so much as a big +happy family. Above all I had expected early to make the +acquaintance of "graft," that shifty-eyed monster which we who +have lived in large American cities think of as sitting down to +dinner with the force in every mess-hall. Graft? Why a Zone +Policeman could not ride on a P. R. R. train in full uniform when +off duty without paying his fare, though he was expected to make +arrests if necessary and stop behind with his prisoner. Compared +indeed with almost any other spot on the broad earth's surface +"graft" eats slim meals on the Canal Zone. + +The average Zone Policeman would arrest his own brother--which is +after all about the supreme test of good policehood. He is not a +man who likes to keep "blotters," make out accident reports and +such things, that can be of interest only to those with clerks' +and bookkeepers' souls. + +He would far rather be battling with sun, man, and vegetation in +the jungle. He is of those who genuinely and frankly have no +desire to become rich, and "successful," a lack of ambition that +formal society cannot understand and fancies a weakness. + +I had still another police surprise during these swivel-chair +days. I discovered there was on the Zone a yellow tailor who made +Beau Brummel uniforms at $7.50, compared with which the $5 ready- +made ones were mere clothes. All my life long I had been laboring +under the delusion that a uniform is merely a uniform. But one +lives and learns. + +There are few left, I suppose, who have not heard that gray- +bearded story of the American in the Philippines who called his +native servant and commanded: + +"Juan, va fetch the caballo from the prado and--and--oh, saddle +and bridle him. Damn such a language anyway! I'm sorry I ever +learned it." + +This is capped on the Zone by another that is not only true but +strikingly typical. An American boss who had been much annoyed by +unforeseen absences of his workmen pounced upon one of his +Spaniards one morning crying: + +"When you know por la noche that you're not going to trabaja por +la manana why in--don't you habla?" + +"Si, senor," replied the Spaniard. + +By which it may be gathered that linguistic ability on the Zone is +on a par with that in other U. S. possessions. Of the seven of us +assigned to plain-clothes duty on this strip of seventy-two +nationalities there was a Colombian, a gentleman of Swedish birth, +a Chinaman from Martinique, and a Greek, all of whom spoke +English, Spanish, and at least one other language. Of the three +native Americans two spoke only their mother tongue. In the entire +white uniformed force I met only Lieutenant Long and the Corporal +in charge of Miraflores who could seriously be said to speak +Spanish, though I am informed there were one or two others. + +This was not for a moment any fault of the Z. P. It comes back to +our government and beyond that to the American people. With all +our expanding over the surface of the earth in the past fourteen +years there still hangs over us that old provincial back-woods +bogie, "English is good enough for me." We have only to recall +what England does for those of her colonial servants who want +seriously to study the language of some portion of her subjects to +have something very like the blush of shame creep up the back of +our necks. Child's task as is the learning of a foreign language, +provincial old Uncle Sam just flat-foots along in the same old +way, expecting to govern and judge and lead along the path of +civilization his foreign colonies by bellowing at them in his own +nasal drawl and treating their tongue as if it were some purely +animal sound. He is well personified by Corporal----, late of the +Z. P. The Corporal had served three years in the Philippines and +five on the Zone, and could not ask for bread in the Spanish +tongue. "Why don't you learn it?" some one asked one day. + +"Awe," drawled the Corporal, "what's the use o' goin' t' all that +trouble? If you have t' have any interpretin' done all you got t' +do is t' call in a nigger." + +Uncle Sam not merely lends his servants no assistance to learn the +tongues of his colonies, but should one of his subjects appear +bearing that extraordinary accomplishment he gives him no +preference whatever, no better position, not a copper cent more +salary; and if things get to a pass where a linguist must be hired +he gives the job to the first citizen that comes along who can +make a noise that is evidently not English, or more likely still +to some foreigner who talks English like a mouthful of Hungarian +goulash. It is not the least of the reasons why foreign nations do +not take us as seriously as they ought, why our colonials do not +love us and, what is of far greater importance, do not advance +under our rule as they should. + +Meanwhile there had gradually been reaching me "through the proper +channels," as everything does on the Zone even to our ice-water, +the various coupon-books and the like indispensable to Zone life +and the proper pursuit of plain-clothes duty. Distressing as are +statistics the full comprehension of what might follow requires +the enumeration of the odds and ends I was soon carrying about +with me. + +A brass-check; police badge; I. C. C. hotel coupon-book; +Commissary coupon-book; "120-Trip Ticket" (a booklet containing +blank passes between any stations on the P. R. R., to be filled +out by holder) Mileage book (purchased by employees at half rates +of 2 1/2 cents a mile for use when traveling on personal business) +"24-Trip Ticket" (a free courtesy pass to all "gold" employees +allowing one monthly round trip excursion over any portion of the +line) Freight-train pass for the P. R. R.; Dirt-train and +locomotive pass for the Pacific division; ditto for the Central +division; likewise for the Atlantic division; (in short about +everything on wheels was free to the "gum-shoe" except the "yellow +car") Passes admitting to docks and steamers at either end of the +Zone; note-book; pencil or pen; report cards and envelopes (one of +which the plain-clothes man must fill out and forward to +headquarters "via train-guard" wherever night may overtake him-- +"the gum-shoe's day's work," as the idle uniformed man facetiously +dubs it). + +Furthermore the man out of uniform is popularly supposed never to +venture forth among the populace without: + +Belt, holster, cartridges, and the No. 38 "Colt" that reminds you +of a drowning man trying to drag you down; handcuffs; police +whistle; blackjack (officially he never carries this; +theoretically there is not one on the Isthmus. But the "gum-shoe" +naturally cannot twirl a police club, and it is not always policy +to shoot every refractory prisoner). Then if he chances to be +addicted to the weed there is the cigarette-case and matches; a +watch is frequently convenient; and incidentally a few articles of +clothing are more or less indispensable even in the dry season. +Now and again, too, a bit of money does not come amiss. For though +the Canal Zone is a Utopia where man lives by work-coupons alone, +the detective can never know at what moment his all-embracing +duties may carry him away into the foreign land of Panama; and +even were that possibility not always staring him in the face, in +the words of "Gorgona Red," "You've got t' have money fer yer +booze, ain't ye?" + +Which seems also to be Uncle Sam's view of the matter. Far and +away more important than any of the plain-clothes equipment thus +far mentioned is the "expense account." It is unlike the others in +that it is not visible and tangible but a mere condition, a +pleasant sensation like the consciousness of a good appetite or a +youthful fullness of life. The only reality is a form signed by +the czar of the Zone himself tucked away among I. C. C. financial +archives. That authorizes the man assigned to special duty in +plain clothes to be reimbursed money expended in the pursuance of +duty up to the sum of $60 per month; though it is said that the +interpretation of this privilege to the full limit is not unlikely +to cause flames of light, thunderous rumblings, and other natural +phenomena in the vicinity of Empire and Culebra. But please note +further; these expenditures may be only "for cab or boat hire, +meals away from home, and LIQUOR and CIGARS!" Plainly the "gum- +shoe" should be a bachelor. + +Fortunately, however, the proprietor of the expense account is not +required personally to consume it each month. It is designed +rather to win the esteem of bar-tenders, loosen the tongues of +suspects, libate the thirsty stool-pigeon, and prime other +accepted sources of information. But beware! Exceeding care in +filling out the account of such expenditures at the month's end. +Carelessness leads a hunted life on the Canal Zone. Take, for +instance, the slight error of my friend--who, having made such +expenditure in Colon, by a slip of the pen, or to be nice, of the +typewriter, sent in among three score and ten items the following: + + Feb. 4/ 2 bots beer; Cristobal........50c + +and in the course of time found said voucher again on his desk +with a marginal note of mild-eyed wonder and more than idle +curiosity, in the handwriting of a man very high up indeed; + + WHERE can you buy beer in Cristobal? + +All this and more I learned in the swivel-chair waiting for +orders, reading the latest novel that had found its way to Ancon +station, and receiving frequent assurances that I should be quite +busy enough once I got started. Opposite sat Lieutenant Long +pouring choice bits of sub-station orders into the 'phone: + +"Don't you believe it. That was no accident. He didn't lose +everything he had in every pocket rolling around drunk in the +street. He's been systematically frisked. Sabe frisked? Get on the +job and look into it." + +For the Lieutenant was one of those scarce and enviable beings who +can live with his subordinates as man to man, yet never find an +ounce of his authority missing when authority is needed. + +Now and then a Z. P. story whiled away the time. There was the sad +case of Corporal-----in charge of-----station. Early one Sunday +afternoon the Corporal saw a Spaniard leading a goat along the +railroad. Naturally the day was hot. The Corporal sent a policeman +to arrest the inhuman wretch for cruelty to animals. When he had +left the culprit weeping behind padlocks he went to inspect the +goat, tied in the shade under the police station. + +"Poor little beast," said the sympathetic Corporal, as he set +before it a generous pan of ice-water fresh from the police +station tank. The goat took one long, eager, grateful draught, +turned over on its back, curled up like the sensitive-plants of +Panama jungles when a finger touches them, and departed this vale +of tears. But Corporal-----was an artist of the first rank. Not +only did he "get away with it" under the very frowning battlements +of the judge, but sent the Spaniard up for ten days on the charge +against him. Z. P.'s who tell the story assert that the Spaniard +did not so much mind the sentence as the fact that the Corporal +got his goat. + +Then there was "the Mystery of the Knocked-out Niggers." Day after +day there came reports from a spot out along the line that some +negro laborer strolling along in a perfectly reasonable manner +suddenly lay down, threw a fit, and went into a comatose state +from which he recovered only after a day or two in Ancon or Colon +hospitals. The doctors gave it up in despair. As a last resort the +case was turned over to a Z. P. sleuth. He chose him a hiding- +place as near as possible to the locality of the strange +manifestation. For half the morning he sweltered and swore without +having seen or heard the slightest thing of interest to an old +"Zoner." A dirt-train rumbled by now and then. He strove to amuse +himself by watching the innocent games of two little Spanish +switch-boys not far away. They were enjoying themselves, as +guileless childhood will, between their duties of letting a train +in and out of the switch. Well on in the second half of the +morning another diminutive Iberian, a water-boy, brought his +compatriots a pail of water and carried off the empty bucket. The +boys hung over the edge of the pail a sort of wire hook, the +handle of their home-made drinking-can, no doubt, and went on +playing. + +By and by a burly black Jamaican in shirt-sleeves loomed up in the +distance. Now and then as he advanced he sang a snatch of West +Indian ballad. As he espied the "switcheros" a smile broke out on +his features and he hastened forward his eyes fixed on the water- +pail. In a working species of Spanish he made some request of the +boys, the while wiping his ebony brow with his sleeve. The boys +protested. Evidently they had lived on the Zone so long they had +developed a color line. The negro pleaded. The boys, sitting in +the shade of their wigwam, still shook their heads. One of them +was idly tapping the ground with a broom-handle that had lain +beside him. The negro glanced up and down the track, snatched up +the boys' drinking vessel, of which the wire hooked over the pail +was not after all the handle, and stooped to dip up a can of +water. The little fellow with the broom-stick, ceasing a useless +protest, reached a bit forward and tapped dreamily the rail in +front of him. The Jamaican suddenly sent the can of water some +rods down the track, danced an artistic buck-and-wing shuffle on +the thin air above his head, sat down on the back of his neck, and +after trying a moment in vain to kick the railroad out by the +roots, lay still. + +By this time the sleuth was examining the broom-handle. From its +split end protruded an inch of telegraph wire, which chanced also +to be the same wire that hung over the edge of the galvanized +bucket. Close in front of the innocent little fellows ran a "third +rail!" + +Then suddenly this life of anecdote and leisure ended. There was +thrust into my hands a typewritten-sheet and I caught the next +thing on wheels out to Corozal for my first investigation. It was +one of the most commonplace cases on the Zone. Two residents of my +first dwelling-place on the Isthmus had reported the loss of $150 +in U. S. gold. + +Easier burglary than this the world does not offer. Every bachelor +quarters on the Isthmus, completely screened in, is entered by two +or three screen-doors, none of which is or can be locked. In the +building are from twelve to twenty-four wide-open rooms of two or +three occupants each, no three of whom know one another's full +names or anything else, except that they are white Americans and +ipso facto (so runs Zone philosophy) above dishonesty. The +quarters are virtually abandoned during the day. Two negro +janitors dawdle about the building, but they, too, leave it for +two hours at mid-day. Moreover each of the forty-eight or more +occupants probably has several friends or acquaintances or enemies +who may drift in looking for him at any hour of the day or night. +No negro janitor would venture to question a white American's +errand in a house; Panama is below the Mason and Dixon line. In +practice any white American is welcome in any bachelor quarters +and even to a bed, if there is one unoccupied, though he be a +total stranger to all the community. Add to this that the negro +tailor's runner often has permission to come while the owner is +away for suits in need of pressing, that John Chinaman must come +and claw the week's washing out from under the bed where the +"rough-neck" kicked it on Saturday night, that there are a dozen +other legitimate errands that bring persons of varying shades into +the building, and above all that the bachelors themselves, after +the open-hearted old American fashion, have the all but universal +habit of tossing gold and silver, railroad watches and real-estate +bonds, or anything else of whatever value, indifferently on the +first clear corner that presents itself. Precaution is troublesome +and un-American. It seems a fling at the character of your fellow +bachelors--and in the vast majority of Zone cases it would be. But +it is in no sense surprising that among the many thousands that +swarm upon the Isthmus there should be some not averse to +increasing their income by taking advantage of these guileless +habits and bucolic conditions. There are suggestions that a few-- +not necessarily whites--make a profession of it. No wonder "our +chief trouble is burglary" and has been ever since the Z. P. can +remember. Summed up, the pay-day gold that has thus faded away is +perhaps no small amount; compared with what it might have been +under prevailing conditions it is little. + +As for detecting such felonies, police officers the world around +know that theft of coin of the realm in not too great quantities +is virtually as safe a profession as the ministry. The Z. P. +plain-clothes man, like his fellows elsewhere, must usually be +content in such cases with impressing on the victim his +Sherlockian astuteness, gathering the available facts of the case, +and return to typewrite his report thereof to be carefully filed +away among headquarters archives. Which is exactly what I had to +do in the case in question, diving out the door, notebook in hand, +to catch the evening train to Panama. + +I was growing accustomed to Ancon and even to Ancon police-mess +when I strolled into headquarters on Saturday, the sixteenth, and +the Inspector flung a casual remark over his shoulder: + +"Better get your stuff together. You're transferred to Gatun." + +I was already stepping into a cab en route for the evening train +when the Inspector chanced down the hill. + +"New Gatun is pretty bad on Saturday nights," he remarked. (All +too well I remembered it.) "The first time a nigger starts +anything run him in, and take all the witnesses in sight along." + +"That reminds me; I haven't been issued a gun or handcuffs yet," I +hinted. + +"Hell's fire, no?" queried the Inspector. "Tell the station +commander at Gatun to fix you up." + + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +I scribbled myself a ticket and was soon rolling northward, +greeting acquaintances at every station. The Zone is like Egypt; +whoever moves must travel by the same route. At Pedro Miguel and +Cascadas armies of locomotives--the "mules" of the man from +Arkansas--stood steaming and panting in the twilight after their +day's labor and the wild race homeward under hungry engineers. As +far as Bas Obispo this busy, teeming Isthmus seemed a native land; +beyond, was like entering into foreign exile. It is a common Zone +experience that only the locality one lives in during his first +weeks ever feels like "home." + +The route, too, was a new one. From Gorgona the train returned +crab-wise through Matachin and across the sand dyke that still +holds the Chagres out of the "cut," and halted at Gamboa cabin. +Day was dying as we rumbled on across the iron bridge above the +river and away into the fresh jungle night along the rock- +ballasted "relocation." The stillness of this less inhabited half +of the Zone settled down inside the car and out, the evening air +of summer caressing almost roughly through the open windows. The +train continued its steady way almost uninterruptedly, for though +new villages were springing up to take the place of the old +sinking into desuetude and the flood along with the abandoned +line, there were but two where once were eight. We paused at the +new Frijoles and the box-car town of Monte Lirio and, skirting on +a higher level with a wide detour on the flanks of thick jungled +and forested hills what is some day to be Gatun Lake, drew up at +7:30 at Gatun. + +I wandered and inquired for some time in a black night--for the +moon was on the graveyard shift that week--before I found Gatun +police station on the nose of a breezy knoll. But for "Davie," the +desk-man, who it turned out was also to be my room-mate, and a few +wistful-eyed negroes in the steel-barred room in the center of the +building, the station was deserted. "Circus," said the desk-man +briefly. When I mentioned the matter of weapons he merely repeated +the word with the further information that only the station +commander could issue them. + +There was nothing to do therefore but to ramble out armed with a +lead pencil into a virtually unknown town riotous with liquor and +negroes and the combination of Saturday night, circus time, and +the aftermath of pay-day, and to strut back and forth in a way to +suggest that I was a perambulating arsenal. But though I wandered +a long two hours into every hole and corner where trouble might +have its breeding-place, nothing but noise took place in my sight +and hearing. I turned disgustedly away toward the tents pitched in +a grassy valley between the two Gatuns. At least there was a faint +hope that the equestrienne might assault the ring-master. + +I approached the tent flap with a slightly quickening pulse. +World-wide and centuries old as is the experience, personally I +was about to "spring my badge" for the first time. Suppose the +doortender should refuse to honor it and force me to impress upon +him the importance of the Z. P.--without a gun? Outwardly +nonchalant I strolled in between the two ropes. Proprietor Shipp +looked up from counting his winnings and opened his mouth to shout +"ticket!" I flung back my coat, and with a nod and a half-wink of +wisdom he fell back again to computing his lawful gains. + +By the way, are not you who read curious to know, even as I for +long years wondered, where a detective wears his badge? Know then +that long and profound investigation among the Z. P. seems to +prove conclusively that as a general and all but invariable rule +he wears it pinned to the lining of his coat, or under his lapel, +or on the band of his trousers, or on the breast of his shirt, or +in his hip pocket, or up his sleeve, or at home on the piano, or +riding around at the end of a string in the baby's nursery; though +as in the case of all rules this one too has its exceptions. + +Entertainments come rarely to Gatun. The one-ringed circus was +packed with every grade of society from gaping Spanish laborers to +haughty wives of dirt-train conductors, among whom it was not hard +to distinguish in a far corner the uniformed sergeant in command +of Gatun and the long lean corporal tied in a bow-line knot at the +alleged wit of the versatile but solitary clown who changed his +tongue every other moment from English to Spanish. But the end was +already near; excitement was rising to the finale of the +performance, a wrestling match between a circus man and "Andy" of +Pedro Miguel locks. By the time I had found a leaning-place it was +on--and the circus man of course was conquered, amid the gleeful +howling of "rough-necks," who collected considerable sums of money +and went off shouting into the black night, in quest of a place +where it might be spent quickly. It would be strange indeed if +among all the thousands of men in the prime of life who are +digging the canal at least one could not be found who could +subjugate any champion a wandering circus could carry among its +properties. I took up again the random tramping in the dark +unknown night; till it was two o'clock of a Sunday morning when at +last I dropped my report-card in the train-guard box and climbed +upstairs to the cot opposite "Davie," sleeping the silent, +untroubled sleep of a babe. + +I was barely settled in Gatun when the train-guard handed me one +of those frequent typewritten orders calling for the arrest of +some straggler or deserter from the marine camp of the Tenth +Infantry. That very morning I had seen "the boss" of census days +off on his vacation to the States--from which he might not return +--and here I was coldly and peremptorily called upon to go forth +and arrest and deliver to Camp Elliott on its hill "Mac," the +pride of the census, with a promise of $25 reward for the trouble. +"Mac" desert? It was to laugh. But naturally after six weeks of +unceasing repetition of that pink set of questions "Mac's" throat +was a bit dry and he could scarcely be expected to return at once +to the humdrum life of camp without spending a bit of that $5 a +day in slaking a tropical thirst. Indeed I question whether any +but the prudish will loudly blame "Mac" even because he spent it a +bit too freely and brought up in Empire dispensary. Word of his +presence there soon drifted down to the wily plain-clothes man of +Empire district. But it was a hot noonday, the dispensary lies +somewhat up hill, and the uniformless officer of the Zone +metropolis is rather thickly built. Wherefore, stowing away this +private bit of information under his hat, he told himself with a +yawn, "Oh, I'll drag him in later in the day," and drifted down to +a wide-open door on Railroad Avenue to spend a bit of the $25 +reward in off-setting the heat. Meanwhile "Mac," feeling somewhat +recovered from his financial extravagance, came sauntering out of +the dispensary and, seeing his curly-headed friend strolling a +beat not far away, naturally cried out, "Hello, Eck!" And what +could Eck say, being a reputable Zone policeman, but: + +"Why, hello, Mac! How they framin' up? Consider yourself pinched." + +Which was lucky for "Mac." For Eck had once worn a marine hat over +his own right eye and, he knew from melancholy experience that the +$25 was no government generosity, but "Mac's" own involuntary +contribution to his finding and delivery; so managed to slip most +of it back into "Mac's" hands. + +Long, long after, more than six weeks after in fact, I chanced to +be in Bas Obispo with a half-hour to spare, and climbed to the +flowered and many-roaded camp on its far-viewing hilltop that +falls sheer away on the east into the canal. In one of the airy +barracks I found Renson, cards in hand, clear-skinned and "fit" +now, thanks to the regular life of this adult nursery, though his +lost youth was gone for good. And "Mac"? Yes, I saw "Mac" too--or +at least the back of his head and shoulders through the screen of +the guard-house where Renson pointed him out to me as he was being +locked up again after a day of shoveling sand. + +The first days in Gatun called for little else than patrol duty, +without fixed hours, interspersed with an occasional loaf on the +second-story veranda of the police-station overlooking the giant +locks; close at hand was the entrance to the canal, up which came +slowly barges loaded with crushed stone from Porto Bello quarry +twenty miles east along the coast or sand from Nombre de Dios, +twice as distant, while further still, spread Limon Bay from which +swept a never-ending breeze one could wipe dry on as on a towel. +So long as he has in his pocket no typewritten report with the +Inspector's scrawl across it, "For investigation and report," the +plain-clothes man is virtually his own commander, with few duties +beside trying to be in as many parts of his district at once as +possible and the ubiquitous duty of "keeping in touch with +headquarters." So I wandered and mingled with all the life of the +vicinity, exactly as I should have done had I not been paid a +salary to do so. By day one could watch the growth of the great +locks, the gradual drowning of little green, new-made islands +beneath the muddy still waters of Gatun Lake, tramp out along +jungle-flanked country roads, through the Mindi hills, or down +below the old railroad to where the cayucas that floated down the +Chagres laden with fruit came to land on the ever advancing edge +of the waters. With night things grew more compact. From twilight +till after midnight I prowled in and out through New Gatun, spilled +far and wide over its several hills, watching the antics of +negroes, pausing to listen to their guitars and their boisterous +merriment, with an eye and ear ever open for the unlawful. When I +drifted into a saloon to see who might be spending the evening +out, the bar-tender proved he had the advantage of me in +acquaintance by crying: "Hello, Franck! What ye having?" and +showing great solicitude that I get it. After which I took up the +starlit tramp again, to run perhaps into some such perilous scene +as on that third evening. A riot of contending voices rose from a +building back in the center of a block, with now and then the +sickening thump of a falling body. I approached noiselessly, +likewise weaponless, peeped in and found--four negro bakers +stripped to the waist industriously kneading to-morrow's bread and +discussing in profoundest earnest the object of the Lord in +creating mosquitoes. Beyond the native town, as an escape from all +this, there was the back country road that wound for a mile +through the fresh night and the droning jungle, yet instead of +leading off into the wilderness of the interior swung around to +American Gatun on its close-cropped hills. + +I awoke one morning to find my name bulletined among those ordered +to report for target test. A fine piece of luck was this for a man +who had scarcely fired a shot since, aged ten, he brought down +with an air-gun an occasional sparrow at three cents a head. We +took the afternoon train to Mt. Hope on the edge of Colon and +trooped away to a little plain behind "Monkey Hill," the last +resting-place of many a "Zoner." The Cristobal Lieutenant, father +of Z. P., was in charge, and here again was that same Z. P. +absence of false dignity and the genuine good-fellowship that +makes the success of your neighbor as pleasing as your own. + +"Shall I borrow a gun, Lieutenant?" I asked when I found myself +"on deck." + +"Well, you'll have to use your own judgment as to that," replied +the Lieutenant, busy pasting stickers over holes in the target. + +The test was really very simple. All you had to do was to cling to +one end of a No. 38 horse-pistol, point it at the bull's-eye of a +target, hold it in that position until you had put five bullets +into said bull's-eye, repeat that twice at growing distances, +mortally wound ten times the image of a Martinique negro running +back and forth across the field, and you had a perfect score. +Only, simple as it was, none did it, not even old soldiers with +two or three "hitches" in the army. So I had to be content with +creeping in on the second page of a seven-page list of all the +tested force from "the Chief" to the latest negro recruit. + +The next evening I drifted into the police station to find a group +of laborers from the adjoining camps awaiting me on the veranda +bench, because the desk-man "didn't sabe their lingo." They proved +upon examination to be two Italians and a Turk, and their story +short, sad, but by no means unusual. Upon returning from work one +of the Italians had found the lock hinges of his ponderously +padlocked tin trunk hanging limp and screwless, and his pay-day +roll of some $30 missing from the crown of a hat stuffed with a +shirt securely packed away in the deepest corner thereof. The Turk +was similarly unable to account for the absence of his $33 savings +safely locked the night before inside a pasteboard suitcase; +unless the fact that, thanks to some sort of surgical operation, +one entire side of the grip now swung open like a barn-door might +prove to have something to do with the case. The $33 had been, for +further safety's sake, in Panamanian silver, suggesting a burglar +with a wheelbarrow. + +The mysterious detective work began at once. Without so much as +putting on a false beard I repaired to the scene of the nefarious +crime. It was the usual Zone type of laborers' barracks. A +screened building of one huge room, it contained two double rows +of three-tier "standee" canvas bunks on gas-pipes. Around the +entire room, close under the sheet-iron roof, ran a wooden +platform or shelf reached by a ladder and stacked high with the +tin trunks, misshapen bundles, and pressed-paper suitcases +containing the worldly possessions of the fifty or more workmen +around the rough table below. + +Theoretically not even an inmate thereof may enter a Zone labor- +camp during working hours. Practically the West Indian janitors to +whom is left the enforcement of this rule are nothing if not +fallible. In the course of the second day I unearthed a second +Turk who, having chanced the morning before to climb to the +baggage shelf for his razor and soap preparatory to welcoming a +fellow countryman to the Isthmus, had been mildly startled to step +on the shoulder-blade of a negro of given length and proportions +lying prone behind the stacked-up impedimenta. The latter +explained both his presence in a white labor-camp and his +unconventional posture by asserting that he was the "mosquito +man," and shortly thereafter went away from there without leaving +either card or address. + +By all my library training in detective work the next move +obviously was to find what color of cigarette ashes the Turk +smoked. Instead I blundered upon the absurdly simple notion of +trying to locate the negro of given length and proportions. The +real "mosquito man"--one of that dark band that spends its Zone +years with a wire hook and a screened bucket gathering evidence +against the defenseless mosquito for the sanitary department to +gloat over--was found not to fit the model even in hue. Moreover, +"mosquito men" are not accustomed to carry their devotion to duty +to the point of crawling under trunks in their quest. + +For a few days following, the hunt led me through all Gatun and +vicinity. Now I found myself racing across the narrow plank +bridges above the yawning gulf of the locks, with far below tiny +men and toy trains, now in and out among the cathedral-like flying +buttresses, under the giant arches past staring signs of "DANGER!" +on every hand--as if one could not plainly hear its presence +without the posting. I descended to the very floor of the locks, +far below the earth, and tramped the long half-mile of the three +flights between soaring concrete walls. Above me rose the great +steel gates, standing ajar and giving one the impression of an +opening in the Great Wall of China or of a sky-scraper about to be +swung lightly aside. On them resounded the roar of the compressed- +air riveters and all the way up the sheer faces, growing smaller +and smaller as they neared the sky, were McClintic-Marshall men +driving into place red-hot rivets, thrown at them viciously by +negroes at the forges and glaring like comets' tails against the +twilight void. + +The chase sent me more than once stumbling away across rock- +tumbled Gatun dam that squats its vast bulk where for long +centuries, eighty-five feet below, was the village of Old Gatun +with its proud church and its checkered history, where Morgan and +Peruvian viceroys and "Forty-niners" were wont to pause from their +arduous journeyings. They call it a dam. It is rather a range of +hills, a part and portion of the highlands that, east and west, +enclose the valley of the Chagres, its summit resembling the +terminal yards of some great city. There was one day when I sought +a negro brakeman attached to a given locomotive. I climbed to a +yard-master's tower above the Spillway and the yard-master, taking +up his powerful field-glasses, swept the horizon, or rather the +dam, and discovered the engine for me as a mariner discovers an +island at sea. + +"Er--would you be kind enough to tell us where we can find this +Gatun dam we've heard so much about?" asked a party of four +tourists, half and half as to sex, who had been wandering about on +it for an hour or so with puzzled expressions of countenance. They +addressed themselves to a busy civil engineer in leather leggings +and rolled up shirt sleeves. + +"I'm sorry I haven't time to use the instrument," replied the +engineer over his shoulder, while he wig-wagged his orders to his +negro helpers scattered over the landscape, "but as nearly as I +can tell with the naked eye, you are now standing in the exact +center of it." + +The result of all this sweating and sight-seeing was that some +days later there was gathered in a young Barbadian who had been +living for months in and about Gatun without any visible source of +income whatever--not even a wife. The Turk and the camp janitor +identified him as the culprit. But the primer lesson the police +recruit learns is that it is one thing to believe a man guilty and +quite another to convince a judge--the most skeptical being known +to zoology--of that perfectly apparent fact. With the suspect +behind bars, therefore, I continued my underground activities, +with the result that when at length I took the train at New Gatun +one morning for the court-room in Cristobal I loaded into a +second-class coach six witnesses aggregating five nationalities, +ready to testify among other things to the interesting little +point that the defendant had a long prison record in Barbados. + +When the echo of the black policeman's "Oye! Oye!" had died away +and the little white-haired judge had taken his "bench," I made +the discovery that I was present not in one, but in four +capacities,--as arresting officer, complainant, interpreter, and +to a large extent prosecuting attorney. To swear a Turk who spoke +only Turkish through another Turk, who mangled a little Spanish, +for a judge who would not recognize a non-American word from the +voice of a steam-shovel, with a solemn "So Help Me God!" to clinch +and strengthen it when the witness was a follower of the prophet +of Medina--or nobody--was not without its possibilities of humor. +The trial proceeded; the witnesses witnessed in their various +tongues, the perspiring arresting officer reduced their statements +to the common denominator of the judge's single tongue, and the +smirking bullet-headed defendant was hopelessly buried under the +evidence. Wherefore, when the shining black face of his lawyer, +retained during the two minutes between the "Oye!" and the opening +of the case, rose above the scene to purr: + +"Your Honor, the prosecution has shown no case. I move the charge +against my client be quashed." + +I choked myself just in time to keep from gasping aloud, "Well, of +all the nerve!" Never will I learn that the lawyer's profession +admits lying on the same footing with truth in the defense of a +culprit. + +"Cause shown," mumbled the Judge without looking up from his +writing, "defendant bound over for trial in the circuit court." + +A week later, therefore, there was a similar scene a story higher +in the same building. Here on Thursdays sits one of the three +members of the Zone Supreme Court. Jury trial is rare on the +Isthmus--which makes possibly for surer justice. This time there +was all the machinery of court and I appeared only in my legal +capacity. The judge, a man still young, with an astonishingly +mobile face that changed at least once a minute from a furrowy +scowl with great pouting lips to a smile so broad it startled, sat +in state in the middle of three judicial arm-chairs, and the case +proceeded. Within an hour the defendant was standing up, the +cheery grin still on his black countenance, to be sentenced to two +years and eight months in the Zone penitentiary at Culebra. A deaf +man would have fancied he was being awarded some prize. One of the +never-ending surprises on the Zone is the apparent indifference of +negro prisoners whether they get years or go free. Even if they +testify in their own behalf it is in a listless, detached way, as +if the matter were of no importance anyway. But the glance they +throw the innocent arresting officer as they pass out on their way +to the barb-wire enclosure on the outskirts of the Zone capital +tells another story. There are members of the Z. P. who sleep with +a gun under their pillow because of that look or a muttered word. +But even were I nervous I should have been little disturbed at the +glare in this case, for it will probably be a long walk from +Culebra penitentiary to where I am thirty-two months from that +morning. + +A holiday air brooded over all Gatun and the country-side. Workmen +in freshly washed clothing lolled in the shade of labor-camps, +black Britishers were gathering in flat meadows fitted for the +national game of cricket, far and wide sounded the care-free +laughter and chattering of negroes, while even within Gatun police +station leisure and peace seemed almost in full possession. + +The morning "touch" with headquarters over, therefore, I scrambled +away across the silent yawning locks and the trainless and +workless dam to the Spillway, over which already some overflow +from the lake was escaping to the Caribbean. My friends "Dusty" +and H---- had carried their canoe to the Chagres below, and before +nine we were off down the river. It was a day that all the world +north of the Tropic of Cancer could not equal; just the weather +for a perfect "day off." A plain-clothes man, it is true, is not +supposed to have days off. Some one might run away with the +Administration Building on the edge of the Pacific and the +telephone wires be buzzing for me--with the sad result that a few +days later there would be posted in Zone police stations where all +who turned the leaves might read: + + Special Order No. .... + Having been found Guilty of charges of + Neglect of Duty + preferred against him by his commanding officer + First-class Policeman No. 88 + is hereby fined $2. + + Chief of Division. + +But shades of John Aspinwall! Should even a detective work on such +a Sunday? Surely no criminal would--least of all a black one. +Moreover these forest-walled banks were also part of my beat. + +The sun was hot, yet the air of that ozone-rich quality for which +Panama is famous. For headgear we had caps; and did not wear +those, though barely a few puffy, snow-white clouds ventured out +into the vast chartless sky all the brilliant day through. Then +the river; who could describe this lower reach of the Chagres as +it curves its seven deep and placid miles from where Uncle Sam +releases it from custody, to the ocean. Its jungled banks were +without a break, for the one or two clusters of thatch and reed +huts along the way are but a part of the living vegetation. Now +and then we had glimpses across the tree-tops of brilliant green +jungle hills further inland, everywhere were huge splendid trees, +the stack-shaped mango, the soldier-erect palm heavy, yet +unburdened, with cocoanuts. Some fish resembling the porpoise rose +here and there, back and forth above the shadows winged snow-white +cranes so slender one wondered the sea breeze did not wreck them. +Above all the quiet and peace and contentment of a perfect +tropical day enfolded the landscape in a silence only occasionally +disturbed by the cry of a passing bird. Once a gasoline launch +deep-laden with Sunday-starched Americans, snorted by, bound +likewise to Fort Lorenzo at the river's mouth; and we lay back in +our soft, rumpled khaki and drowsily smiled our sympathy after +them. When they had drawn on out of earshot life began to return +to the banks and nature again took possession of the scene. +Alligators abounded once on this lower Chagres, but they have +grown scarce now, or shy, and though we sat with H----'s automatic +rifle across our knees in turns we saw no more than a carcass or a +skeleton on the bank at the foot of the sheer wall of impenetrable +verdure. + +Till at length the sea opened on our sight through the alley-way +of jungle, and a broad inviting cocoanut grove nodded and beckoned +on our left. Instead we paddled out across the sandbar to play +with the surf of the Atlantic, but found it safer to return and +glide across the little bay to the drowsy straw and tin village. +Here--for the mouth of the Chagres like its source lies in a +foreign land--a solitary Panamanian policeman in the familiar +Arctic uniform enticed us toward the little thatched office, and +house, and swinging hammock of the alcalde to register our names, +and our business had we had any. So deep-rooted was the serenity +of the place that even when "Dusty," in all Zone innocence, +addressed the white-haired little mulatto as "hombre" he lost +neither his dignity nor his temper. + +The policeman and a brown boy of merry breed went with us up the +grassy rise to the old fort. In its musty vaulted dungeons were +still the massive, rust-corroded irons for feet, waist and neck of +prisoners of the old brutal days; blind owls stared upon us; once +the boy brought down with his honda, or slung-shot, one of the +bats that circled uncannily above our heads. In dank corners were +mounds of worthless powder; the bakery that once fed the miserable +dungeon dwellers had crumbled in upon itself. Outside great trees +straddled and split the massive stone walls that once commanded +the entrance to the Chagres, jungle waved in undisputed possession +in its earth-filled moat, even the old cannon and heaped up +cannon-balls lay rust-eaten and dejected, like decrepit old men +who have long since given up the struggle. + +We came out on the nose of the fort bluff and had before and below +us and underfoot all the old famous scene, for centuries the +beginning of all trans-Isthmian travel,--the scalloped surf-washed +shore with its dwindling palm groves curving away into the west, +the Chagres pushing off into the jungled land. We descended to the +beach of the outer bay and swam in the salt sea, and the +policeman, scorning the launch party, squatted a long hour in the +shade of a tree above in tropical patience. Then with "sour" +oranges for thirst and nothing for hunger--for Lorenzo has no +restaurant--we turned to paddle our way homeward up the Chagres, +that bears the salt taste of the sea clear to the Spillway. Whence +one verse only of a stanza by the late bard of the Isthmus struck +a false note on our ears; + + Then go away if you have to, + Then go away if you will! + To again return you will always yearn + While the lamp is burning still. + You've drunk the Chagres water + And the mango eaten free, + And, strange though it seems, + It will haunt your dreams + This Land of the Cocoanut Tree. + +No catastrophe had befallen during my absence. The same peaceful +sunny Sunday reigned in Gatun; new-laundered laborers were still +lolling in the shade of the camps, West Indians were still batting +at interminable balls with their elongated paddles in the faint +hope of deciding the national game before darkness settled down. +Then twilight fell and I set off through the rambling town already +boisterous with church services. Before the little sub-station a +swarm of negroes was pounding tamborines and bawling lustily: + + Oh, yo mus' be a lover of de Lard + Or yo cahn't go t' Heaven when yo di-ie. + +Further on a lady who would have made ebony seem light-gray bowed +over an organ, while a burly Jamaican blacker than the night +outside stood in the vestments of the Church of England, telling +his version of the case in a voice that echoed back from the town +across the gully, as if he would drown out all rival sects and +arguments by volume of sound. The meeting-house on the next corner +was thronged with a singing multitude, tamborines scattered among +them and all clapping hands to keep time, even to the pastor, who +let the momentum carry on and on into verse after verse as if he +had not the self-sacrifice to stop it, while outside in the warm +night another crowd was gathered at the edge of the shadows gazing +as at a vaudeville performance. How well-fitted are the various +brands of Christianity to the particular likings of their +"flocks." The strongest outward manifestation of the religion of +the West Indian black is this boisterous singing. All over town +were dusky throngs exercising their strong untrained voices "in de +Lard's sarvice"; though the West Indian is not noted as being +musical. Here a preacher wanting suddenly to emphasize a point or +clinch an argument swung an arm like a college cheer leader and +the entire congregation roared forth with him some well-known hymn +that settled the question for all time. + +I strolled on into darker High street. Suddenly on a veranda above +there broke out a wild unearthly screaming. Two negroes were +engaged in savage, sanguinary combat. Around them in the dim light +thrown by a cheap tenement lamp I could make out their murderous +weapons--machetes or great bars of iron--slashing wildly, while +above the din rose screams and curses: + + Yo----Badgyan, ah kill yo! + +I sped stealthily yet swiftly up the long steps, drawing my No. 38 +(for at last I had been issued one) as I ran and dashed into the +heart of the turmoil swallowing my tendency to shout "Unhand him, +villain!" and crying instead: + +"Here, what the devil is going on here?" + +Whereupon two negroes let fall at once two pine sticks and turned +upon me their broad childish grins with: + +"We only playin', sar. Playin' single-sticks which we larn to de +army in Bahbaydos, sahgeant." + +Thus I wandered on, in and out, till the night lost its youth and +the last train from Colon had dumped its merry crowd at the +station, then wound away along the still and deserted back road +through the night-chirping jungle between the two surviving +Gatuns. There was a spot behind the Division Engineer's hill that +I rarely succeeded in passing without pausing to drink in the +scene, a scallop in the hills where several trees stood out singly +and alone against the myriad starlit sky, below and beyond the +indistinct valleys and ravines from which came up out of the night +the chorus of the jungle. Further on, in American Gatun there was +a seat on the steps before a bungalow that offered more than a +good view in both directions. A broad, U. S.-tamed ravine sank +away in front, across which the Atlantic breeze wafted the +distance-softened thrum of guitar, the tones of fifes and happy +negro voices, while overhead feathery gray clouds as concealing as +a dancer's gossamer hurried leisurely by across the brilliant face +of the moon; to the right in a free space the Southern Cross, +tilted a bit awry, gleamed as it has these untold centuries while +ephemeral humans come and pass their brief way. + +It was somewhere near here that Gatun's dry-season mosquito had +his hiding-place. Rumor whispers of some such letter as the +following received by the Colonel--not the blue-eyed czar at +Culebra this time; for you must know there is another Colonel on +the Zone every whit as indispensable in his sphere: + +GATUN, ... 26, 1912. + +Dear Colonel:-- + +I am writing to call your attention to a gross violation of +Sanitary Ordinance No. 3621, to an apparent loop-hole in your +otherwise excellent department. The circumstances are as follows; + +On the evening of ... 24, as I was sitting at the roadside between +Gatun and New Gatun (some 63 paces beyond house No. 226) there +appeared a MOSQUITO, which buzzed openly and for some time about +my ears. It was probably merely a male of the species, as it +showed no tendency to bite; but a mosquito nevertheless. I trust +you will take fitting measures to punish so bold and insolent a +violation of the rules of your department. + +I am, sir, very truly yours, + +(Mrs.) HENRY PECK. + +P. S. The mosquito may be easily recognized by a peculiarly +triumphant, defiant note in his song, + +I cannot personally vouch for the above, but if it was received +any "Zoner" will assure you that prompt action was taken. It is +well so. The French failed to dig the canal because they could not +down the mosquito. Of course there was the champagne and the other +things that come with it--later in the night. But after all it was +the little songful mosquito that drove them in disgrace back +across the Atlantic. + +Still further on toward the hotel and a midnight lunch there was +one house that was usually worth lingering before, though good +music is rare on the Zone. Then there was the naughty poker game +in bachelor quarters number--well, never mind that detail--to keep +an ear on in case the pot grew large enough to make a worth-while +violation of the law that would warrant the summoning of the +mounted patrolman. + +Meanwhile "cases" stacked up about me. Now one took me out the +hard U. S. highway that, once out of sight of the last negro +shanty, rambles erratically off like the reminiscences of an old +man through the half-cleared, mostly uninhabited wilderness, +rampant green with rooted life and almost noisy with the songs of +birds. Eventually within a couple of hours it crossed Fox River +with its little settlement and descended to Mt. Hope police +station, where there is a 'phone with which to "get in touch" +again and then a Mission rocker on the screened veranda where the +breezes of the near-by Atlantic will have you well cooled off +before you can catch the shuttle-train back to Gatun. + +Or another led out across the lake by the old abandoned line that +was the main line when first I saw Gatun. It drops down beyond the +station and charges across the lake by a causeway that steam- +shovels were already devouring, toward forsaken Bohio. Picking its +way across the rotting spiles of culverts, it pushed on through +the unpeopled jungle, all the old railroad gone, rails, ties, the +very spikes torn up and carried away, while already the parrots +screamed again in derision as if it were they who had driven out +the hated civilization and taken possession again of their own. A +few short months and the devouring jungle will have swallowed up +even the place where it has been. + +If it was only the little typewritten slip reporting the +disappearance of a half-dozen jacks from the dam, every case +called for full investigation. For days to come I might fight my +way through the encircling wilderness by tunnels of vegetation to +every native hut for miles around to see if by any chance the lost +property could have rolled thither. More than once such a hunt +brought me out on the water-tank knoll at the far end of the dam, +overlooking miles of impenetrable jungle behind and above chanting +with invisible life, to the right the filling lake stretching +across to low blue ranges dimly outlined against the horizon and +crowned by fantastic trees, and all Gatun and its immense works +and workers below and before me. + +Times were when duty called me into the squalid red-lighted +district of Colon and kept me there till the last train was gone. +Then there was nothing left but to pick my way through the night +out along the P.R.R. tracks to shout in at the yard-master's +window, "How soon y' got anything goin' up the line?" and, +according to the answer, return to read an hour or two in +Cristobal Y.M.C.A. or push on at once into the forest of box-cars +to hunt out the lighted caboose. Night freights do not stop at +Gatun, nor anywhere merely to let off a "gum-shoe." But just +beyond New Gatun station is a grade that sets the negro fireman to +sweating even at midnight and the big Mogul to straining every +nerve and sinew, and I did not meet the engineer that could drag +his long load by so swiftly but that one could easily swing off on +the road that leads to the police station. + +Even on the rare days when "cases" gave out there was generally +something to while away the monotony. As, one morning an American +widely known in Gatun was arrested on a warrant and, chatting +merrily with his friend, Policeman ----, strolled over to the +station. There his friend Corporal Macey subdued his broad Irish +smile and ordered the deskman to "book him up." The latter was +reaching for the keys to a cell when the American broke off his +pleasant flow of conversation to remark; + +"All right, Corporal, I'm going over to the house to get a few +things and write a few letters. I'll be back inside of an hour." + +Whereupon Corporal Macey, being a man of iron self-control, +refrained from turning a double back sommersault and mildly called +the prisoner's attention to a little point of Zone police rules he +had overlooked. + +If every other known form of amusement absolutely failed it was +still the dry, or tourist season, and poured down from the States +hordes of unconscious comedians, or investigators who rushed two +whole days about the Isthmus, taking care not to get into any +dirty places, and rushed home again to tell an eager public all +about it. Sometimes the sight-seers came from the opposite end of +the earth, a little band of South Americans in tongueless awe at +the undreamed monster of work about them, yet struggling to keep +their fancied despite of the "yanqui," to which the "yanqui" is so +serenely indifferent. Priests from this southland were especially +numerous. The week never passed that a group of them might not be +seen peering over the dizzy precipice of Gatun locks and crossing +themselves ostentatiously as they turned away. + +One does not, at least in a few months, feel the "sameness" of +climate at Panama and "long again to see spring grow out of +winter." Yet there is something, perhaps, in the popular belief +that even northern energy evaporates in this tropical land. It is +not exactly that; but certainly many a "Zoner" wakes up day by day +with ambitious plans, and just drifts the day through with the +fine weather. He fancies himself as strong and energetic as in the +north, yet when the time comes for doing he is apt to say, "Oh, I +guess I'll loaf here in the shade half an hour longer," and +before he knows it another whole day is charged up against his +meager credit column with Father Time. + +There came the day early in April when the Inspector must go north +on his forty-two days' vacation. I bade him bon voyage on board +the 8:41 between the two Gatuns and soon afterward was throwing +together my belongings and leaving "Davie" to enjoy his room +alone. For Corporal Castillo was to be head of the subterranean +department ad interim, and how could the digging of the canal +continue with no detective in all the wilderness of morals between +the Pacific and Culebra? Thus it was that the afternoon train bore +me away to the southward. It was a tourist train. A New York +steamer had docked that morning, and the first-class cars were +packed with venturesome travelers in their stout campaign outfits +in which to rough it--in the Tivoli and the sight-seeing motors-- +in their roof-like cork helmets and green veils for the terrible +Panama heat--which is sometimes as bad as in northern New York. + +The P.R.R. is one of the few railroads whose passengers may drop +off for a stroll, let the train go on without them, and still take +it to their destination. They have only to descend, as I did, at +Gamboa cabin and wander down into the "cut," climb leisurely out +to Bas Obispo, and chat with their acquaintances among the Marines +lolling about the station until the trains puffs in from its +shuttle-back excursion to Gorgona. The Zone landscape had lost +much of its charm. For days past jungle fires had been sweeping +over it, doing the larger growths small harm but leaving little of +the greenness and rank clinging life of other seasons. Everywhere +were fires along the way, even in the towns. For quartermasters-- +to the rage of Zone house-wives were sending up in clouds of smoke +the grass and bushes that quickly turn to breeding-places of +mosquitoes and disease with the first rains. Night closed down as +we emerged from Miraflores tunnel; soon we swung around toward the +houses, row upon row and all alight, climbed the lower slope of +Ancon hill, and at seven I descended in familiar, cab-crowded, +bawling Panama. + + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +It might be worth the ink to say a word about socialism on the +Canal Zone. To begin with, there isn't any of course. No man would +dream of looking for socialism in an undertaking set in motion by +the Republican party and kept on the move by the regular army. But +there are a number of little points in the management of this +private government strip of earth that savors more or less faintly +of the Socialist's program, and the Zone offers perhaps as good a +chance as we shall ever have to study some phases of those +theories in practice. + +Few of us now deny the Socialist's main criticisms of existing +society; most of us question his remedies. Some of us go so far as +to feel a sneaking curiosity to see railroads and similar purely +public utilities government-owned, just to find how it would work. +Down on the Canal Zone they have a sort of modified socialism +where one can watch much of this under a Bell jar. There one +quickly discovers that a locomotive with the brief and sufficient +information "U.S." on her tender flanks--or more properly the +flanks of her tender--gives one a swelling of the chest no other +combination of letters could inspire. Thus far, too, theory seems +to work well. The service could hardly be better, and recalling +that under the old private system the fare for the forty-seven +miles across the Isthmus was $25 with a charge of ten cents for +every pound of baggage, the $2.40 of today does not seem +particularly exorbitant. + +The official machinery of this private government strip also seems +to run like clockwork. To be sure the wheels even of a clock grind +a bit with friction at times, but the clock goes on keeping time +for all that. The Canal Zone is the best governed district in the +United States. It is worth any American's time and sea-sickness to +run down there, if only to assure himself that Americans really +can govern; until he does he will not have a very clear notion of +just what good American government means. + +But before we go any further be it noted that the socialism of the +Canal Zone is under a benevolent despot, an Omnipotent, +Omniscient, Omnipresent ruler; which is perhaps the one way +socialism would work, at least in the present stage of human +progress. The three Omnis are combined in an inconspicuous, white- +haired American popularly known on the Zone as "the Colonel"--so +popularly in fact that an attempt to replace him would probably +"start something" among all classes and races of "Zoners." That he +is omnipotent--on the Zone--not many will deny; a few have +questioned--and landed in the States a week later much less joyous +but far wiser. Omniscient--well they have even Chinese secret- +service men on the Isthmus, and soldiers and marines not +infrequently go out in civilian clothes under sealed orders; to +say nothing of "the Colonel's private gum-shoe" and probably a lot +of other underground sources of information neither you nor I +shall ever hear of. But you must get used to spies under +socialism, you know, until we all wear one of Saint Peter's halos. +Look at the elaborate system of the Incas, even with their docile +and uninitiative subjects. In the matter of Omnipresence; it would +be pretty hard to find a hole on the Canal Zone where you could +pull off a stunt of any length or importance without the I.C.C. +having a weather-eye on you. When it comes to the no less +indispensable ingredient of benevolence one glimpse of those mild +blue eyes would probably reassure you in that point, even without +the pleasure of watching the despot sit in judgment on his +subjects in his castle office on Sunday mornings like old Saint +Louis under his oak--though with a tin of cigarettes beside him +that old Louis had to worry along without. + +This all-powerful government insists on and enforces many of the +things which Americans as a whole stand for,--Sunday closing, +suppression of resorts, forbidding of gambling. But the Zone is no +test whether these laws could be genuinely enforced in a whole +nation. For down there Panama and Colon serve as a sort of safety- +valve, where a man can run down in an hour or so on mileage or +monthly pass and blow off steam; get rid of the bad internal +vapors that might cause explosion in a ventless society. This we +should not lose sight of when we boast that there are few crimes +and no real resorts on the Zone. "The Colonel" himself will tell +you there is no gambling. Yet it is curious how many of the weekly +prizes of the Panama lottery find their way into the pockets of +American canal builders, and in any Zone gathering of whatever +hour--or sex!--you are almost certain to hear flitting back and +forth mysterious whispers of "--have a 6 and a 4 this week." + +The Zone system is work-coupons for all; much as the Socialist +would have it. Only the legitimate members of the community--the +workers--can live in it--long. You should see the nonchalant way a +clerk at the government's Tivoli hotel charges a tourist a quarter +for a cigar the government sells for six cents in its +commissaries. Mere money does not rank high in Zone society. It's +the labor-coupon that counts. They sell cigarettes at the +Y.M.C.A.; you are in that state where you would give your ticket +home for a smoke. Yet when you throw down good gold or silver, +black Sam behind the showcase looks up at you with that pitying +cold eye kept in stock for new-comers, and says wearily: + +"Cahn't take no money heah, boss." + +That surely is a sort of socialism where a slip of paper showing +merely that you have done your appointed task gets you the same +meal wherever you may drop in, a total stranger, yet without being +identified, without a word from any one, but merely thrusting your +coupon-book at the yellow West Indian at the door as you enter +that he may snatch out so many minutes of labor. Drop in anywhere +there is a vacant bed and you are perfectly at home. There is the +shower-bath, the ice-water, the veranda rocker--you knew exactly +what was coming to you, just what kind of bed, just what +vegetables you would be served at dinner. It reminds one of the +Inca system of providing a home for every citizen, and tambos +along the way if he must travel. + +But it IS the same meal. That is just the point. There is where +you begin to furrow your brow and look more closely at this +splendid system, and fall to wondering if that public kitchen of +socialism would not become in time an awful bore. There are some +things in which we want variety and originality and above all +personality. A meal is a meal, I suppose, as a cat is a cat; yet +there are many subtle little things that make the same things +distinctly different. When it comes to dinner you want a rosy fat +German or a bulky French madame putting thought and pride and +attention into it; which they will do only if they get good coin +of the realm or similar material emolument out of it in +proportion. No one will ever fancy he has a "mission" to serve +good meals--to the public. + +In the I.C.C. hotels we have a government steward who draws a good +salary and wears a nice white collar. But though he is sometimes a +bit different, and succeeds in making his hotel so, it is only in +degree. He is not a great frequenter of the dining-room; at times +one wonders just what his activities are. Certainly it is not the +planning of meals, for the I.C.C. menu is as fixed and automatic +as if it had been taken from a stone slab in the pyramids. A poor +meal neither turns his hair white nor cuts down his income. +Frequently, especially if he is English and certainly if he has +been a ship's steward, the negro waiters seem to run his +establishment without interference. Dinner hours, for example, are +from 11 to 1. But beware the glare of the waiter at whose table +you sit down at 12:50. He slams cold rubbish at you from the +discard and snatches it away again before you have time to find +you can't eat it. You have your choice of enduring this +maltreatment or of unostentatiously slipping him a coin and a hint +to go cook you the best he can himself. For you know that as the +closing hour approaches the cooks will not have their private +plans interfered with by accepting your order. Here again is where +the fat German or the French madame is needed--with an ox-goad. + +In other words the tip system invented by Pharaoh and vitiated by +quick-rich Americans rages as fiercely in government hotels on the +Zone as in any "lobster palace" bordering Broadway--worse, for +here the non-tipper has no living being to advocate his cause. All +food is government property. Yet I have sat down opposite a man +who gave the government at the door a work-coupon identical with +mine, but who furthermore dropped into the waiter's hand "35 cents +spig"--which is half as bad as to do it in U.S. currency--and +while I was gazing tearfully at a misshapen lump of vacunal +gristle there was set before him, steaming hot from the government +kitchen, a porterhouse steak which a dollar bill would not have +brought him within scenting distance of in New York. Do not blame +the waiter. If he does not slip an occasional coin to the cook he +will invariably draw the gristle, and even occasional coins do not +grow on his waist band. It would be as absurd to charge it to the +cook. He probably has a large family to support, as he would have +under socialism. There runs this story on the Zone, vouched for by +several: + +A "Zoner" called an I.C.C. steward and complained that his waiter +did not serve him reasonably: + +"Well," sneered the steward, "I guess you didn't come across?" + +"Come across! Why, damn you, I suppose you're getting your rake- +off too?" + +"I certainly am," replied the steward; "What do you think I'm down +here for, me health?" + +Surely we can't blame it all to the steward, or to any other +individual. Lay it rather to human nature, that stumbling-block of +so many varnished and upholstered systems. + +I hope I am not giving the impression that I.C.C. hotels are +unendurable. "Stay home"--which on the Zone means always eat at +the same hotel table--subsidize your waiter and you do moderately +well. But to move thither and yon, as any plain-clothes man must, +is unfortunate. The only difference then is that the next is worse +than the last. Whatever their convictions upon arrival, almost all +Americans have come down to paying their waiter the regular +blackmail of a dollar a month and setting it down as one of the +unavoidable evils of life. One or two I knew who insisted on +sticking to "principles," and they grew leaner and lanker day by +day. + +Because of these things many an American employee will be found +eating in private restaurants of the ubiquitous Chinaman or the +occasional Spaniard, though here he must often pay in cash instead +of in futures on his labor--which are so much cheaper the world +over. It is sad enough to dine on the same old identical round for +months. But how if you were one of those who blew in on the heels +of the last Frenchman and have been eating it ever since? By this +time even rat-tails would be a welcome change--and with genuine +socialism there would not even be that escape. It is said to be +this hotel problem as much as the perpetual spring-time of the +Zone that so frequently reduces--with the open connivance of the +government--a building housing forty-eight quiet, harmless +bachelors to a four-family residence housing eight and gradually +upwards; that wreaks such matrimonious havoc among the white- +frocked stenographers who come down to type and remain to cook. + +Besides the hotel there is the P.R.R. commissary, the government +department stores. It is likewise laundry, bakery, ice-factory; it +makes ice-cream, roasts coffee, sends out refrigerator-cars and a +morning supply train to bring your orders right to your door--oh, +yes, it strongly resembles what Bellamy dreamed years ago. Only, +as in the case of the hotel, there seems to be a fly or two in the +amber. + +The laundry is tolerable--fancy turning your soiled linen over to +a railroad company--all machine done of course, as everything +would be under socialism, and no come-back for the garment that is +not hardy enough of constitution to stand the system. In the +stores is little or no shoddy material; in general the stock is +the best available. If a biscuit or a bolt of khaki is better made +in England than in the United States the commissary stocks with +English goods, which is unexpected broad-mindedness for government +management. But while prices are lower than in Panama or Colon +they are every whit as high as in American stores; and most of us +know something of the exorbitant profit our private merchants +exact, particularly on manufactured goods. The government claims +to run the commissary only to cover cost. Either that is a crude +government joke or there is a colored gentleman esconced in the +coal-bin. Moreover if the commissary hasn't the stuff you want you +had better give up wanting, for it has no object in laying in a +supply of it just to oblige customers. Its clerks work in the most +languid, unexcited manner. They have no object whatever in holding +your trade, and you can wait until they are quite ready to serve +you, or go home without. True, most of them are merely negroes, +and the few Americans at the head of departments are chiefly +provincial little fellows from small towns whose notions of +business are rather those of Podunk, Mass., than of New York. But +lolling about the commissary a half-hour hoping to buy a box of +matches, one cannot shake off the conviction that it is the system +more than the clerks. Poets and novelists and politicians may work +for "glory," but no man is going to show calico and fit slippers +for such remuneration. + +Nor are all the old evils of the competitive method banished from +the Zone. In the Canal Record, the government organ, the +government commissary advertised a sale of excellent $7 rain-coats +at $1 each. The "Record"! It is like reading it in the Bible. +Witness the rush of bargain hunters, who, it proves, are by no +means of one gender. Yet those splendid rain-coats, as manager, +clerks, and even negro sweepers well knew and could not refrain +from snickering to themselves at thought of, were just as rain- +proof as a poor grade of cheese-cloth. I do not speak from hear- +say for I was numbered among the bargain hunters--"recruits" are +the natural victims, and there arrive enough of them each year to +get rid of worthless stock. Ten minutes after making the purchase +I set out to walk to Corozal through the first mild shower of the +rainy season--and arrived there I went and laid the bargain gently +in the waste-basket of Corozal police station. + +Thus does the government sink to the petty rascalities of shop- +keepers. Even a government manager on a fixed salary--in work- +coupons--will descend to these tricks of the trade to keep out of +the clutches of the auditor, or to make a "good record." The +socialist's answer perhaps would be that under their system +government factories would make only perfect goods. But won't the +factory superintendent also be anxious to make a "record"? And +even government stock will deteriorate on the shelves. + +All small things, to be sure; but it is the sum of small things +that make up that great complex thing--Life. Few of us would +object to living in that ideal dream world. But could it ever be? +I have anxiously asked this question and hinted at these little +weaknesses suggested by Zone experiences to several Zone +socialists--who are not hard to find. They merely answer that +these things have nothing to do with the case. But not one of them +ever went so far as to demonstrate; and though I was born a long +way north of Missouri I once passed through a corner of the state. + +As to the other side of the ledger,--equal pay for all, nowhere is +man further from socialism than on the Canal Zone. Caste lines are +as sharply drawn as in India, which should not be unexpected in an +enterprise largely in charge of graduates of our chief training- +school for caste. The Brahmins are the "gold" employees, white +American citizens with all the advantages and privileges thereto +appertaining. But--and herein we out-Hindu the Hindus--the Brahmin +caste itself is divided and subdivided into infinitesimal +gradations. Every rank and shade of man has a different salary, +and exactly in accordance with that salary is he housed, +furnished, and treated down to the least item,--number of electric +lights, candle-power, style of bed, size of bookcase. His Brahmin +highness, "the Colonel," has a palace, relatively, and all that +goes with it. The high priests, the members of the Isthmian Canal +Commission, have less regal palaces. Heads of the big departments +have merely palatial residences. Bosses live in well-furnished +dwellings, conductors are assigned a furnished house--or quarter +of a house. Policemen, artisans, and the common garden variety of +bachelors have a good place to sleep. It is doubtful, to be sure, +whether one-fourth of the "Zoners" of any class ever lived as well +before or since. The shovelman's wife who gives five-o'clock teas +and keeps two servants will find life different when the canal is +opened and she moves back to the smoky little factory cottage and +learns again to do her own washing. + +At work, "on the job" there is a genuine American freedom of wear- +what-you-please and a general habit of going where you choose in +working clothes. That is one of the incomprehensible Zone things +to the little veneered Panamanian. He cannot rid himself of his +racial conviction that a man in an old khaki jacket who is +building a canal must be of inferior clay to a hotel loafer in a +frock coat and a tall hat. The real "Spig" could never do any real +work for fear of soiling his clothes. He cannot get used to the +plain, brusk American type without embroidery, who just does +things in his blunt, efficient way without wasting time on little +exterior courtesies. None of these childish countries is man +enough to see through the rough surface. Even with seven years of +American example about him the Panamanian has not yet grasped the +divinity of labor. Perhaps he will eons hence when he has grown +nearer true civilization. + +But among Americans off the job reminiscences of East India flock +in again. D, who is a quartermaster at $225, may be on "How-are- +you-old-man?" terms with G, who is a station agent and draws $175. +But Mrs. D never thinks of calling on Mrs. G socially. H and J, +who are engineer and cranemen respectively on the same steam- +shovel, are probably "Hank" and "Jim" to each other, but Mrs. H +would be horrified to find herself at the same dance with Mrs. J. +Mrs. X, whose husband is a foreman at $165, and whose dining table +is a full six inches longer and whose ice-box will hold one more +cold-storage chicken, would not think of sitting in at bridge with +Mrs. Y, whose husband gets $150. As for being black, or any tint +but pure "white"! Even an Englishman, though he may eat in the +same hotel if his skin is not too tanned, is accepted on staring +suffrance. As for the man whose skin is a bit dull, he might sit +on the steps of an I. C. C. hotel with dollars dribbling out of +his pockets until he starved to death--and he would be duly buried +in the particular grave to which his color entitled him. A real +American place is the Zone, with outward democracy and inward +caste, an unenthusiastic and afraid-to-break-the-conventions place +in play, and the opposite at work. + +Yet with it all it is a good place in which to live. There you +have always summer, jungled hills to look on by day and moonlight, +and to roam in on Sunday--unless you are a policeman seven days a +week. It is possible that perpetual summer would soon breed quite +a different type of American. The Isthmus is nearly always in +boyish--or girlish--good temper. Zone women and girls are noted +for plump figures and care-free faces. And there is a contentment +that is more than climatic. There are no hard times on the Zone, +no hurried, worried faces, no famished, wolfish eyes. The "Zoner" +has his little troubles of course,--the servant problem, for +instance, for the Jamaican housemaid is a thorn in any side. Now +and then we hear some one wailing, "Oh, it gets so--tiresome! +Everybody's shoveling dirt or talking about the other fellow." But +he knows it isn't strictly true when he says it and that he is +kicking chiefly to keep in practice. Every one is free from +worries as to job, pay, house, provisions, and even hospital fees, +and the smoothness of it all, perhaps, gets on his nerves at +times. I question whether "the Colonel" himself loses much sleep +when a chunk of the hill that bears up his residence lets go and +pitches into the canal. It sets one to musing at times whether the +rock-bound system of the Incas was not best after all,--a place +for every man and every man in his place, each his allotted work, +which he was fully able to do and getting Hail Columbia if he +failed to do it. + +Which brings up the question of results in labor under the pseudo- +socialist Zone system. Most American employees work steadily and +take their work seriously. It is as if each were individually +proud of being one of the chosen people and builders of the +greatest work of modern times. Yet the far-famed "American rush" +is not especially prevalent. The Zone point of view seems to be +that no shoveling is so important, even that of digging a ditch +half the ships of the world are waiting to cross, that a man +should bring upon himself a premature funeral. The common +laborers, non-Americans, almost dawdle. There are no contractor's +Irish straw-bosses to keep them on the move. The answer to the +Socialist's scheme of having the government run all big building +enterprises is to go out and watch any city street gang for an +hour. + +The bringing together into close contact of Americans from every +section of our broad land is tending to make a new amalgamated +type. Even New Englanders grow almost human here among their +broader-minded fellow-countrymen. Any northerner can say "nigger" +as glibly as a Carolinian, and growl if one of them steps on his +shadow. It is not easy to say just how much effect all this will +have when the canal is done and this handful of amalgamated and +humanized Americans is sprinkled back over all the States as a +leaven to the whole. They tell on the Zone of a man from Maine who +sat four high-school years on the same bench with two negro boys, +and returning home after three years on the Isthmus was so +horrified to find one of those boys an alderman that he packed his +traps and moved to Alabama, "where a nigger IS a nigger"--and if +there isn't the "makings" of a story in that I 'll leave it to the +postmaster of Miraflores. + + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +"There is much in this police business," said "the Captain," with +his slow, deliberate enunciation, "that must lead to a blank wall. +Out of ten cases to investigate it is quite possible nine will +result in nothing. This percentage could not of course be true of +a thousand cases and a man's services still be considered +satisfactory. But of ten it is quite possible. As for knowing HOW +to do detective work, all I bring to the department myself is some +ordinary common sense and a little knowledge of human nature, and +with these I try to work things out as best I can. This peeping- +through-the-key-hole police work I know nothing whatever about, +and don't want to. Nor do I expect a man to." + +I had been discussing with "the Captain" my dissatisfaction at my +failure to "get results" in an important case. A few weeks on the +force had changed many a preconceived notion of police life. It +had gradually become evident, for instance, that the profession of +detective is adventurous, absorbing, heart-stopping chiefly +between the covers of popular fiction; that real detective work, +like almost any other vocation, is made up largely of the little +unimportant every-day details, with only a rare assignment bulking +above the mass. As "the Captain" said, it was just plain every-day +work carried on by the application of ordinary common sense. Such +best-seller artifices as disguise were absurd. Not only would +disguise in all but the rarest cases be impossible, but useless. +The A-B-C of plain-clothes work is to learn to know a man by his +face rather than by his clothing--and at the outset one will be +astonished to find how much he has hitherto been depending on the +latter. It must be the same with criminals, too, unless your +criminal is an amateur or a fool, in which event you will "land" +him without the trouble of disguising. A detective furthermore +should not be a handsome man or a man of striking appearance in +any way; the ideal plain-clothes man is the little insignificant +snipe whom even the ladies will not notice. + +Since April tenth I had been settled in notorious House 111, +Ancon, a sort of frontiersman resort or smugglers' retreat--had +there been anything to smuggle--where to have fallen through the +veranda screening would have been to fall into a foreign land. As +pay-day approached there came the duty of standing a half-hour at +the station gate before the departure of each train to watch and +discuss with the ponderous, smiling, dark-skinned chief of +Panama's plain-clothes squad, or with a vigilante the suspicious +characters and known crooks of all colors going out along the +line. On the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth the I. C. C. pay- +car, that bank on wheels guarded by a squad of Z. P., sprinkled +its half-million a day along the Zone. Then plain-clothes duty was +not merely to scan the embarking passengers but to ride out with +each train to one of the busy towns. There scores upon scores of +soil-smeared workmen swarmed over all the landscape with long +paper-wrapped rolls of Panamanian silver in their hands, while +flashily dressed touts and crooks of both sexes drifted out from +Panama with every train to worm their insidious way into wherever +the scent of coin promised another month free from labor. To add +to those crowded times the chief dissipation of the West Indian +during the few days following pay-day that his earnings last is to +ride aimlessly and joyously back and forth on the trains. + +There is one advantage, though some policemen call it by quite the +opposite name, in being stationed at Ancon. When crime takes a +holiday and do-nothing threatens tropical dementia, or a man tires +of his native land and people a short stroll down the asphalt +takes him into the city of Panama. Barely across the street where +his badge becomes mere metal, and he must take care not to arrest +absent-mindedly the first violator of Zone laws--whom he is sure +to come upon within the first block--he notes that the English +tongue has suddenly almost disappeared. On every hand, lightly +sprinkled with many other dialects, sounds Spanish, the slovenly +Spanish of Panama in which bueno is "hueno" and calle is "caye." +As he swings languidly to the right into Avenida Central he grows +gradually aware that there has settled down about him a cold +indifference, an atmosphere quite different from that on his own +side of the line. Those he addresses in the tongue of the land +reply to his questions with their customary gestures and fixed +phrases of courtesy. But no more; and a cold dead silence falls +sharply upon the last word, and at times, if the experience be +comparatively new, there seems to hover in the air something that +reminds him that way back fifty-six years ago there was a +"massacre" of Americans in Panama city. For the Panamanian has +little love for the United States or its people; which is the +customary thanks any man or nation gets for lifting a dirty half- +breed gamin from the gutter. + +Off in the vortex of the city lolls Panama's public market, where +Chinamen are the chief sellers and flies the chief consumers. +Myriads of fruits in every stage of development and +disintegration, haggled bits of meat, the hundred sights and +sounds and smells one hurries past suggest that Panama may even +have outdone Central America before Uncle Sam came with his +garbage-cans and his switch. Further on, down at the old harbor, +lingers a hint of the picturesqueness of Panama in pre-canal days. +Clumsy boats, empty, or deep-laden with fruit from, or freight to, +the several islands that sprinkle the bay, splash and bump against +the little cement wharf. Aged wooden "windjammers" doze at their +moorings, everywhere are jabbering natives with that shifty half- +cast eye and frequent evidence of deep-rooted disease. Almost +every known race mingles in Panama city, even to Chinese coolies +in their umbrella hats and rolled up cotton trousers, delving in +rich market gardens on the edges of the town or dog-trotting +through the streets under two baskets dancing on the ends of a +bamboo pole, till one fancies oneself at times in Singapore or +Shanghai. The black Zone laborer, too, often prefers to live in +Panama for the greater freedom it affords--there he doesn't have +to clean his sink so often, marry his "wife," or banish his +chickens from the bedroom. Policemen with their clubs swarm +everywhere, for no particular reason than that the little republic +is forbidden to play at army, and with the presidential election +approaching political henchmen must be kept good-humored. Not a +few of these officers are West Indians who speak not a word of +Spanish--nor any other tongue, strictly speaking. + +Rubber-tired carriages roll constantly by along Uncle Sam's +macadam, amid the jingling of their musical bells. Every one takes +a carriage in Panama. Any man can afford ten cents even if he has +no expense account; besides he runs no risk of being overcharged, +which is a greater advantage than the cost. All this may be +different when Panama's electric line, all the way from Balboa +docks to Las Sabanas, is opened--but that's another year. +Meanwhile the lolling in carriages comes to be quite second +nature. + +But like any tropical Spanish town Panama seethes only by night, +especially Saturday and Sunday nights when the paternal Zone +government allows its children to spend the evening in town. Then +frequent trains, unknown during the week, begin with the setting +of the sun to disgorge Americans of all grades and sizes through +the clicking turnstiles into the arms of gesticulating hackmen, +some to squirm away afoot between the carriages, all to be +swallowed up within ten minutes in the great sea of "colored" +people. So that, large as may be each train-load, white American +faces are so rare on Panama streets that one involuntarily glances +at each that passes in the throng. + +It is the "gum-shoe's" duty to know and be unknown in as many +places as possible. Wherefore on such nights, whatever his choice, +he drifts early down by the "Normandie" and on into the "Pana- +zone" to see who is out, and why. In the latter emporium he adds a +bottle of beer to his expense account, endures for a few moments +the bawling above the scream of the piano of two Americans of +Palestinian antecedents, admires some local hero, like "Baldy" for +instance, who is credited with doing what Napoleon could not do, +and floats on, perhaps to screw up his courage and venture into +the thinly-clad Teatro Apolo. He who knows where to look, or was +born under a lucky star, may even see on these merry evenings a +big Marine from Bas Obispo or a burly soldier of the Tenth howling +some joyful song with six or seven little "Spig" policemen +climbing about on his frame. At such times everything but real +blood, flows in Panama. Her history runs that way. On the day she +won her independence from Spain it is said the General in Chief +cut his finger on a wine glass. The day she won it from Colombia +there was a Chinaman killed--but every one agrees that was due to +the celestial's criminal carelessness. + +Down at the quieter end of the city are "Las Bovedas," that +curving sea-wall Phillip of Spain tried to make out from his +palace walls, as many another, regal and otherwise, has strained +his eyes in vain to see where his good coin has gone. But the +walls are there all right, though Phillip never saw them; +crumbling a bit, yet still a sturdy barrier to the sea. A broad +cement and grass promenade runs atop, wide as an American street. +Thirty or forty feet below the low parapet sounds the deep, time- +mellowed voice of the Pacific, as there rolls higher and higher up +the rock ledges that great tide so different from the scarcely +noticeable one at Colon. The summer breeze never dies down, never +grows boisterous. On the landward side Panama lies mumbling to +itself, down in the hollow between squats Chiriqui prison with its +American warden, once a Zone policeman; while in the round stone +watch-towers on the curving parapets lean prison guards with fixed +bayonets and incessantly blow the shrill tin whistles that is the +universal Latin-American artifice for keeping policemen awake. On +the way back to the city the elite--or befriended--may drop in at +the University Club at the end of the wall for a cooling libation. + +On Sunday night comes the band concert in the palm-ringed +Cathedral Plaza. There is one on Thursday, too, in Plaza Santa +Ana, but that is packed with all colors and considered "rather +vulgah." In the square by the cathedral the aggregate color is far +lighter. Pure African blood hangs chiefly in the outskirts. Then +the haughty aristocrats of Panama, proud of their own individual +shade of color, may be seen in the same promenade with American +ladies--even a garrison widow or two--from out along the line. +Panamanian girls gaudily dressed and suggesting to the nostrils +perambulating drug-stores shuttle back and forth with their +perfumed dandies. Above the throng pass the heads and shoulders of +unemotional, self-possessed Americans, erect and soldierly. +Sergeant Jack of Ancon station was sure to be there in his +faultless civilian garb, a figure neat but not gaudy; and even +busy Lieutenant Long was known to break away from his stacked-up +duties and his black stenographer and come to overtop all else in +the square save the palm-trees whispering together in the evening +breeze between the numbers. + +There is no favoritism in Zone police work. Every crime reported +receives full investigation, be it only a Greek laborer losing a +pair of trousers or-- + +There was the case that fell to me early in May, for instance. A +box billed from New York to Peru had been broken open on Balboa +dock and--one bottle of cognac stolen. Unfortunately the matter +was turned over to me so long after the perpetration of the +dastardly crime that the possible culprits among the dock hands +had wholly recovered from the probable consumption of the +evidence. But I succeeded in gathering material for a splendid +typewritten report of all I had not been able to unearth, to file +away among other priceless headquarters' archives. + +Not that the Z. P. has not its big jobs. The force to a man +distinctly remembers that absorbing two months between the escape +of wild black Felix Paul and the day they dragged him back into +the penitentiary. No less fresh in memory are the expeditions +against Maurice Pelote, or Francois Barduc, the murderer of +Miraflores. All Martinique negroes, be it noted; and of all things +on this earth, including greased pigs, the hardest to catch is a +Martinique criminal. After all, four or five murders on the Zone +in three years is no startling record in such a swarm of +nationalities. + +Cases large and small which it would be neither of interest nor +politic to detail poured in during the following weeks. Among them +was the counterfeit case unearthed by some Shylock Holmes on the +Panamanian force, that called for a long perspiring hunt for the +"plant" in odd corners of the Zone. Then there was--, an ex-Z. P. +who lost his three years' savings on the train, for which reason I +shadowed a well-known American--for it is a Z. P. rule that no one +is above suspicion--about Panama afoot and in carriages nearly all +night, in true dime-novel fashion. There was the day that I was +given a dangerous convict to deliver at Culebra Penitentiary. The +criminal was about three feet long, jet black, his worldly +possessions comprising two more or less garments, one reaching as +far down as his knees and the other as far up as the base of his +neck. He had long been a familiar sight to "Zoners" among the +swarm of bootblacks that infest the corner near the P. R. R. +station. He claimed to be eleven, and looked it. But having +already served time for burglary and horse-stealing, his +conviction for stealing a gold necklace from a negro washerwoman +of San Miguel left the Chief Justice no choice but to send him to +meditate a half-year at Culebra. There is no reform school on the +Zone. The few American minors who have been found guilty of +misdoing have been banished to their native land. When the deputy +warden had sufficiently recovered from the shock brought upon him +by the sight of his new charge to give me a receipt for him, I +raced for the noon train back to the city. + +Thereon I sat down beside Pol--First-Class Policeman X---, +surprised to find him off duty and in civilian clothes. There was +a dreamy, far-away look in his eyes, and not until the train was +racing past Rio Grande reservoir did he turn to confide to me the +following extraordinary occurrence: + +"Last night I dreamed old Judge-----had my father and my mother up +before him. On the stand he asked my mother her age--and the funny +part of it is my mother has been dead over ten years. She turned +around and wrote on the wall with a piece of chalk '1859,' the +year she was born. Then my father was called and he wrote '1853.' +That's all there was to the dream. But take it from me I know what +it means. Now just add 'em together, and multiply by five--because +I could see five people in the court-room--divide by two--father +and mother--and I get--," he drew out a crumpled "arrest" form +covered with penciled figures, "--9280. And there--" his voice +dropped low, "--is your winning number for next Sunday." + +So certain was this, that First-Class X----had bribed another +policeman to take his eight-hour shift, dressed in his vacation +best, bought a ticket to Panama and return, with real money at +tourist prices, and would spend the blazing afternoon seeking +among the scores of vendors in the city for lottery ticket 9280. +And if he did not find it there he certainly paid his fare all the +way to Colon and back to continue his search. I believe he at +length found and acquired the whole ticket, for the customary sum +of $2.50. But there must have been a slip in the arithmetic, or +mother's chalk; for the winning number that Sunday was 8895. + +Frequent as are these melancholy errors, scores of "Zoners" cling +faithfully to their arithmetical superstitions. Many a man spends +his recreation hours working out the winning numbers by some +secret recipe of his own. There are men on the Z. P. who, if you +can get them started on the subject of lottery tickets, will keep +it up until you run away, showing you the infallibility of their +various systems, believing the drawing to be honest, yet oblivious +to the fact that both the one and the other cannot be true. Dreams +are held in special favor. It is probably safe to assert that one- +half the numbers over 1,000 and under 10,000 that appear in Zone +dreams are snapped up next day in lottery tickets. Many have +systems of figuring out the all-important number from the figures +on engines and cars. More than one Zone housewife has slipped into +the kitchen to find the roast burning and her West Indian cook +hiding hastily behind her ample skirt a long list of the figures +on every freight-car that has passed that morning, from which by +some Antillian miscalculation and the murmuring of certain +invocations she was to find the magic number that would bring her +cooking days to an end. + +Yet there is sometimes method in their madness. Did not "Joe" who +slept in the next room to me at Gatun "hit Duque for two pieces"-- +which is to say he had $3,000 to sprinkle along with his police +salary? Yet personally the only really appealing "system" was that +of Cristobal. Upon his arrival on the Isthmus four years ago he +picked out a number at random, took out a yearly subscription to +it, and thought no more about it than one does of a newspaper +delivered at the door each morning--until one Monday during this +month of May, after he had squandered something over $500, on +worthless bits of paper, he strolled into the lottery office and +was handed an inconspicuous little bag containing $7,500 in yellow +gold. + +Like all Z. P. "rookies" (recruits) I had been warned early to +beware the "sympathy dodge." But experience is the only real +teacher. One afternoon I bestraddled a crazy, stilt-legged +Jamaican horse to go out into the bush beyond the Panama line to +fetch and deliver a citizen of that sovereign republic who was +wanted on the Zone for horse-stealing. At the town of Sabanas, +where those Panamanians who have bagged the most loot since +American occupation have their "summer" homes,--giddy, brick- +painted monstrosities among the great trees, deep green foliage +and brilliant flower-beds (pause a moment and think of brilliant +red houses in the tropics; it will make you better acquainted with +the "Spig") I dropped in at the police station for ice-water and +information. I found it in charge of a negro policeman who knew +nothing, and had forgotten that. When, therefore, it also chanced +that an officer of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to +Animals stopped before the gate with a coachman of Panama, it fell +upon me to assume command. The horse was the usual emaciated rat +of an animal indigenous to Panama City. When overhauled, the +driver was beating the animal uphill on his way to Old Panama to +bring back a party of tourists visiting the ruins. How he expected +the decrepit beast to carry four more persons was a mystery. When +the harness was lifted there was disclosed the expected half-dozen +large raw sores. We tied the animal in the shade near hay and +water and adjourned to the station. + +The coachman, a weary, unshaven Spaniard whose red eyelids showed +lack of sleep, was weeping copiously. He claimed to be a +madrileno--which was evident; that he had been a coachman in Spain +and Panama all his life without ever before having been arrested-- +which was possible. He was merely one of many drivers for a +livery-stable owner in Panama. Ordered to go for the tourists, he +had called his employer's attention to the danger of crossing Zone +territory with a horse in that condition; but the owner had +ordered him to cover up the sores with pads and harness and drive +along. + +It was a very sad case. Here was a poor, honest coachman +struggling to support a wife and I don't recall how many children, +but any number sounds quite reasonable in Panama, who was about to +be punished for the fault of another. The paradox of honest and +coachman did not strike me until later. He was certainly telling +the truth--you come to recognize it readily in all ordinary cases +after a few weeks in plain clothes. The real culprit was, of +course, the employer. My righteous wrath demanded that he and not +his poor serf be punished. I could not release the driver. But I +would see that the truth was brought out in court next morning and +a warrant sworn out against the owner. With showering tears and +rib-shaking sobs the coachman promised to tell the judge the whole +story. I went through him, and locking him up with assurances of +my deepest sympathy and full assistance, stilted on toward the +little village of shacks scattered out of sight among the hills, +and valleys across the border. + +Coachman, witnesses, and arresting officer, to say nothing of +horse, carriage, and sores were on hand when court opened next +morning. As I expected, the judge failed to ask the poor fellow a +single question that would bring out the complicity of his +employer; did not in fact discover there was an employer. I asked +to be sworn, and gave the true version of the case. The judge +listened earnestly. When I had ended, he recalled the coachman. +The latter expressed his astonishment that I should have made any +such statements. He denied them in toto. His employer had nothing +whatever to do with the case. The fault was entirely his, and no +one else was in the remotest degree connected with the matter. + +"Five dollars!" snapped the judge. + +The coachman paid, hitched up the rat of a horse, and wabbled away +into Panama. + +Police business, taking me down into "the Grove" that night, I +found the driver, clean-shaven and better dressed, waiting for +fares before the principal house of that section. + +"What kind of a game--," I began. + +"Senor," he cried, and tears again seemed on the point of falling, +"every word I told you was true. But of course I couldn't testify +against the patron. He'd discharge me and blackmail me, and you +know I have a wife and innumerable children to support. Come on +over and have a drink." + +This justice business, one soon learns, is of the same infallible +stuff as the rest of life. After all it is only the personal +opinion of the judge between two persons swearing on oath to +diametrically opposed statements; and for all the impressiveness +of deep furrowed brows I did not find that the average judge had +any more power of reading human nature than the average of the +rest of us. I well remember the morning when a meek little +Panamanian was testifying in his own behalf, in Spanish of course, +when the judge broke in without even asking for a translation of +the testimony: + +"That'll do! Because of your gestures I believe you are trying to +bunco this court. You are lying--tell him that," this to the negro +interpreter; and he therewith sentenced the witness to jail. + +As if any Panamanian could talk earnestly of anything without +waving his arms about him. + +The telephone-bell rang one afternoon. It was always doing that, +twenty-four hours a day; but this time it sounded especially sharp +and insistent. In the adjoining room, over the "blotter," snapped +the brusk stereotyped nasal reply: + +"Ancon! Bingham talking!" + +The instrument buzzed a moment and the deskman looked up to say: + +"'Andy' and a nigger just fell over into Pedro Miguel locks. +They're sending in his body. The nigger lit on his head and hurt +his leg." + +His body! How uncanny it sounded! "Andy," that bunch of muscles +who had made such short work of the circus wrestler in Gatun and +whom I had seen not twenty-four hours before bubbling with life +was now a "body." Things happen quickly on the Zone, and he whom +the fates have picked to go generally shows no hesitation in his +exit. But at least a man who dies for the I. C. C. has the affairs +he left behind him attended to in a thorough manner. In ten +minutes to a half-hour one of the Z. P. is on the ground taking +note of every detail of the accident. A special train or engine +rushes the body to the morgue in Ancon hospital grounds. A +coroner's jury is soon meeting under the chairmanship of a +policeman, long reports of everything concerning the victim or the +accident are soon flowing Administration-ward. The police accident +report is detailed and in triplicate. There is sure to be in the +"personal files" at Culebra a history of the deceased and the +names of his nearest relative or friend both on the Isthmus and in +the States; for every employee must make out his biography at the +time of his engagement. There are men whose regular duty it is to +list and take care of his possessions down to the last lead +pencil, and to forward them to the legal heirs. A year's pay goes +to his family--were as much required of every employer and his the +burden of proving the accident the fault of the employee, how the +safety appliances in factories would multiply. There is a man +attached to Ancon hospital whose unenviable duty it is to write a +letter of condolence to the relatives in the States. + +And so the "Kangaroos" or the "Red Men" or whatever his lodge was +filed behind the I. C. C. casket to the church in Ancon, and +"Andy" was laid away under another of the simple white iron +crosses that thickly populate many a Zone hillside, and he was +charged up to the big debit column of the costs of the canal. On +the cross is his new number; for officially a "Zoner" is always a +number; that of the brass-check he wears as a watch-charm alive, +that at the head of his grave when his canal-digging is over. + +Late one unoccupied afternoon I picked up the path behind the +Administration Building and, skirting a Zone residence, began to +climb that famous oblong mound that dominates the Pacific end of +the landscape from every direction,--Ancon Hill. For a way a +fairly steep and stony path lead through thick undergrowth. Then +this ceased, and a far steeper trail zigzagged up the face of the +bare mountain, covered only with thin dead grass. The setting sun +cast its shadow obliquely across the summit when I reached it,--a +long ridge, with groves of trees, running off abruptly toward the +sea. On the opposite side Uncle Sam was cutting away a whole side +of the hill. But the five o'clock whistle had blown, and whole +armies of little workmen swarmed across all the landscape far +below, and silence soon settled down save for the dredges at +Balboa that chug on through the night. But for myself the hill was +wholly unpeopled. A sturdy ocean breeze swept steadily across it. +The sinking sun set the jungle afire in a spot that would have +startled those who do not know that it rises in the Pacific at +Panama, crude, glaring colors glowed, fading to gentler and more +delicate tints, then the evening shadow that had climbed the hill +with me spread like a great black veil over all the world. + +But the moon nearing its full followed almost on the heels of the +setting sun and, casting its half-day over a scene rich in nature +and history, invited the eye to swing clear round the hazy circle. +Below lay Panama dully rumbling with night traffic. Silent Ancon, +still better lighted, cuddled upon the lower skirts of the hill +itself. Then beyond, the curving bay, half seen, half guessed, +with its long promontory dying away into the hazy moonlit +distance, lighted up here and there by bush fires in the jungled +hills. Some way out winked the cluster of lights that marked Las +Sabanas. In front, the placid Pacific, the "South Sea" of the +Spaniards, spread dimly away into the void of night, its several +islands seen only by the darker darkness that marked where they +lay. + +On the other side of the hill the rumble of cranes and night labor +came up from Balboa dock. There, began the canal, which the eye +could follow away into the dim hilly inland distance--and come +upon a great cluster of lights that was Corozal, then another +group that was Miraflores, close followed by those of Pedro +Miguel; and yet further, rising to such height as to be almost +indistinguishable from the lower stars the lights of the negro +cabins of upper Paraiso twinkled dimly above a broad glow that was +Paraiso itself. There the vista ended. For at Paraiso the canal +turns to the left for its plunge through Culebra hill, and all +that follows,--Empire, Cascadas, and far Gatun, was visible only +in the imagination. + +If only the film of time might roll back and there pass again +before our eyes all that has come to pass within sight of Ancon +hilltop. Across the bay there, where now are only jungle-tangled +ruins, Pizarro set out with his handful of vagabonds to conquer +South America; there old Buccaneer Morgan laid his bloody hand. +Back in the hills there men died by scores trying to carry a ship +across the Isthmus, the Spanish viceroys passed with their rich +trains, there on some unknown knoll Balboa reached four hundred +years ago the climax of a career that began with stowing away in a +cask and ended under the headsman's ax--no end of it, down to the +"Forty-niners" going hopefully out and returning filled with gold +or disease, or leaving their bones here in the jungle before they +really were "Forty-niners"; on down to the railroad days with men +wading in swamps with survey kits, and frequently lying down to +die. Then if a bit of the future, too, could for a moment be +unveiled, and one might watch the first ship glide majestically +and silently into the canal and away into the jungle like some +amphibious monster. + +It was along in those days that we were looking for a "murderous +assaulter." At a Saturday night dance in a native shack back in +Miraflores bush the usual riot had broken out about midnight and a +revolver had come into play. As a result there was a Peruvian +mulatto up in Ancon hospital who had been shot through the mouth, +the bullet being somewhere in his neck. It became my frequent +duty, among other Z. P.'s, to take suspects up the hill for +possible identification. + +One morning I strolled into the station and fell to laughing. The +early train had brought in on suspicion a Spanish laborer of +twenty or twenty-two; a pretty, girlish chap with huge blue eyes +over which hung long black lashes like those painted on Nurnberg +dolls. No one with a shadow of faith in human nature left would +have believed him capable of any crime; any one at all acquainted +with Spaniards must have known he could not shoot a hare, would in +fact be afraid to fire off a gun. + +The fear in his big blue eyes struggled with his ingenuous, +girlish smile as I marched him through the long hall full of white +beds and darker inmates. The Peruvian sat bolstered up in his cot, +a stoical, revengeful glare on his reddish-brown swollen face. He +gazed a long minute at the boy's face, across which flitted the +flush of fear and embarrassment, at the big doll's eyes, then +shook a raised forefinger slowly back and forth before his nose-- +the negative of Spanish-speaking peoples. Then he groaned, spat in +a tin-can beside him, and called for paper and pencil. In the +note-book I handed him he wrote in atrociously spelled Spanish: + +"The man that came to the dance with this man is the man that shot +me with a bullet." + +The blue-eyed boy promised to point out his companion of that +night. We took the 10:55 and reached Pedro Miguel during the noon +hour. Down in a box-car camp between the railroad and the canal +the boy called for "Jose" and there presented himself immediately +a tall, studious, solemn-faced Spaniard of spare frame, about +forty, dressed in overalls and working shirt. Here was even less a +criminal type than the boy. + +"Senor," I asked, "did you go to the dance in Miraflores last +Saturday night with this youth?" + +"Si, senor." + +"Then I place you under arrest. We will take the one o'clock +train." + +He opened his mouth to protest, but closed it again without having +uttered a sound. He opened it a second time, then sat suddenly +down on the low edge of the box-car porch. A more genuinely +astonished man I have never seen. No actor could have approached +it. Still, whatever my own conviction, it was my business to bring +him before his accuser. After a time he recovered sufficiently to +ask permission to change his clothes, and disappeared in one of +the resident box-cars. The boy was already being fed in another. +Had my prisoners been of almost any one of the other seventy-one +nationalities I should not have thought of letting them out of my +sight. But the Zone Spaniard's respect for law is proverbial. + +"Jose! Pinched Jose!" cried his American boss, when I explained +that he would find himself a man short that afternoon. "You people +are sure barking up the wrong tree this time. Why, Jose has been +my engineer for over two years, and the steadiest man on the Zone. +He writes for some Spanish paper and tells 'em the truth over +there so straight that the rest of 'em down here, the anarchists +and all that bunch, are aching to get him into trouble. But +they'll never get anything on Jose. Have him tell you about it in +Spanish if you sabe the lingo." + +But Jose was a gallego, whence instead of the voluble flood of +protesting words one expects from a Spaniard on such an occasion, +he wrapped himself in a stoical silence. Not until we were on our +way to the railroad station did I get him to talk. Then he +explained in quiet, unflowery, gestureless language. + +He had come to the Canal Zone chiefly to gather literary material. +Not being a man of wealth, however, nor one satisfied with +superficial observation, he had sought employment at his trade as +stationary engineer. Besides laying in a stock for more important +writing he hoped to do in the future, he was Zone correspondent of +"El Liberal" of Madrid and other Spanish cities. In the social +life of his fellow-countrymen on the Isthmus he had taken no part, +whatever. He was too busy. He did not drink. He could not dance; +he saw no sense in squandering time in such frivolities. But ever +since his arrival he had been promising himself to attend one of +these wild Saturday-night debauches in the edge of the jungle that +he might use a description of it in some later work. So he had +coaxed his one personal friend, the boy, to go with him. It was +virtually the one thing besides work that he had ever done on the +Zone. They had stayed two hours, and had left the moment the +trouble began. Yet here he was arrested. + +I bade him cheer up, to consider the trip to Ancon merely an +afternoon excursion on government pass. He remained downcast. + +"But think of the experience!" I cried. "Now you can tell exactly +how it feels to be arrested--first-hand literary material." + +But he was not philosopher enough to look at it from that point of +view. To his Spanish mind arrest, even in innocence, was a +disgrace for which no amount of "material" could compensate. It is +a common failing. How many of us set out into the world for +experience, yet growl with rage or sit downcast and silent all the +way from Pedro Miguel to Panama if one such experience gives us a +rough half-hour, or robs us of ten minutes sleep. + +At the hospital the Peruvian gurgled and spat, beckoned for paper +and wrote: + +"This is the man." + +"What man?" I asked. + +"The man who came with that man," he scribbled, nodding his heavy +face toward the blue-eyed boy. + +"But is this the man that shot you?" I demanded. + +"The man who came with that man is the one," he scrawled. + +"Well, then this is the man that shot you?" I cried. + +But he would not answer definitely to that, but sat a long time +glaring out of his swollen, vindictive countenance propped up in +his pillows at the tall, solemn correspondent. By and by he +motioned again for paper. + +"I think so. I am not sure," he miswrote. + +I did NOT think so, and as the sum total of his descriptions of +his assailant during the past several days amounted to "a tall +man, rather short, with a face and two eyes"--he was very +insistent about the eyes, which is the reason the doll-eyed boy +had fallen into the drag-net--I permitted myself to accept my own +opinion as evidence. The Peruvian was in all likelihood in no +condition to recognize a man from a loup-garou by the time the +fracas started. Much ardent water had flowed that night. I took +the suspects down to Ancon station and let them cool off in porch +rocking-chairs. Then I gave them passes back to Pedro Miguel for +the evening train. The doll-eyed boy smiled girlishly upon me as +he descended the steps, but the correspondent strode slowly away +with the downcast, cheerless countenance of a man who has been +hurt beyond recovery. + +There were strangely contrasted days in the "gum-shoe's" calendar. +Two examples taken almost at random will give the idea. On May +twentieth I lolled all day in a porch rocker at Ancon station, +reading a novel. Along in the afternoon Corporal Castillo drifted +in. For a time he stood leaning against the desk-rail, his felt +hat pushed far back on his head, his eyes fixed on some point in +the interior of China. Then suddenly he snatched up a sheet of I. +C. C. stationery, dropped down at a typewriter, and wrote at +express speed a letter in Spanish. Next he grasped a telephone +and, in the words of the deskman, "spit Spig into the 'phone" for +several minutes. That over he caught up an envelope, sealed the +letter and addressed it. An instant later the station was in an +uproar looking for a stamp. One was found, the Corporal stuck it +on the letter, fell suddenly motionless and stared for a long time +at vacancy. Then a new thought struck him. He jerked open a drawer +of the "gum-shoe" desk, flung the letter inside--where I found it +accidentally one day some weeks afterward--and dropping into the +swivel-chair laid his feet on the "gum-shoe" blotter and a moment +later seemed to have fallen asleep. + +By all of which signs those of us who knew him began to suspect +that the Corporal had something on his mind. Not a few considered +him the best detective on the force; at least he was different +enough from a printer's ink detective to be a real one. But +naturally the strain of heading a detective bureau for weeks was +beginning to wear upon him. + +"Damn it!" said the Corporal suddenly, opening his eyes, "I can't +be in six places at once. You'll have to handle these cases," and +he drew from a pocket and handed me three typewritten sheets, then +drifted away into the dusk. I looked them over and returned to the +porch rocker and the last chapters of the novel. + +A meek touch on the leg awoke me at four next morning. I looked up +to see dimly a black face under a khaki helmet bent over me +whispering, "It de time, sah," and fade noiselessly away. It was +the frontier policeman carrying out his orders of the night +before. For once there was not a carriage in sight. I stumbled +sleepily down into Panama and for some distance along Avenida +Central before I was able to hail an all night hawk chasing a worn +little wreck of a horse along the macadam. I spread my lanky form +over the worn cushions and we spavined along the graveled boundary +line, past the Chinese cemetery where John can preserve and burn +joss to his ancestors to the end of time, out through East Balboa +just awakening to life, and reached Balboa docks as day was +breaking. I was not long there, and the equine caricature ambled +the three miles back to town in what seemed reasonable time, +considering. As we turned again into Avenida Central my watch told +me there was time and to spare to catch the morning passenger. I +was not a little surprised therefore to hear just then two sharp +rings on the station gong. I dived headlong into the station and +brought up against a locked gate, caught a glimpse of two or three +ladies weeping and the tail of the passenger disappearing under +the bridge. Americans have introduced the untropical idea of +starting their trains on time, to the disgust of the "Spig" in +general and the occasional discomfiture of Americans. I dashed +wildly out through the station, across Panama's main street, down +a rugged lane to the first steps descending to the track, and +tumbled joyously onto a slowly moving train--to discover that it +was the Balboa labor-train and that the Colon passenger was +already half-way to Diablo Hill. + +A Panama policeman of dusky hue, leaning against a gate-post, eyed +me drowsily as I slowly climbed the steps, mopping my brow and +staring at my watch. + +"What time does that 6:35 train leave?" I demanded. + +"Yo, senor," he said with ministerial dignity, shifting slowly to +the other shoulder, "no tengo conocimiento de esas cosas" (I have +no knowledge of those things). + +He probably did not know there is a railroad from Panama to Colon. +It has only been in operation since 1855. + +Later I found the fault lay with my brass watch. + +With a perspiration up for all day I set out along the track. +Hounding Diablo Hill the realization that I was hungry came upon +me simultaneously with the thought that unless I got through the +door of Corozal hotel by 7:30 I was likely to remain so. Breakfast +over, I caught the morning supply-train to Miraflores, there to +dash through the locks for a five-minute interview. I walked to +Pedro Miguel and, descending from the embankment of the main line, +"nailed" a dirt-train returning empty and stood up for a breezy +ride down through the "cut." It was the same old smoky, toilsome +place, a perceptible bit lower. As in the case of a small boy only +those can see its growth who have been away for a time. The train +stopped with a jerk at the foot of Culebra. I walked a half-mile +and caught a loaded dirt-train to Cascadas. The matter there to be +investigated required ten minutes. That over, I "got in touch" at +the nearest telephone, and the Corporal's voice called for my +immediate presence at headquarters. There chanced to be passing +through Cascadas at that moment a Panama-bound freight, the +caboose of which caught me up on the fly; and forty minutes later +I was racing up the long stairs. + +There I learned among other things that a man I was anxious to +have a word with was coming in on the noon train, but would be +unavailable after arrival. I sprang into a cab and was soon +rolling away again, past the Chinese cemetery. At the commissary +crossing in East Balboa we were held up by an empty dirt-train +returning from the dump. I tossed a coin at the cabman and +scrambled aboard. The train raced through Corozal, down the grade +and around the curve at unslacking speed. I dropped off in front +of Miraflores police station, keeping my feet, thanks to practice +and good luck, and dashing up through the village, dragged myself +breathlessly aboard the passenger train as its head and shoulders +had already disappeared in the tunnel. + +The ticket-collector pointed out my man to me in the first +passenger coach, the "ladies' car"--he is a school-teacher and +tobacco smoke distresses him--and by the time we pulled into +Panama I had the desired information. Dinner was not to be thought +of; I had barely time to dash through the second-class gate and +back along the track to Balboa labor-train. From the docks a sand- +train carried me to Pedro Miguel. + +There was a craneman in Bas Obispo "cut" whose testimony was +wanted. I reached him by two short walks and a ride. His +statements suggested the advisability of questioning his room- +mate, a towerman in Miraflores freight-yards. Luck would have it +that my chauffeur friend----was just then passing with an I. C. C. +motor-car and only a photographer for a New York weekly aboard. I +found room to squeeze in. The car raced away through the "cut," up +the declivity, and dropped me at the foot of the tower. The room- +mate referred me to a locomotive engineer and, being a towerman, +gave me the exact location of his engine. I found it at the foot +of Cucaracha slide with a train nearly loaded. By the time the +engineer had added his whit of information, we were swinging +around toward the Pacific dump. I dropped off and, climbing up the +flank of Ancon hill, descended through the hospital grounds. + +Where the royal palms are finest and there opens out the broadest +view of Panama, Ancon, and the bay, I gave myself five minutes' +pause, after which a carriage bore me to a shop near Cathedral +Plaza where second-hand goods are bought--and no questions asked. +On the way back to Ancon station I visited two similar +establishments. + +I had been lolling in the swivel-chair a full ten minutes, +perhaps, when the telephone rang. It was "the Captain" calling for +me. When I reached the third-story back he handed me extradition +papers to the Secretary of Foreign Affairs in Panama. A half-hour +later, wholly outstripping the manana idea, I had signed a receipt +for the Jap in question and transferred him from Panama to Ancon +jail. Whereupon I descended to the evening passenger and rode to +Pedro Miguel for five minutes' conversation, and caught the labor- +train Panamaward. At Corozal I stepped off for a word with the +officer on the platform and the labor-train plunged on again, +after the fashion of labor-trains, spilling the last half of its +disembarking passengers along the way. Ten minutes later the +headlight of the last passenger swung around the curve and carried +me away to Panama. + +That might have done for the day, but I had gathered a momentum it +was hard to check. Not long after returning from the police mess +to the swivel chair a slight omission in the day's program +occurred to me. I called up Corozal police station. + +"What?" said a mashed-potato voice at the other end of the wire. + +"Who's talking?" + +"Policeman Green, sah." + +"Station commander there?" + +"No, sah. Station commander he gone just over to de Y. M. to play +billiards, sah. Dey one big match on to-night." + +Of course I could have "got" him there. But on second thoughts it +would be better to see him in person and clear up at the same time +a little matter in one of the labor camps, and not run the risk of +causing the loss of the billiard championship. Besides Corozal is +cooler to sleep in than Ancon. In a black starry night I set out +along the invisible railroad for the first station. + +An hour later, everything settled to my satisfaction, I had +discovered a vacant bed in Corozal bachelor quarters and was +pulling off my coat preparatory to the shower-bath and a well- +earned night's repose. Suddenly I heard a peculiar noise in the +adjoining room, much like that of a seal coming to the surface +after being long under water. My curiosity awakened, I sauntered a +few feet along the veranda. Beside one of the cots stood a short, +roly-poly little man, the lower third of whom showed rosy pink +below his bell-shaped white nightie. As he turned his face toward +the light to switch it off I swallowed the roof of my mouth and +clawed at the clap-boarding for support. It was "the Sloth!" He +had been transferred. I slipped hastily into my coat and, turning +up the collar, plunged out into the rain and the night and +stumbled blindly away on weary legs towards Panama. + + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +There were four of us that Sunday. "Bish" and I always went for an +afternoon swim unless police or mess duties forbade. Then there +was Bridgley, who had also once displayed his svelte form in a Z. +P. uniform to admiring tourists, but was now a pursuer of +"soldiering" Hindus on Naos Island. I wish I could describe +Bridgley for you. But if you never knew him ten pages would give +you no clearer idea, and if you ever did, the mere mention of the +name Bridgley will be full and ample description. Still, if you +must have some sort of a lay figure to hang your imaginings on, +think of a man who always reminds you of a slender, delicate +porcelain vase of great antiquity that you know a strong wind +would smash to fragments,--yet when you accidentally swat it off +the mantelpiece to the floor it bobs up without a crack. Then you +grow bolder and more curious and jump on it with both feet in your +hob-nailed boots, and to your astonishment it not only does not +break but-- + +Well, Bridgley was one of us that Sunday afternoon; and then there +was "the Admiral," well-dressed as always, who turned up at the +last moment; for which we were glad, as any one would be to have +"the Admiral" along. So we descended into Panama by the train- +guard short-cut and across the bridge that humps its back over the +P. R. R. like a cat in unsocial mood, and on through Caledonia out +along the beach sands past the old iron hulls about which +Panamanian laborers are always tinkering under the impression that +they are working. This time we walked. I don't recall now whether +it was quarter-cracks, or the Lieutenant hadn't slept well--no, it +couldn't have been that, for the Lieutenant never let his personal +mishaps trample on his good nature--or whether "Bish" had decided +to try to reduce weight. At any rate we were afoot, and thereby +hangs the tale--or as much of a tale as there is to tell. + +We tramped resolutely on along the hard curving beach past the +disheveled bath-houses before which ladies from the Zone gather in +some force of a Sunday afternoon. For this time we were really out +for a swim rather than to display our figures. On past the light- +brown bathers, and the chocolate-colored bathers, and the jet +black bathers who seemed to consider that color covering enough, +till we came to the big silent saw-mill at the edge of the +cocoanut grove that we had been invited long since to make a Z. P. +dressing-room. + +Before us spread the reposing, powerful, sun-shimmering Pacific. +Across the bay, clear as an etching, lay Panama backed by Ancon +hill. In regular cadence the ocean swept in with a hoarse, +resistless roll on the sands. + +We dived in, keeping an eye out for the sharks we knew never come +so far in and probably wouldn't bite if they did. The sun blazed +down white hot from a cloudless sky. This time the Lieutenant and +Sergeant Jack had not been able to come, but we arranged the races +and jumps on the sand for all that, and went into them with a will +and-- + +A rain-drop fell. Nor was it long lonesome. Before we had finished +the hundred-yard dash we were in the midst of----it was undeniably +raining. Half a moment later "bucketsful" would have been a weak +simile. All the pent up four months of an extra long rainy season +seemed to have been loosed without warning. The blanket of water +blotted out Panama and Ancon hill across the bay, blotted out the +distant American bathers, then the light-brown ones, then the +chocolate-tinted, then even the jet black ones close at hand. + +We remained under water for a time to keep dry. But the rain +whipped our faces as with thousands of stinging lashes. We crawled +out and dashed blindly up the bank toward the saw-mill, the rain +beating on our all but bare skins, feeling as it might to stand +naked in Miraflores locks and let the sand pour down upon us from +sixty feet above. When at last we stumbled under cover and up the +stairs to where our clothing hung, it was as if a weight of many +tons had been lifted from our shoulders. + +The saw-mill was without side-walls; consisted only of a sheet- +iron roof and floors, on the former of which the storm pounded +with a roar that made only the sign language feasible. It was now +as if we were surrounded on all sides by solid walls of water and +forever shut off from the outer world--if indeed that had +survived. Sheets of water slashed in further and further across +the floor. We took to huddling behind beams and under saw-benches +--the militant storm hunted us out and wetted us bit by bit. "The +Admiral" and I tucked ourselves away on the 45-degree eye-beams up +under the roaring roof. The angry water gathered together in +columns and swept in and up to soak us. + +At the end of an hour the downpour had increased some hundred per +cent. It was as if an express train going at full speed had +gradually doubled its rapidity. That was the day when little +harmless streams tore themselves apart into great gorges and left +their pathetic little bridges alone and deserted out in the middle +of the gulf. That was the famous May twelfth, 1912, when Ancon +recorded the greatest rainfall in her history,--7.23 inches, +virtually all within three hours. Three of us were ready to +surrender and swim home through it. But there was "the Admiral" to +consider. He was dressed clear to his scarf-pin--and Panama +tailors tear horrible holes in a police salary. So we waited and +dodged and squirmed into closer holes for another hour; and grew +steadily wetter. + +Then at length dusk began to fall, and instead of slacking with +the day the fury of the storm increased. It was then that "the +Admiral" capitulated, seeing fate plainly in league with his +tailor; and wigwagging the decision to us beside him, he led the +way down the stairs and dived into the world awash. + +Wet? We had not taken the third step before we were streaming like +fire hose. There was nearly an hour of it, splashing knee-deep +through what had been when we came out little dry sandy hollows; +steering by guess, for the eye could make out nothing fifty yards +ahead, even before the cheese-thick darkness fell; bowed like +nonogenarians under the burden of water; staggering back and forth +as the storm caught us crosswise or the earth gave way under us. +"The Admiral's" patent-leather shoes--but why go into painful +details? Those who were in Panama on that memorable afternoon can +picture it all for themselves, and the others will never know. The +wall of water was as thick as ever when we fought our bowed and +weary way up over the railroad bridge and, summoning up the last +strength, splurged tottering into "Angelini's." + +When our streaming had so far subsided that they recognised us for +solvent human beings, encouraging concoctions were set before us. +Bridgley, fearing the after effects, acquired a further quart +bottle of protection, and when we had gathered force for the last +dash we plunged out once more toward our several goals. As the +door of 111 slammed behind me, the downpour suddenly slackened. As +I paused before my room to drain, it stopped raining. + +I supped on bread, beer, and cheese from over the frontier--we had +arrived thirty seconds too late for Ancon police mess. Then when I +had saved what was salvable from the wreckage and reclad in such +wardrobe as had luckily remained at home, I strolled over toward +the police station to put in a serene and quiet evening. + +But it has long since been established that troubles flock +together. As I crunched up the gravel walk between the hedge-rows, +wild riot broke on my ear. Ancon police station was in eruption. +From the Lieutenant to the newest uniformless "rookie" every +member of the force was swarming in and out of the building. The +Zone and Panama telephones were ringing in their two opposing +dialects, the deskman was shouting his own peculiar brand of +Spanish into one receiver and bawling English at the other, all +hands were diving into old clothes, the most apathetic of the +force were girding up their loins with the adventurous fire of the +old Moro-hunting days in their eyes, and all, some ahorse, more +afoot, were dashing one by one out into the night and the jungle. + +It was several minutes before I could catch the news. At last it +was shouted at me over a telephone. Murder! A white Greek--who +ever heard of a colored Greek?--with a white shirt on had shot a +man at Pedro Miguel at 6:35. Every road and bypath of escape to +Panama was already blocked, armed men would meet the assassin +whatever way he might take. I went down to meet the evening train, +resolved after that to strike out into the night in the random +hope of having my share in the chase. It had begun to rain again, +but only moderately, as if it realized it could never again equal +the afternoon record. + +Then suddenly the excitement exploded. It was only a near-murder. +Two Colombians had been shot, but would in all probability +recover. The news reached me as I stood at the second-class gate +scanning the faces of the great multicolored river of passengers +that poured out into the city. For two hours, one by one with +crestfallen mien, the manhunters leaked back into Ancon station +and, the case having dwindled to one of regular daily routine, by +eleven we were all abed. + +In the morning the "Greek chase" fell to me. More detailed +description of the culprit had come in during the night, including +the bit of information that he was a bad man from the Isle of +Crete. The belt-straining No. 38 oiled and loaded, I set off on an +assignment that was at least a relief after pursuing stolen +necklaces for negro women, or crowbars lost by the I. C. C. + +By nine I was climbing to Pedro Miguel police station on its knoll +with the young Greek who had exchanged hats with the assassin +after the crime. That afternoon a volunteer joined me. He was a +friend of the wounded men, a Peruvian black as jade, but without a +suggestion of the negro in anything but his outward appearance. He +was of the size and build of a Sampson in his prime, spoke a +Spanish so clear-cut it seemed to belie his African blood, and had +the restless vigor acquired in a youth of tramping over the Andine +ranges. + +I piled him into a cab and we rolled away to East Balboa, to climb +upon an empty dirt-train and drop off as it raced through +Miraflores, the sturdy legs of the Peruvian saving him where his +practice would not have. Up in the bush between Pedro Miguel and +Paraiso we found a hut where the Greek had stopped for water and +gone on up a gully. We set out to follow, mounting partly on hands +and knees, partly dragging ourselves by grass and bushes up what +had been and would soon be again a torrential mountain stream. For +hours we tore through the jungle, up hills steeper than the path +of righteousness, following now a few faint foot-prints or +trampled bushes, now a hint from some native bush dweller. The +rain outside vied with the sweat within as to which would first +soak us through. To make things merrier I had not only to wear an +arsenal but a coat atop to conceal it from the general public. + +To mention the holes I crawled into and the clues I followed +during the next few days would be more tiresome than a Puritan +prayer. By day I was dashing back and forth through all Ancon +district, by night prowling about the grimier sections of Panama +city. Almost daily I got near enough to sniff the prey. Now it was +a Greek confectioner on Avenida Central who admitted that the +fugitive had called on him during the night, now a Panamanian +pesquisa whose stool-pigeon had seen him out in the bush, then the +information that he had stopped to shave and otherwise alter his +appearance in some shack half-way across the Zone and afterward +struck off for Panama by an unused route. The clues were pendulum- +like. They took me a half-dozen times at least out the winding +highway to Corozal, on to Miraflores and even further. The rainy +season and the reign of umbrellas had come. It had been formally +opened on that memorable Sunday afternoon. There was still +sunshine at times, but always a wet season heaviness to the +atmosphere; and the rains were already giving the rolling jungle +hills a tinge of new green. There was nothing to be gained by +hurrying. The fugitive was as likely to crawl forth from one place +as another along the rambling road. Here I paused to kill a lizard +or to watch the clumsy march of one of the huge purple and many- +colored land-crabs, there to gaze away across a jungled valley +soft and fuzzy in the humid air like some Corot painting. + +I even sailed for San Francisco in the quest. For of course each +outgoing ship must be searched. One day I had word that a +"windjammer" was about to sail; and racing out to Balboa I was +soon set aboard the fore and aft schooner Meteor far out in the +bay. When I plunged down into the cabin the peeled-headed German +captain was seated at a table before a heap of "Spig" dollars, +paying off his black shore hands. He solemnly asserted he had no +Greek aboard, and still more solemnly swore that if he found one +stowed away he would turn him over to the police in San Francisco +--which was kind of him but would not have helped matters. There +are several men running gaily about San Francisco streets who +would be very welcome in certain quarters on the Zone and sure of +lodging and food for a long time to come. + +By this time the tug Bolivar had us in tow, the captain went +racing over his ship like any of his crew, tugging at the ropes, +and we were gliding out across Panama bay, past the little +greening islands, the curving panorama of the city and Ancon hill +growing smaller and smaller behind--bound for 'Frisco. What ho! +the merry "windjammer" with her stowed sails and smell of tar +awakened within me old memories, hungry and grimy for the most +part. But this was no independent, self-respecting member of the +Wind-wafted sisterhood. Far out in the offing lay a steamer of the +same line that was to TOW the Meteor to the Golden Gate! How is +the breed of sailors fallen! The few laborers aboard would take an +occasional wheel, pick oakum, and yarn their unadventurous yarns. +As we drew near, a boat was lowered to set me aboard the steamer, +to the rail-crowding surprise of her passengers, who fancied they +had hours since seen the last of Zone and "Zoners." The captain +asserted he had nothing aboard grown nearer Greece than three +Irishmen, any one of whom--facetiousness seemed to be one of the +captain's characteristics--I might have and welcome. A few moments +later I was back aboard the tug waving farewell to steamer and +"windjammer" as they pushed away into the twilight sea, and the +Bolivar turned shoreward. + +I received a "straight tip" one evening that the fugitive Greek +was hiding in a hovel on the Cruces trail. What part of the Cruces +trail, the informant did not hint; but he described the hut in +some detail. So next morning as the thick gray dawn of this +tropical land was melting into day, I descended at Bas Obispo, +through the canal to Gamboa and struck off into the dense dripping +jungle. The rainy season had greened things up and gone-- +temporarily, of course, for in a day or two it would be on us +again in all tropical fury. In the few days since the first rain +the landscape had changed like a theater decoration, a green not +even to be imagined in the temperate zone. + +It turned out that the ancient village of Cruces was a mere two- +mile stroll from the canal, a thatch-roofed native town of some +thirty dwellings on the rocky shore of an inner curve of the +Chagres, where travelers from Balboa to the last "Forty-niner" +disembarked from their thirty-six mile ride up the river and +struck on along the ten-mile road through the jungle to Panama-- +the famous Cruces trail. Except for its associations the village +was without interest--except some personal Greek interest. Sour +looks were chiefly my portion, for the villagers have never taken +kindly to Americans. + +I soon sought out the trail, here a mere path undulating through +rank, wet-hot, locust singing jungle. Here in the tangled somber +mystery of the wilderness grew every tropical thing; countless +giant ferns, draping tangles of vines, the mango tree with its +rounded dome of leaves like the mosque of Omar done in greenery, +the humble pineapple with its unproportionate fruit, everywhere +the banana, king of vegetables, clothed in its own immense leaves, +the frondy zapote, now and then in a hollow a clump of yellowish- +green bamboo, though not numerous or nearly so large as in many +another tropical land, above all else the symmetrical Gothic +fronds of the palm nodding in a breeze the more humble vegetation +could not know. The constant music of insect life sounded in my +ears; everywhere were flowers of brilliant hue, masses of bush +blossoms not unlike the lilac in appearance, but like all down on +the Isthmus, odorless--or rather with a pungent scent, like strong +catsup. + +Four months earlier I should have been chary of diving back into +the Panamanian "bush" alone, above all on a criminal hunt. But it +needs only a little time on the Zone to make one laugh at the +absurd stories of danger from the bush native that are even yet +appearing in many U. S. papers. They are not over friendly to +whites, it is true. But they were all of that familiar languid +Central American type, blinking at me apathetically out of the +shade of their huts, crowding to one edge of the trail as I +passed, eying me silently, a bit morosely, somewhat frightened +because their experience of Americans is of a discourteous +creature who shouts at them in a strange tongue and swears at them +because they do not understand it. The moment they heard their own +customary greetings they changed to children delighted to do +anything to oblige--even to the extent of dragging their indolent +forms erect to lead the way a quarter-mile through the bush to +some isolated shack. Far from contemplating any injury, all these +wayward children of the jungle ask is to be let alone to drift +through life in their own way. Still more absurd is the notion of +danger from wild beasts--other than the tiny wild beast that +burrows its painful way under the skin. + +So I pushed on, halting at many huts to make covert inquiries. It +was a joyous, brilliant day overhead. Down in the dense, rampant, +singing jungle I sweated profusely--and enjoyed it. Choking for a +drink in a hutless section, I took one of the crooked, tunnel-like +trails to the left in the direction of the Chagres. But it +squirmed off through thick jungle, through banana groves and +untended pineapple gardens to come out at last at an astonished +hut on a knoll, from which was not to be seen a sign of the river. +I crawled through another struggling side-trail further on and +this time reached the stream, but at a bank too sheer and bush- +matted to descend. The third attempt brought me to where the river +made a graceful bend at my feet and I descended an abrupt jungle +bank to drink and stroll a bit along the stony shore; then plunged +in for a swim. It was just the right temperature, with dense +jungle banks on either side like great green unscalable walls, the +water clear and a bit over waist deep in the middle of the stream. +Now and then around the one or the other bend came a cayuca, the +native dug-out made of the hollowed trunk of a tree, usually the +cedro--though to a jungle native any tree is a "cedro" if he does +not happen to think of its right name. Twenty to thirty feet long, +sometimes piled high with vegetables, sometimes with several +natives seated Indian file in the bottom, the gunwales a bare two +or three inches above the water, they needed nice management, +especially in the rapids below Cruces. The locomotive power, +generally naked to the waist, stood up in the craft and climbed +his polanca, or long pike pole, hand over hand, every naked brown +muscle in play, moving in perfect rhythm and apparent ease even +up-stream against the powerful current. + +Soon after Chagres and trail parted company, the former to wind on +up through the jungle hills to its birthplace in the land of +Darien and wild Indians, the latter to strike for the Pacific. +Over a mildly rough country it led, down into tangled ravines, up +over dense forested hillocks where the jungle had been fought back +by Uncle Sam and on the brows of which I halted to drink of the +fresh breeze sweeping across from the Atlantic. All this time not +a suggestion of anything Greek, though I managed by some simple +strategy to cast a sweeping glance into every hovel along the way. + +Then came the real Cruces trail--the rest only follows the general +direction. I fell upon it unexpectedly. It is still there as it +was when the Peruvian viceroys and their glittering trains +clattered along it, surprisingly well preserved; a cobbled way +some three feet wide of that rough and bumpy variety the Spaniard +even to-day fancies a real road, broken in places but still well +marked, leading away southward through the wilderness. + +Overhead were tall spreading trees laden with blossomless orchids. +Under some of them was broad grassy shade; but the surrounding +wall of vegetation cut off all breeze. The way was intersected by +many roads of leaf-cutting ants, as level, wide and well-built in +their proportion as the old Roman highways, with such an +industrious throng going and coming upon them as one could find +nowhere equaled, unless it be on the Grand Trunk Road of India. + +Then suddenly there appeared the hut that had been described to +me. I surrounded it and, hand upon the butt of my No. 38, closed +in upon the place, then rushed it with all forces. + +There was not a sign of human life in the vicinity. The door was +tied shut with a single strand of old rope, but there was no +question that the fugitive might be hiding inside, for the reed +walls had holes in them large enough to drive a sheep through, and +there was nothing within to hide behind. I thrust an arm through +an opening and dragged the large and heavy earthenware water-jar +to me for a drink, and pushed on. + +Squatter's cabins were now appearing, as contrasted with the +native bushman's peaked hut; sleeping-places thrown together of +tin cans, boxes and jungle rubbish, many negro shanties built of +I. C. C. scraps--all of which announced the vicinity of the canal. +Any hut might be a hiding-place. I made ostensibly casual +inquiries, interlarded between stories, at several of them, and at +length established that the Greek had been there not long before, +but was elsewhere now. Then about four of the afternoon I burst +out suddenly in sight of a broad modern highway, and leaving the +ancient route as it headed away toward Old Panama, I turned aside +to the modern city. + +Then I was "called off the Greek chase"; and a couple of evenings +later, along with the evening train and the evening fog, the +Inspector "blew in" from his forty-two days' vacation in the +States, like a breath from far-off Broadway. Buffalo Bill had been +duly opened and started on his season's way, the absent returned, +and Corporal Castillo suddenly dwindled again to a mere corporal. + +As everything must have its flaws, perhaps the chief one that +might be charged against the Z. P. is "red tape." Strictly +speaking it is no Z. P. fault at all, but a weakness of all +government. One example will suffice. + +During the month of May I was assigned the investigation of +certain alleged conditions in Panama's restricted district. The +then head of the plain-clothes division gave me carte blanche, but +suggested that I need not spare my expense account in libating the +various establishments until I "got acquainted" sufficiently with +the inmates to pick up indirectly the information desired. + +Which general line I followed and, the information having been +gathered and the report made up, I proceed to make out my +expenditures of $45 for the month to forward to Empire for +reimbursement. Now it needs no deep detective experience to know +that in such cases you naturally begin with, "Well, what you going +to drink, girls?" and end by paying the bill in a lump sum--a +large lump sum--and go your way in peace. What more then could I +do than set down such items as: + +"May 12, Liquor, investigation, Panama--$6.50?" + +But here I began to feel the tangling strands. Was it not stated +that all applications for reimbursement required an exact itemized +account of each separate expenditure, with the price of each? It +did. But in the first place I did not know half the beverages +consumed in that investigation by sight, smell, or name. In the +second place I came ostensibly as a "rounder"; it would perhaps +have been advisable at the close of each evening's entertainment +to draw out note-book and pencil and starting the round of the +table announce: + +"Now, girls, I'm a dee-tective. No, keep yer places, I ain't going +to pinch nobody. Anyhow I'm only a Zone detective. But I just want +to ask you a few questions. Now, Mamie, what's that you're +drinking? Ah! A gin ricky. And just how much does that cost--here? +And you, Flossie? An absinthe frappe? Ah! Very good. And what is +the retail price of that particular drink?"--and so on ad nauseum. + +"Very true," replied authority, "that would of course be +impossible. But to be reimbursed you must set down in detail every +item of expenditure, and its price." + +Reason and government red tape move in two parallel lines, with +the usual meeting-place. + +Nor was that all. While the black Peruvian was on my staff I gave +him money for food. It was not merely expected, it was definitely +so ordered. Yet when I set down: + +"May 27, To Peruvian for food--$.50." authority threw up its hands +in horror. Did I not know that reimbursements were ONLY for +"liquor and cigars, cab or boat hire, and meals away from home?" I +did. But I also knew that superiors had ordered me to feed the +Peruvian. "To be sure!" cried astounded authority. "But you set +down such an expenditure as follows: + +"'May 27, Two bottles of beer, Pan., investigation--$.50.' + +"And as you are allowed cab fare ONLY for yourself, when you take +the Peruvian or any one else out to Balboa in a cab you set down +the item: + +"'May 26, Cab, Ancon to Balboa AND RETURN, investigation--$1.'" + +The upshot of all which was, not feeling able with all my +patriotism to "set up" $45 worth of mixed drinks for Uncle Sam, I +was forced to open another investigation and gather from all the +Z. P. authorities on the subject, from Naos Island to Paraiso, the +name and price of every known beverage. Then when I had fitted +together a picture puzzle of these that summed up to the amount I +had actually spent, I was called upon to sign a statement +thereunder that "this is a true and exact account of expenditures +during the month of May. So help me God." + +But then, as I have said before, these things are not Z. P. +faults, they are the faults of government since government began. + +It had become evident soon after the Inspector's return that +unless crime began to pick up down at the Pacific end of the Zone, +I should find myself again banished to the foreign land of Gatun. +For there had been a distinct rise in the criminal commodity at +that end during the past weeks. The premonition soon fell true. + +"Take the 10:55 to Gatun," said the Inspector one morning, without +looking up from his filing case, "Corporal Macey will tell you +about it when you get there," + + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +"Why, the fact is," said Corporal Macey, lighting his meerschaum +pipe until the match burned down to his fingers," several little +burglary stunts have been pulling themselves off since the +sergeant went on vacation. But the most aggrayvaatin' is this new +one of twinty-two quarts of good Canadian Club bein' maliciously +extracted from St. Martin's saloon last night." + +From which important beginning I fell quickly back into the old +life again, derelicting about Gatun and vicinity by day, wandering +the nights away in black, noisy New Gatun and along the winding +back road under the cloud-scudding sky. Yet it was a different +life. Gatun had changed. Even her concrete light-house was winking +all night now up among the I. C. C. dwellings. The breeze from off +the Caribbean was heavy and lifeless. The landscape looked wet and +lush and rampant, of a deep-seated green, and instead of the +china-blue skies the dull, leaden-gray heavens seemed to hang low +and heavy overhead, like a portending fate. On the winding back +road the jungle trees still stood out against the night sky, at +times, too, there was a moon, but only a pale silver one that +peered weakly here and there through the scudding gray clouds. The +air grew more thick and sultry day by day, the heat was sticky, +the weather dripping, with the sun only an irregular whitish +blotch in the sky. Through the open windows the heavy, damp night +came miasmically floating in, the very cigarettes mildewed in my +pockets. Earth and air seemed heavy and toil-bowed by comparison +with other days. The jungle still hummed busily, yet, it seemed, a +bit mournfully as if preparing for production and unhilarious with +the task before it, like a woman first learning of her pregnancy. +Life seemed to hang more heavily even on humanity; "Zoners" looked +less gay and carefree than in the sunny dry season, though still +far more so than in the north. One could not shake off a +premonition of impending disaster in I know not what form--like +that of Teufelsdroeck before he entered the "Center of +Indifference." + +Dr. O--- of the Sanitary Department had gone up into the interior +along the Trinidad river to hunt mosquitoes. Why he went so far +away for them in this season was hard to understand. There he was, +however, and the order had come to bring him back to civilization. +The execution thereof fell, of course, to my friend B---, who to +the world at large is merely Policeman No.----, to the force +"Admiral of the Inland Fleet," and in the general scheme of things +is a luckier man than Vanderchild to have for his task in life the +patrolling of Gatun Lake. B--- invited me to go along. There was +nothing particular doing in the criminal line around Gatun just +then; moreover the doctor was known to be well armed and there was +no telling just how much resistance he might offer a single +policeman. I accepted. + +I was at the appointed rendezvous promptly at seven, a pocket +filled with commissary cigars. Strict truthfulness demands the +admission that it was really eight, however, when B--- came +wandering down the muddy steps behind the railroad station, +followed by a black prisoner with a ten-gallon can of gasoline on +his head. When that had been poured into the tank, we were off +across the ever-rising waters of Gatun Lake. For Gatun police +launch is one of those peculiar motor-boats that starts the same +day you had planned to. + +It was such a day as could not have been bettered had it been made +to order, with a week to think out the details,--a dry-season day +even to the Atlantic breeze that goes with it, a sort of Indian +summer of the rainy season; though the heavy battalions of gray +clouds that hung all around the horizon as if awaiting the order +to charge warned the Zone to make merry while it might, for to- +morrow it would surely rain--in deluges. The lake, much higher now +than in my former Gatun days, was licking at the 27-foot level +that morning. Under the brilliant blue sky it looked like some +vast unruffled mirror--which is no figure of speech, but plain +fact. + +"Through a Forest in a Motor-boat" we might have dubbed the trip. +We had soon crossed the unbroken expanse of the lake and were +moving through a submerged forest. Splendid royal palms stood up +to their necks in the water, corpulent, century-old giants of the +jungle stood on tip-toe with their jagged noses just above the +surface, gasping their last. Great mango-trees laden with fruit +were descending into the flood. The lake was so mirror-like we +could see the heads of drowning palm-trees and the blue sky with +its wisps of snow-white feathery clouds as plainly below as above, +so mirror-like the protruding stump of a palm looked like a piece +of just double that length and exactly equal ends floating upright +like a water thermometer, so reflective that the broken end of a +branch showing above the surface appeared to be an acute angle of +wood floating exactly at the angle in impossible equilibrium. + +Our prisoner and crew were from "Bahbaydos"--only you can't +pronounce it as he did, nor make the "a" broad enough, nor show +the inside of your red throat clear back to the soft palate to +contrast with the glistening black skin of your carefree, grinning +face. Theoretically he was being punished for assault and battery. +But if this is punishment to be sentenced to cruise around on +Gatun Lake I wonder crime on the Zone is so rare and unusual. This +much I am sure, if I were in that particular "Badgyan's" shoes-- +no, he had none; but his tracks, say--the day my time ran out I +should pick a quarrel with a Jamaican and leave his countenance in +such a condition that the judge could find no grounds for a +reasonable doubt in the matter. + +We were mounting the river Trinidad. River, yes, but we followed +it only because it had kept back the jungle and left a way free of +tree-tops, not because there was not water enough anywhere, in any +direction, to float a boat of many times our draught. Turns so +sharp we rocked in our own wake; once we passed acres upon acres +of big, cod-like fish floating dead upon the water among the +branches and the forest rubbish. It seems the lake in rising +spread over some poisonous mineral in the soil. But life there was +none, except the rampant green dying plant life in every direction +to the horizon. There were not even birds, other than now and then +a stray snow-white slender one of the heron species that fled +majestically away across the face of the nurtureless waters as we +steamed--no, gasolined down upon it. Soon after leaving Gatun we +had passed a couple of jungle families on their way to market in +their cayucas laden with mounds of produce,--plump mangoes with a +maidenly blush on either cheek, fat yellow bananas, grass-green +plantains, a duck or a chicken standing tied by one leg on top of +it all and gazing complacently around at the scene with the air of +an experienced tourist. It was two hours later that we sighted the +next human being. He was a solitary old native paddling about at +the entrance to the "grass-bird region" in a huge dugout as time- +scarred as himself. + +It was near here that weeks before I had turned with "Admiral" B-- +--up a little stream now forever gone to a knoll on which sat the +thatched shelter of a negro who had "taken to the bush" and +refused to move even when notified that he was living on U. S. +public domain. When we had knocked from the trees a box of mangoes +and turkey-red maranones, B---- touched a match to the thatch roof +and almost before we could regain the launch the shack was pouring +skyward in a column of smoke. Even the squatter's old table and +chair and a barrel of tumbled odds and ends entirely outside the +hut--it had no walls--caught fire, and when, we lost sight of the +knoll only the blazing stumps of the four poles that had supported +the roof remained. + +B---- had burned whole villages in this lake territory, after the +owners with legal claims had been paid condemnation damages. Long +ago the natives had been warned to move, and the banks of the +lake-to-be specified. But many of these skeptical children of +nature had taken this as a vain "yanqui" boast and either refused +to move until burned out or had rebuilt their hovels on land that +in a few months more would also be flooded. + +The rescue expedition proceeded. Once we got caught in the top- +most branches of a tree, released from which we pushed on along +the sinuous river that had no banks. It was not hot, even at +noonday. We sweated a bit in poling a thirty-foot boat out of a +tree-top, but cooled again directly we were off. My kodak was far +away at the other end of the Zone. But then, on second thought it +was better for once to enjoy nature as it was without trying to +carry it away. Kodaking is a species of covetousness, anyway, an +attempt to bear away home with us and hoard for our own the best +we come upon in our travels. Whereas here, of course, it was +impossible. The greatest of artists could not have carried away a +tenth of that scene, a scene so fascinating that though we had +tossed into the bottom of the boat at the start a bundle of fresh +New York papers--and fresh New York papers are not often scorned +down on the Zone--they still lay in the bottom of the boat when +the trip ended. + +At length little thatched cottages began to appear on knolls along +the way, and as we chugged our way around the tree-tops upon them +the inhabitants slipped quickly into some clothes that were +evidently kept for just such emergencies. Then we began nearing +higher land, so that the upper and then the lower branches of the +forest stood out of water, then only the ends of the lower limbs +dipped in the rising flood, downcast, as if they knew the sentence +of death was upon them also. For though there was sunk already +beneath the flood a forest greater than ten Fontainebleaus, the +lake was steadily rising a full two inches a day. Where it touched +that morning the 27-foot level, in a few months more, says "the +Colonel," it will reach the 87-foot level and spread over one +hundred and sixty-four square miles of territory--and when "the +Colonel" makes an assertion wise men hesitate to put their money +on the other horse. Then will all this vast area with more green +than in all the state of Missouri disappear forever beneath the +flood and man may dive down, down into the forest and see what the +world was like in Noah's time, and fancy the sunken cities of +Holland, for many a famous route, and villages older than the days +of Pizarro will be forever wiped out by the rising waters--a scene +to be beheld today nowhere else, and in a few years not even here. +At last we were really in a river, an overflowed river, to be +sure, where it would have been hard to find a landing-place or a +bank among those tree trunks knee-deep in water. We had long since +crossed the Zone line, but our badges were still valid. For it has +pleased the Republic of Panama, at a whispered word from "Tio +Sam," to cede to the Z. P. command over all Gatun Lake and for +three miles around it, as far as ever it may spread. + +Then all at once we were startled by a hearty hail from among the +trees and I looked up to see Y----, of the Smithsonian, fully +dressed, standing waist-deep in the water at the edge of the +forest, waving an insect trap in one hand. + +"What the devil are you doing there?" I gasped. + +"Doing? I'm taking a walk along the old Gatun-Chorrera trail, and +I fancy I 'll be about the last man to travel it. Come on up to +camp." + +On a mango-shaped knoll thirty miles from Gatun that will also +soon be lake bottom, we found a native shack transformed into the +headquarters of a scientific expedition. We sat down to a frontier +lunch which called for none of the excuses made for it by Y---- +when he appeared in his dripping full-dress and joined us without +even bothering to change his water-spurting shoes. In his boxes he +had carefully stuck away side by side an untold number of members +of the mosquito family. Queer vocation; but then, any vocation is +good that gives an excuse to live out in this wild tropical world. + +By one we had Dr. O---- aboard and were waving farewell to the +camp. The return, of course, was not the equal of the outward +trip; even nature cannot duplicate so perfect a thing. But two +raging showers gave us views of the drowning jungle under another +aspect, and between them we awakened vast rolling echoes across +the silent flooded world by shooting at flocks of little birds +with an army rifle that would have killed an elephant. + +It is not hard to realize why the bush native does not love the +American. Put yourself in his breechclout. Suppose a throng of +unsympathetic foreigners suddenly appeared resolved to turn all +the world you knew into a lake, just because that absurd outside +world wanted to float steamers you never knew the use of, from +somewhere you never heard of, to somewhere you did not know. +Suppose a representative of that unsympathetic government came +snorting down upon you one day in a wild fearful invention they +called a motor-boat, as you were lolling under the thatch roof +your grandfather built, and cried: + +"Come on! Get out of here! We're going to burn your house and turn +this country into a lake." + +Flood the land which was your great-grand-father's, the spot where +you used to play leap-frog under the banana trees, the jungle lane +where your mother's courtship days were passed and the ceiga tree +under which she was wedded--if matters were ever carried to that +ceremonious length. What though this foreign nation gave you a bag +of peculiar pieces of metal for your trouble, when you had never +seen a score of such coins in your life and barely knew the use of +them, being acquainted with life only as it is picked from a +mango-tree? The foreigners had cried, "Take this money and go buy +a farm somewhere else," and you looked around you and saw all the +world you had ever really known the existence of sinking beneath +the rising waters. Where would you go, think you, to buy that new +farm? Even if you fled and found another unknown land high and +dry, or a town, what could you do, having not the remotest idea +how to live in a town with only pieces of metal to get food out of +instead of the mango-tree that had stood behind the house your +grandfather built ever since you were born and dropped mangoes +whenever you were hungry? To say the least you would be some +peeved. + +It was midafternoon when the white bulk of Gatun locks rose on the +horizon. Then the lake opened out, the great dam, that is rather a +connecting link between two ranges of hills, spread across all the +landscape, and at four I raced up the muddy steps behind the +station to a telephone. Five minutes later I was hurrying away +across locks and dam to the marshland beyond the Spillway to +inquire who, and wherefore, had attempted to burn up the I. C. C. +launch attached to dredge No.----. + +My Canal Zone days were drawing rapidly to a close. I could have +remained longer without regret, but the world is wide and life is +short. Soon came the day, June seventeenth, when I must go back +across the Isthmus to clear up the last threads of my existence as +a "Zoner." Chiefly for old times' sake I dropped off at Empire. +But it was not the same Empire of the census. Almost all the old +crowd was gone; one by one they had "kissed the Zone good-by." +"The boss" of those days had never returned, "smiling Johnny" had +been transferred, even Ben had "done quit an' gone back to +Bahbaydos." The Zone is like a small section of life; as in other +places where generations are short one catches there a hint of +what old age will be. It was like wandering over the old campus +when those who were freshmen in our day had hawked their gowns and +mortarboards and gone their way; I felt like a man in his dotage +with only the new, unknown, and indifferent generation about him. + +I went down to the old suspension bridge. Far down below was the +same struggling energy, the same gangs of upright human ants, the +"cut" with its jangle and jar of steam-shovels and trains still +stretching away endless in either direction. Here as in the world +at large generations of us may come and pass away, but the tearing +of the shovels at the rocky earth, the racing of dirt-laden trains +for the Pacific goes unbrokenly on, as the world and its work will +continue without a pause when we are gone indeed. + +Soon the water will be turned in and nine-tenths of all this labor +will be submerged and forever hidden from view. The swift growth +of the tropics will quickly heal the scars of the steam-shovels, +and palm-trees will wave the steamer on its way through what will +seem almost a natural channel. Then blase travelers lolling in +their deck chairs will gaze about them and snort: + +"Huh! Is that all we got for nine years' work and half a billion +dollars?" They will have forgotten the scrubbing of Panama and +Colon, forgotten the vast hospitals with great surgeons and +graduate nurses, the building of hundreds of houses and the +furnishing of them down to the last center table, they will not +recall the rebuilding of the entire P. R. R., nor scores of little +items like $43,000 a year merely for oil and negroes to pump it on +the pestilent mosquito, the thousand and one little things so +essential to the success of the enterprise yet that leave not a +trace behind. Greater perhaps than the building of the canal is +the accomplishment of the United States in showing the natives how +life can be lived safely and healthily in tropical jungles. Yet +the lesson will not be learned, and on the heels of the last canal +builder will return all the old slovenliness and disease, and the +native will sink back into just what he would have been had we +never come. + +I caught a dirt-train to Balboa. There the very town at which I +had landed on the Zone five months before was being razed to give +place to the permanent, reenforced-concrete city that is to be the +canal headquarters. Balboa police station was only a pile of +lumber, with a band of negroes drilling away the very rock on +which it had stood. I took a last view of the Pacific and her +islands to far Taboga, where Uncle Sam sends his recuperating +children to enjoy the sea baths, hill climbs, and unrivaled pine- +apples. It was never my good fortune to get to Taboga. With thirty +days' sick leave a year and countless ailments of which I might +have been cured free of charge and with the best of care, I could +not catch a thing. I had not even the luck of my friend--who, by +dint of cross-country runs in the jungle at noonday and similar +industrious efforts, worked up at last a temperature of 99 degrees +and got his week at Taboga. I stuck immovable at 98.6 degrees. + +Soon after five I had bidden Ancon farewell and set off on the +last ride across the Isthmus. There was a memory tucked away in +every corner. Corozal hotel was still rattling with dishes, +Paraiso peeped out from its lap of hills, Culebra with its +penitentiary where burglarizing negroes go, sunk away into the +past. Railroad Avenue in Empire was still lined with my +"enumerated" tags; through an open door I caught a glimpse of a +familiar short figure, one foot resting lightly and familiarly on +a misapplied gas-pipe, the elbow crooked as if something were held +between the fingers. At Bas Obispo I strained my eyes in vain to +make out a familiar face in the familiar uniform, there was a +glimpse of "Old Fritz" water-gauge as we rumbled across the +Chagres, and the train churned away into the heavy green +uninhabited night. + +Only once more was I aroused, as the lights of Gatun flashed up; +then we rolled past the noisy glaring corner of New Gatun and on +to Colon. In Cristobal police station I put badge and passes into +a heavy envelope and dropped them into the train-guard's box; then +turned in for my last night on the Zone. For the steamer already +had her fires up that would bear me, and him who was the studious +corporal of Miraflores, away in the morning to South America. My +police days were ended. + +Then a last hand to you all, oh, Z. P. May you live long and +continue to do your duty frankly and unafraid. I found you men +when I expected only policemen. I reckon my days among you time +well spent and I left you regretting that I could stay no longer +with you--and when I leave any place with regret it must be +possessed of some exceeding subtle charm. But though the world is +large, it is also small. + + "So I'll meet you later on, + In the place where you have gone, + Where--" + +Well, say at San Francisco in 1915, anyway, Hasta luego. + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Zone Policeman 88, by Harry A. Franck + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ZONE POLICEMAN 88 *** + +This file should be named znplc10.txt or znplc10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, znplc11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, znplc10a.txt + +Produced by Robert Rowe, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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