Cacao PodsCACAO PODS
The jungle of the mountains is essentially different from and more interesting than that of the level swamps. Both are largely uninhabited, for men naturally like to have a little outlook both for their lives and about their habitations.
But the growth is about equally dense, provided the soil and moisture are right for the production of real jungle. From Puerto Limon to Almirante is about one hundred and twenty miles overland, and there was a time when practically every mile of this distance was untouched jungle. The United Fruit Company has conquered most of it, until there is now but a day's journey onhorseback through the connecting link between the two railroad terminal points at Estrella and the Talamanca Valley. The one hundred miles of rails run almost entirely through the endless fields of bananas. But once this was all primitive wilderness; that is, we think it was, but some of the superintendents of this clearing and planting work say that they have discovered numerous evidences that there was a time in ages past when practically all of this vast area was under some sort of cultivation.
There would be a railroad now across the gap of twenty miles but for the fact that this gap includes a mountain range with rushing rivers and steeps, gorges and almost impenetrable forests. Occasional travelers cross this range by the aid of sturdy mules, but there is yet nothing that could by any strain of language be called a trail. There is simply a "blaze" through the forest and occasional marks where some floundering traveler has preceded the venturesome explorer through the depths of some yawning mudhole.
I crossed this range on a day when the sun wasshining overhead, but only two or three times did its rays fall upon the "trail." The overhead growth was so thick that there was nothing but dense shadow below. A hundred and fifty feet these immense trees rose into the air, carrying upward with them festoons of hanging vines, swinging rattan, and clinging orchids. Curious enough are some of these trees, with their winding external buttresses and thin flanges thrown out to brace against the winds. Banyan trees reach out their long arms and drop their fingers down into the soil and take root and continue until the tree literally "stalks" its way across the mountain side. There are rubber trees and cedar trees and mahogany trees and prickly poisoned trees that are the terror of the natives, and trees bearing all manner of jungle fruits and flowers and swarming with chattering birds and creeping things. Rattan "ropes" an inch in diameter and two hundred feet long trip the unwary traveler, and it is useless to try to break them. They are like steel cables. Wild birds are plentiful, occasional baboons bark and bray, and the mountain streams splash and plunge their way through the ferns and flowers. The Estrella River forms the highway for several miles, and its rocky torrent must be forded a score of times.
He who has never tried to travel this "road" has a new experience in store. There are hillsidesthat are all but perpendicular, which would not be so bad, but they are a mixture of clay and soapstone and moisture, and it is practically impossible to stand erect without holding on to nearby saplings. How a laden mule can navigate such a causeway of destruction is a mystery to be explained only by people who understand mules. And I rode a mule whose mastery of the art of trail-navigation left nothing to be learned. In the ignorance of my novitiate I alighted before the first precipitous descent to which we came. The mule, with the conservatism born of experience, took his time to make the descent, and I essayed to go before and show him how to do it. He watched me with intense interest, while I gingerly approached the edge of the slippery declivity and started down. As a descent it was a complete success. At the second step I slipped on the wet clay and went rolling and coasting to the bottom, whither I arrived in record time, plastered from head to foot with the raw material of which pottery is made. I struggled to my feet and looked up at the mule. He still regarded me intently, and I think that he winked, at least his ear did. Then he deliberately put his front feet over the edge, gathered in his hind feet, and with all fours together, sat down and gracefully slid to the bottom of the hill. He arrived right side up at the bottom, munching a mouthful of grass, which he seized in passing onthe way down, and turned to look at me with an expression that needed no interpreter. And I took the hint and stayed on his back most of the day.
After a solid day of this dense growth where we could not see more than a stone's throw at any time it was with a distinct sense of relief that we caught sight of daylight at last through an opening ahead and came upon the fringes of the Talamanca plantation.
Proposed Location for Rest CurePROPOSED LOCATION FOR REST CURE
The Talamanca Valley is something quite worth while in itself. Years ago it was inhabited by Spanish refugees who fled back from the bloody attacks of the ravenous Caribbean pirates of the sixteenth century. Their little plantations were not large and the land was not cleared very thoroughly, but they shifted their planting places until much of the present area was covered sooner or later with platanas. The view of this valley from the hillside is surpassingly beautiful. Thirty miles long, ten mileswide, and surrounded by mountains and forests, the whole floor of the valley is one vast, waving, level field of bananas, and there are few things better to look upon than a valley level full of banana tops. From twenty to forty feet high they stand, and their long, shady corridors are like the aisles of some great series of cathedral chapels, waiting for worshipers within. Through the middle of the valley runs the stream of the upper Sexola River with its three tributaries and their bluffs. The Changuanola Railway, which is the name under which the United Fruit Company moved its bananas and its men in this great plantation, runs the length of the valley, and the line of rails is punctuated by the white cabins of the black employees and the houses and offices of the plantation superintendents and foremen.
Dominating the whole valley stands old Pico Blanco, or White Top. There is no snow at the summit, but there is nearly always a white cloud cap there, hence the name. This noble mountain is the interest and admiration of all dwellers in the valley. Its top lists eleven thousand feet above the sea. It is not as high as Pike's Peak nor Shasta, but it towers well up toward the level of Fujiyama, and beside it Mount Washington looks like a pigmy and the Adirondacks are mere foothills. Back in the cañons and forests of the mountain range live the curious Talamanca Indians, whose tribal customs indicate a close affinitybetween their ancestors and those of the famous Indians of Quirigua.
The difference between the jungle and the dividend-paying plantation is one of organization, capital, administration, and toil. Add these to the jungle and you have the plantation. Take them away from the plantation and in a very short time the jungle is again supreme. Crowding around the corners, peeping over the edges, and creeping ever onward, the jungle pushes its jealous way behind the footprints of the men who essay to conquer its wild ways. But once defeated, the jungle becomes a slave bearing costly burdens for its master—man.
"Forty years ago I took a bath, and the next day I felt chilly, and then—"
"Never mind forty years ago. What is the matter this morning, and why have you come to me for medicine?" chants the seasoned employer of plantation labor.
"That is what I was telling you, señor. Forty years ago I took a bath, and the next day I felt chilly, and then I thought that I had made a mistake, and so I went—"
"Now, see here. I have no interest nor curiosity about forty years ago. What is the matter with you now?"
"Be patient, señor. This is important, and I will tell you all. Forty years ago—" and after devious dodgings the tale terminates in a case of fever or indigestion, or mayhap only plain drunk.
It is ever thus with the tropic tao, or peon, or ignorante, or whatever may be called the people who have grown up with the soil and have risen not any above it. The petty official who hears complaints in any tropic land listens to marvelous reminiscences through deep jungles of imaginative memory before reaching present facts.
"Twenty-five years ago I had the toothache, and then the next week I had a bad dream, and after that I had no suerte [luck] at all, until one saint's day I drank rum and ate rice, and the rice make me sick—" is merely the opening chapter.
Every employer of tropic labor must be judge and jury for a docket of petty cases that have to be adjusted if the wheels of industry are not to be paralyzed in their work. Newcomers at this business of sitting in the seat of judgment hear marvelous stories of oppression and outrage, in which the accuser is always innocent—and always alone, if possible. But experience breeds disillusionment and skepticism deep and wide, and soon the amateur Solomon learns to distrust every story, most of all the first one told. For, after the plaintiff has sworn that he is telling the truth, or may all the saints strike him dead, and has unrolled his woes in orderly sequence, he stands with critical eye, watching to see what impression his art has made upon the puzzled personage of power.
And when the adjuster of affairs scorns the tale and says, "Get out with you. I don't believe a word of that stuff," the beggar bows and smiles a deprecating smile and begins all over again with a revised version of the case, which bears very little resemblance to the first story, and again stands back to observe what better successhe may hope for this time. And there appears to be no end to the ready versions and variations of the woes of the downtrodden exponent of virtue whose humble bearing seems to exude virtue from every protruding bare spot through his rags.
Picturesque Jungle TownsPICTURESQUE JUNGLE TOWNS
"Last Wednesday morning, I got up, and—would you believe it?—there was nothing in the house. There was no yucca [counting off on his fingers], no plantanas, no huevos, no carne, no mais, no azucar, no arroz—absolutamente nada. Yes, it was last Wednesday—no, no, señor, I am a liar—it was last Tuesday morning. And, señor, my children were hungry, and I remembered that there was nothing—" and so on the story goes to its climax in the claim that a certain party, not present, owes the complainer fifty cents for real or imaginary value bestowed, and will the owner please collect the fifty cents for the starving children?
And if this tale is unsatisfactory, comes immediatelya fresh version to the effect that it is another man who owes a dollar because he tramped across some young corn and spoiled the crop.
It is this fertility of imagination that makes up for any sort of accurate information. To the American the amazing thing about these people is that they know so little about their own very interesting country. The American must know in order to boom his town, but the tropic native has no idea of booming his town. There is no fun in booming, there is nothing to boom, and a boomed town would be always stirring about or starting something, and would be a nuisance anyway.
I stood in a village, quaint and curious, and wondered how old it might be. The bells hanging to a cross beam in front of the old church bore figures on their rims—1722, they said; and they looked it, every inch—or year.
Came the young curate of the parish, a good-looking and intelligent native, who talked a little with us pleasantly, and lured us into the old church, where he immediately improved the occasion by getting the collection basket and holding it under our noses. "It is a special saint's day," he explained.
"How many people live here?"
He could not tell.
"How old is the church?" we wanted toknow, thinking to get a morsel of information for our crumb of contribution.
Tortillas Are StapleTORTILLAS ARE STAPLE
He did not know. The question was entirely new to him. He had been born in the town, and later showed us with pride the house in which himself, his mother, and his grandmother had been born, but as to the number of inhabitants or the age of the church it had never occurred to him to inquire.
But presently inspiration came to his aid. There was an ancient woman still living at more than a hundred years; surely she would know the answer to some of these curious questions.
We called on the old woman. She was nothing but bones and parchment, sitting with her chin on her knees on a small platform of slats which she had not left for over two years. She claimed one hundred and two years, which was undoubtedly correct, as baptismal records are usually accurately kept. She certainly looked the part. The studiantesat down on the "bed," placed his hand kindly on the old woman's shoulder, and told her that though she was blind there were three strangers who had come to see her and congratulate her on her great age. She was pleased and said so, but her mind was as feeble as her body, and there was little that she could say. When asked as to the date of the "blessing" of the church, she said, "O yes, certainly I can name it—it was on Saint John's day."
"That's fine," enthused the curate. "Now, what year was it, grandma?"
"Ah, that is another matter. I can't tell you now, but if you will come to-morrow, I may be able to remember it then."
Jungle FolkJUNGLE FOLK
We left the next morning, of course, without the date of the dedication day, but what information was lacking on this point was amply made up in information concerning the population. We asked seven people the question and received seven different answers, ranging from three hundred to five thousand. We counted a hundred odd houses, indicating six or seven hundred people,but no one there had any idea or any interest in the matter. What difference did it make anyway?
The town of Nata, eighty miles west of Panama, was founded in 1520, one year after the founding of Old Panama, and one hundred years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. Old Panama has been a ruin for two and one half centuries, leaving Nata as the oldest inhabited town in the New World—no small distinction.
THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT"THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT"
I asked the leading official if he knew how old the town was, and he said that he understood that it was "very old." When I suggested that it was the oldest town in America he nodded politely and talked of something else. I called on the priest, an intelligent and friendly man, who also understood that the town "was very old," but its priority of claim to the oldest living municipal inhabitant of theAmericas had little interest for him. He talked on, complaining bitterly of the bad morals of the people and the small financial proceeds which the parish yielded its spiritual leader.
It is easy to disparage any people, especially if they speak a different language from your own. Most of the things said against the illiterate natives of any country are true, but the trouble is that they are only a small fraction of the truth.
A large employer of native labor, who took pride in treating his men well and paying them promptly, complained to me that he never could keep steady labor on his place for the reason that the men earned enough in one week to keep them drunk for the next fortnight, and hence worked only one week out of three, leaving their families to starve or shift for themselves as best they might. And he told the truth.
But he did not tell it all. This same employer distilled the rum on his own place and regarded it as a paying business. When other employers raised the price for labor and produce he refused to do so on the ground that the more they had the worse off they were. On the surface it might seem to be true.
But these same laborers, even saving all possible margin of wages, could not have lived in anything like comfort on sixty-five cents per day. Most of them never see a newspaper, andcould scarcely read, and not at all understand it if they did see it. There is not an item of news, a trace of historical knowledge or perspective, a gleam of scientific understanding, a moving picture show, or a lecture on any subject, or a musical program, nor any one of the thousand things that add interest and widen the horizon of life—none of these things ever enter the remotest areas of his consciousness. He lives in the flat, narrow confines of a life so small, so cramped, so possessed by superstition and terror and ill will that he is not many removes from the cattle with which he works. When this man would celebrate his saint's day he gets drunk, organizes a bull fight, and gives vent to every low impulse of his nature.
Is it any wonder? The only tingle of interest that touches his soul comes from adventures in the realm of unfaithfulness and drunkenness. How many of the rest of us would do any better if born and bred in the mire of his social inheritance?
There is such a thing as moral hookworm. Saint Paul called it by another term, but its symptoms are unchanged. The unshod soul, shuffling through the mire of degradation, acquires from the lower stratum of his environment the infection of a spiritual destitution that lowers moral vitality to the minimum.
How comes this benumbed conscience and depraved practice! What is the matter that theaverage of legitimacy for all Central America is thirty per cent of the total population, while the seventy per cent are born of unmarried parents?
It is not for lack of churches. Every town has its church, and the church is invariably the best building in the town. It stands on the plaza, commanding, central, and usually more or less beautiful. One can scarcely get out of sight of a church tower in any thickly settled, level country. And the churches are large enough to contain almost the whole population of the town, at least by taking them in several installments at mass hours.
Church Bells of Arraijan, Cast 1722CHURCH BELLS OF ARRAIJAN, CAST 1722
It is not for want of priests. There are priests in every town, and most of them carry out pretty faithfully the routine of ecclesiastical observances that make up the day's program. Black gowns, tonsured heads, and beads and rosaries are seen everywhere, and the padre is usually the most influential man in the town.
It is not for want of religion. Every house of any pretensions has its holy pictures, often its crucifix, and usually its rosary. Women in numbers attend mass and go to confession.
It is not for want of opportunity on the part of priests or church. It is not because of "church competition." Here we have a unity complete and final.
For three hundred and ninety-eight years the priests and their church have had sole, exclusive, and continuous occupation of Nata, the oldest town in America. I was probably the first Protestant missionary who ever walked the streets of the place. Here in the oldest town, with the longest occupation and the undisturbed opportunity, should be found a fair chance with these people.
And what has it done? The open-minded and friendly priest complained bitterly of the fact that in his parish only five per cent of his people were born of married parents. Ninety-five per cent were registered on his books as "Naturales." The year before he had administered over three hundred baptisms and had celebrated only three marriages. "I can't get them to marry," he groaned. "Practically speaking, almost no one is married."
Is Nata worse than other towns? Possibly so, but it must be remembered that the "church" has had a longer chance there than in any other cityin all America, and perhaps when the other towns have been exposed for the same length of time to the system, they will show equally advanced results!
There is this thing to be said about the characteristic attitude of the average priest toward his people: he always despises them. In many lands I have found this to be true. Discouraged by the failure of his system to produce spiritual life, or even good morals, he complains bitterly that the people are indifferent, careless, negligent, immoral, unfaithful, and, not least of vices, they are poor pay. If they are these things, no one knows it better than the man who hears their secret confessions. And that this man should come to a chronic attitude of distrust toward the products of his own spiritual husbandry is one of the severest indictments against the system that produces indifference on the part of the people and cynicism in the heart of the priest.
What was the church doing to remedy this situation with its deadly monotony, its superstition, ignorance, and immorality?
The church was maintaining its round of formulas, saints' days, masses, confessions, baptisms, funerals for-what-the-traffic-would-bear. Showy processions and occasional celebrations were the circus and movie for the people. And on the confession of the troubled priest himself, there was no moral result. Out of the dead past stood amummied memory of the once living church, and its mumbled incantations had no power to make the dry bones live.
The only power that seems able to stir new life in the old mausoleum is the advent of a vigorous Protestant work. In rage and bitterness the powers bestir themselves and begin to defame and persecute their disturbers, and in the end, they inevitably give some attention to reviving their own decaying program.
How can a man be well when he is one hundred dollars away from a doctor? With four doctors located among two hundred thousand people scattered over a radius of forty by a hundred miles, and all fees exorbitantly high, what is a poor man to do when illness overtakes his household? What is he to do? Why, nothing at all, except await the end, either of his illness or of both infirmity and himself. What the missionary needs is no less Bibles than castor oil and quinine and iodine. I think that I would begin with a moving-picture program and a clinic, and when a little physical health appeared, and some sort of interest began to loosen the rusty hinges before what occupies the mental space, I would begin to talk of something to make life worth living. It was the way of the Master to heal and teach and arouse, and the whole program of missionary work might be founded on "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it moreabundantly." That is the key to the process. These people are not bad; they are crippled. They are not vicious; they are lifeless. They are not rebels: they are very much untaught, backward children.
First-Grade Room, PanamaFIRST-GRADE ROOM, PANAMA
The system of public schools is growing apace, but it has a tremendous task, small support from the parents, and often open opposition from the priests. In one town a citizen remarked that on examination day at the close of the term not a single pupil came to school, but that it made no difference, as they were all promoted and would live just as long whether they were promoted or not. (How I would have enjoyed that, as aboy!) In another town the supervisor had criticized unfavorably the people for certain careless habits, whereupon the teachers took offense, all resigned and closed the schools. The secretary of education siding with the supervisor, all schools remained closed, and the children were happy.
There is one safety valve left for people in such lives, and that is the world-old prerogative of talk. In the long evenings, by the roadsides, on the street corners, over the balconies flows an endless stream of talk. Prattle and chatter and gossip and slander flow on and make up the only scenarios the people know. Most of it is harmless. Some of it is aimless, and all of it is fruitless of anything except to save the mind from utter blankness.
They were chattering away in the evening, three or four women seeming unconscious of me, a traveler stopping for the night. One subject held undivided attention for much time—What shall we cook for breakfast? And from that it was but a step to that eternal solace of feminine conversation—the shortcomings of men in general and husbands in particular. One of the animated declaimers arose, struck a dramatic attitude, and said, "To expect that any man should be of any use about the house is impossible," and the eloquent shrug of her shoulders underscored the remark. In vain I broke in and protested that in the United States it often happened thatthe men were successfully commandeered and detailed to the work of kitchen police, but the only reply was an arched eyebrow and another shrug. "Tell that to the marines," was what she meant.
There are two measures of quantity. Either it is "No hay sufficiente" ("There are not enough") or "Hay bastante, bastante" ("Plenty, plenty"). The population of the next town is one or the other of these measures. The distance to the river, the crops, the number of children in the family, the tale of the years that is told—it is all one thing or the other. And the standard, in contrast with the artificial measures of a high civilization, is at least true to life. Either there is enough or there is not enough—that is about as close a distinction as the day's experience affords. For that matter, all the rest of us are on one side or the other of the same cleaving line of necessity.
That everybody should blame everybody else for whatever may happen to be the matter is the most natural thing in the world. Whom shall we blame if not some one else?
It is the fault of the officials that the country is poor. It is the fault of the large landowner that there is no development. It is the fault of the municipalities that the towns are not better kept, it is because of the officials that justice is not better administered. It is the fault of the Canal Zone that the good days are gone forever,and it is the fault of the American government that there are certain restrictions on native tendencies to move forward by the backward jerks of revolution. A Costa Rican once said to me, "This war in Europe amounts to nothing; but if we could get up a good old-fashioned revolution, I would be on the job to-morrow."
The virtues of these people are a surprising list, considering their scant opportunities. They are kindly in dealing with foreigners who show themselves friendly. They do not as a rule abuse their children, which the West Indian is apt to do if he is of the baser sort. The native is hospitable and courteous and always willing to oblige, provided he knows what to say or do. To be sure, the inventory of his information is disappointing, even concerning such subjects as the distance to the next town and the market value of rice, but he will tell all he knows and share what rice he has. Traveling through the country alone, I have been shown every kindness and entertained with the best that was to be had, and often sent on my way without being allowed to pay for what I had received. "Do you think I would take money from a guest?" protested a hospitable host with whom I had spent the night and who had fed my horses, the guide, and myself, and had entertained us all evening with discussion of many matters.
We had reached the town of Anton the day before, and I had sent the guide back with the horses and purposed to make my way alone. The morning was fresh and balmy, as befitted the dry season, even if a night spent on an antiquated cot in a room next to that occupied by a man with a racking cough and a rooster with a clarion voice, were not a perfect repose. Therapportbetween the fowl and the afflicted was complete: when one of them broke the silence, the other immediately took up the refrain. At breakfast I suggested to the good wife of the host that I had heard that if a board were placed above a rooster's head so that he could not stretch upward, he would not crow. She was all solicitude at once at the suggestion that the noisy cock had disturbed my slumbers, and I had to protest my indifference to such serenades.
Down the street I found a little store where the owner had a horse or two to hire upon occasion. Thirty minutes of bicker and I was astride a wiry little native pony to which a bridle was unknown, and out through the stately palms and luxurious bananas I made my way to the opencountry eastward. The river was thronged with horses led to water, and women busy with their domestic laundry. It was quaint and picturesque. In some such manner might the ancient Egyptians have gone about their morning tasks. I have seen exactly the same procedure in the Philippines and by the rivers of southern China.
A mile or two from the town the trail mounted a rolling hillock and I pinched myself to remember that I was not in New Mexico. Straight ahead rolled the almost level llanos for miles until they were lost in the hills by Chame, and the purples and pinks of the six-thousand-feet summits were like a frame for a picture whose southern limits were in the glint of the blue summer sea. It was a picture and a promise. For two hours the nervous little pony followed the trail across the smooth plains and frequent streams. If ever a land was spread out as a challenge to the plow and seeder, here it was.
I sought a colonization site, where I had heard of a dozen plucky Americans who were undertaking a plantation on cooperative lines. At last I found it in the midst of as fine a tract of land as lies beneath the tropic skies. An old-fashioned farm dinner made life worth living after native "chow" for days. Modern tractors, plows, a ton of cotton seed, and other signs of enterprise did much to make the place seem like somewhere in the great Southwest. But the enterprisingAmericans were harboring no delusions regarding the nature of their undertaking. They meant business and had counted the cost.
The Beautiful Savanas of Costa RicaTHE BEAUTIFUL SAVANAS OF COSTA RICA
An American on the Canal Zone invested his savings in land in the interior, and during the vacation built a good wire fence. On his second visit the fence was totally destroyed by ax, fire, and wire-cutters. The owner appealed to the local alcalde, a brother of the provincial governor. He demanded redress for his wrongs. The judge heard his story, and then, striking a dramatic attitude, smote his breast, and exclaimed, "If these my friends had not done this thing, I should have done it myself." Which was to say, no foreigners need apply in those parts. It is probable that this outrage could not occur under present conditions.
"The Panama politician thinks that all the republic begins in Las Bovedas and ends in Las Semanas," remarked a plantation owner of the interior country.
Whether this is true or not, few people realize or know anything of the splendid country that lies back of the Canal Zone and out of reach of the flitting traveler. To the average Canal Zone employee all Panama begins at dock seven and ends in the Administration Building. And for the tourist who comes to do the Canal in a day, of course, everything begins with the Washington Hotel and ends with the Tivoli.
But Panama is something vastly more significant than a couple of slow-service, high-priced hotels. The Isthmian Republic is an empire in possibilities, entirely apart from the Canal Zone, though the development of the latent riches of the country is most vitally related to the Canal enterprise. And the rich belt of land that binds together two continents is something very much larger than the interesting little city that bears the name of Panama.
Back of the ten-mile strip controlled by the United States stretches a land abounding in natural resources which make it potentially a factor of agricultural and economic importance. To the uninformed citizen of the United States and other countries the Republic of Panama is a mere shoestring tying together the two continents, lest the pair become separated and one of them lost. We look at the Isthmus in contrast with the two vast continents that lie to the northwest and southeast, and the connectinglink appears small. Panama suffers from comparison with its big neighbors.
Compared with well-known and important insular holdings in the Caribbean group, Panama assumes entirely different proportions. Panama is two thirds as large as Cuba and has one third of Cuba's population. Panama is about the size of Portugal, is four times as large as Salvador, seven and one half times as large as Jamaica, and nine times the size of Porto Rico. Panama is as large as all New England except Maine, and nearly equals the combined area of New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and West Virginia.
There are interior areas of well-watered, rich soil that equal whole States in size and yet are entirely unknown to many residents of the Canal Zone. The Chiriqui Province has a coast line of one hundred and thirty-three miles and contains as much land as Delaware, Rhode Island, and Long Island combined. The rich agricultural region in the provinces of Coclé, Veraguas, Los Santos, and Herrera is as large as the State of Connecticut. The region east of Panama City reaching out to Chepo is as large as Rhode Island, and in the Darien country is an area almost unknown, but abounding in rich resources which would cover the map of New Jersey with a good margin.
It is supposed that no one lives in this large territory except the Americans on the CanalZone and inhabitants of the two cities of Panama and Colon. This is also indicative of ignorance. The Republic of Panama has two thirds as many people as Paraguay or Jamaica, and, as previously stated, one third as many as Cuba, as many as Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho combined, or is about equal to Utah, Nevada, and Arizona put together.
On the basis of resources and soil and climate and accessibility to market, Panama can support a population many times her present numbers. Her capacity for supporting population from her own products is larger than that of most of the States of the Union, acre for acre. Panama's resources are as good as those of Jamaica or Porto Rico or Cuba. On the basis of Jamaican population there should be six and one half million people in Panama, and if the number of people per square mile were equal to that of precipitous Porto Rico, we would have a population in Panama of ten and one half million, which is more than live west of a north and south line drawn through Denver, Colorado.
That no such population lives to-day in Panama is due to political causes more than any other factor. The population of Porto Rico has nearly doubled since American occupation exchanged the old regime for the new. The barren deserts of the great Southwest are becoming fertile and populous regions because the peoplewho are possessing the land have a fair chance, and know that they will be assured a market for their produce and security for their lives and property. Given political security, monetary stability, market accessibility, and assurance of economic cooperation on the part of the government, there are no immediate limits to the population that Panama may support in comfort.
Shipping Costa Rica Vegetables to PanamaSHIPPING COSTA RICA VEGETABLES TO PANAMA
Political stability for the government of Panama is assured by the relations which exist between the United States and the Isthmian Republic, a condition which exists in no other Spanish-American republic. The proximity of the Canal assures a world market. The climate and soil and water supply nature has provided with lavish hand. Sanitation and hygiene have become exact sciences, and the matter of retaininggood health in the tropics is no longer a problem. There is still good land to be had on favorable terms, but the supply will soon be controlled by monopolists who are seizing the present opportunity to load up their future bank accounts, while war conditions produce a general depression of the world's development forces.
The present interior population includes three distinct classes of people. The original Indian stock still exists, pure and often wild, in the high mountains and remote regions of the country. These Indians are beginning to emerge from their fastnesses and get acquainted with their neighbors, now that they are sure of police protection when they come out. But their number is small and they are a negligible factor in the totals.
The West Indians are an importation, and while they are easily adapted to the climate and form the staple of labor supply for the Canal, they are not the Panamanians and never will be except as they mix with the native stock and shade off the colors that exist in such confusion. The Negroes and Panamanians are much more distinct in the interior than about the Zone with its terminal cities, where the remnants of humanity have been stirred together for four hundred years. West Indian populations exist in predominance only on the plantations of the United Fruit Company, where they supply thelabor for the operation of these vast enterprises.
The Panamanian is the predominant man in the interior country. He is not black, nor is he entirely white, but he has straight hair and features that indicate that he is a descendant of the original Indian stock, mixed with the Spanish conquerors who overran the country in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Probably the Panamanian has had less opportunity for advancement than the people of any other country in America. He has had no chance for national life or political self-expression. He has been the victim of the most vigorous and long-continued era of piracy and plunder that the New World has experienced. He has suffered from bad leadership when he has had any leadership at all. He has been exploited by everybody who came to the Isthmus. From the days of Morgan down to the formation of the present Republic, under American protection and guarantee of peace within and without, this native has been the outcast of the world and the national goat of the American flock of nations. He has been kept in ignorance and superstition by the exclusive control of a system of religious oppression and subjection, and if by chance he happened to acquire anything worth getting, somebody was always ready to take it away from him.
This native supplies the labor for such enterprisesas have been launched in the fertile western regions of Panama. With anything like good treatment he gives a return for his wages, and if he has a chance to acquire sound health, an intelligent outlook on life, and a share in the results of his labors, he can be made over into a good citizen. He is not a bad citizen now, but he is very much undeveloped.
The products of this great interior region are many and their proceeds in the world's markets are profitable. Present prices make large opportunities for investment, and a reorganization of marketing facilities will mark the beginning of an era of prosperity for Panama. The list of products now being raised in and exported from Panama is a surprisingly long one, and the total of returns from these commodities would give a western real estate promoter material for many prospectuses and promises.
The chief products of the country at present are bananas, lumber, rice, sugar, cacao, meat, citrus fruits, corn, coffee, and coconuts. But there are a hundred other products, many of which indicate large returns if produced and marketed on a commercial scale. Rubber, ivory, nuts, hides, beans, pineapples, potatoes, yams, yucca, cotton, tobacco, plantain, a long list of fruits and vegetables of high value, and a number of minerals are but a few of the useful commodities now being supplied to the markets of theCanal Zone and the world from the interior country of Panama. Nearly every vegetable that grows in the temperate climate does well in Panama. Some of the native fruits, such as papayas, mangoes, and alligator pears, are of delicious flavor and high value. The waters of Panama abound in vast quantities of fish, and there is supply for a number of fish canneries. Live stock thrives and is produced in considerable numbers in the provinces of Coclé and Chiriqui. The Canal Zone is now being used as a farming enterprise and stock grazing range by the administration of the Zone with the intention of making the Zone area self-supporting in meat and fruit and vegetables.
Good Pineapples Grow HereGOOD PINEAPPLES GROW HERE
With an average import trade of ten millions and an export of more than half that amount, Panama is even to-day a factor in the world's markets. It must be said that the largest item on the import list is that of goods shipped to the Zone, and that the chief export is bananas shipped from Almirante, but these items indicate large possibilities in further developments of territories as yet untouched.
The interior of Panama includes three general types of country, very different in climate and produce. The high mountains are a large area of country, much of which is fertile soil clear to the peaks, and all of which on the northern slopes is covered with jungle and forest. These wooded slopes are wet with abundant rainfall, and luxuriant foliage of tropical forms bewilders the traveler with illusions of fantastic creations of nature run mad over the earth. These mountainous parts are for the most part uninhabited, except by the more or less wild Indians, who live apart much as they were living four hundred years ago. No white men have tried to maintain themselves in these regions, and in some districts it is said that a white man's life is unsafe overnight. Tropical beasts and reptiles and birds abound among the weird forms of vegetation that seem to be perpetrating grotesque jokes on the bewildered visitor to the regions beyond the realm of civilized habitations. There are as yet no efforts made to establish towns or plantations in this country. Yet if cleared and cultivated, these regions are capable of supporting a population as dense as that of Porto Rico, where the steep hills and rocky peaks are covered with a population of over three hundred per square mile.
The jungle lands of Panama are elsewhere described, and where there is a jungle there are always rich land and abundant water, sometimestoo much water and need of drainage. The Canal Zone is mainly jungle land, and where it has been cleared for cultivation excellent results are attained. The cost of clearing this jungle is not so great as would appear from the fact that for bananas and many other forms of crop the trees and brush are cut down and after a time burned, and no further effort is made to clear the land except about four cleanings per year with a machette. Anything like plowing is un-thought of for bananas and some other leading crops. Even sugar is often planted and left to shift for itself, under native methods, which are subject, of course, to improvement.