Читать книгу Prowling about Panama - George A. Miller - Страница 5

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Panama is the great American curiosity shop. The first city founded by explorers in the New World, the oldest town in America inhabited by white men, the most conglomerate mixture of humanity on earth are in Panama. The bloodiest tale of modern history, the most romantic story of American exploration, the greatest engineering achievement of man all center in Panama.

If there be any interest in congested and sweltering humanity, any concern for the problems of social uplift and personal reaction, Panama is the laboratory for study. The cleanest and healthiest towns on earth are on the Canal Zone, and the last word in shiftlessness and inefficiency is also here. Superstition and science, rascality and rhapsody, efficiency and squalor, graft and honor, all mixed and mingled—this is Panama. Jungle and plain, valley and coast, tropic heat and mountain paradise, fever-swamps and ideal sanitation, engineering success and life in the primitive open—these too are in Panama.

Strange and mysterious traces are still found of the days when the gold of Peru was carried across the Isthmus on pack trains. Later the gold-seekers of California fought their way along the route of the present Canal and found ships on the west coast for the mines of Eldorado. If any survivors still live, they can tell stirring tales of the days when it was well worth a life to carry gold to Aspinwall.

THE FAITHFUL MULE IS THE SHIP OF THE JUNGLE

THE HOMEWARD WAY AT NIGHTFALL

It all began with Columbus himself when he sailed into Almirante Bay and thought that he had found in Chiriqui Lagoon the long-sought passage to India. What he really found, what was to follow his discovery, he could not have dreamed, adventurer that he was! Almirante (Admiral), Cristobal (Christopher), and Colon (Columbus) remain to-day to remind us of the illustrious explorer who first set foot on Panama. But Columbus gave us Panama, and never knew! It was Balboa who first saw the waters of the wide Pacific from the summits of the Isthmian hills. It was Pizarro who packed across the fifty miles of jungle the timbers of the ships which he put together on the beach of the Pacific and with which he discovered Peru, after indescribable hardships and repeated attempts to find the "hill of gold."

On the Pacific side of the Isthmus was founded Old Panama, the first city of the New World, where to-day majestic ruins stand, a fitting shrine for the reverent pilgrim. And between Old Panama and Porto Bello stretches the famous Paved Trail of Las Cruces.

Along this trail lurked the trouble-hunters and makers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. For two hundred years the tinkle of the bells of the gold-laden pack mules was never silent. On this jungle path, when stolen gold was carried by the sackful, trouble was certain to follow. The big trail was a pathway of blood, robbery, and intrigue. All the worst passions and performances of depraved men turned loose and ran riot for a century and a half. These were the days when life was raw and rough at Panama.

To-day the old trail is covered with palms and decorated with orchids. Occasional stones trace the outline of the ancient highway. Where the drunken and ribald song of the muleteer rose about the camp-fire at night, canaries and parrakeets now chatter and sing. The soft caress of the jungle breeze whispers no tales of the days when the trail could be traced by the bleaching bones that lined the right-of-way. The jungle is nature's great blotter for the sins, sorrows, and sufferings of an age now forgotten—but it all happened in Panama.

Panama is not all jungle. To the westward stretch great savannas, between the mountains and the sea; miles and miles of smooth and level country open, fair and well watered, only waiting for the tickle of American cultivation to laugh a crop. It makes a real estate man's fingers itch; but that is another story. Where a little cultivation has been inadvertently perpetrated on the land, tall sugar cane, luscious fruits, and toothsome vegetables attest the quality of the soil and the climate.

Frequent rivers, numerous inlets on the coast line, occasional interesting native towns, old churches, impossible "roads," meandering trails, scattered herds of fat cattle, a few sugar mills, numerous trapiches (cane grinders), fenced patreros (pastures), and everywhere the mixed-blood natives—this is Panama in the western provinces.

Panama westward is not all a flat country, however. Eleven thousand feet into the sky rises the Chiriqui volcano, and a little farther west in the same range stands Pico Blanco (White Top), at about the same height. Thrown across the slopes of these lofty summits and half way up lies a great and beautiful country, with a climate such as might have been coveted for the site of Eden. Cool, comfortable, and salubrious is this garden of the gods. In all the so-called temperate zone no land yet discovered offers three hundred and fifty days per year of comfort and health. To be sure, vacation pilgrims from the warmer coast country sometimes make mention of cold feet upon first reaching this Mecca in the mountains, but nobody finds fault on that account. Most of them like it.

Chiriqui is a garden spot. Wide ranges of fertile soil, gentle slopes rolling back against the mountain ranges, good harbors along the coast, and occasional plantations with American improvements, mark the country as the coming granary of the Republic. Rolling slopes and blossoming fields, with a background of the never-failing come-and-go of the lights and shades on the face of the mountains, form a picture not to be forgotten. Always the summits and the clouds seem to be playing leapfrog in the sky, and the whole upper world, looking down on the puny traveler, seems ever trying to say something and never quite uttering its meaning. And he who looks and listens finds himself trying to say it for them, and never can he find the word. Perhaps some poetic soul will yet look upon these heights and tell us what it is they are muttering.

The coast line of western Panama is a fascinating shore. Like enchanted islands rise bits of forest out of the sea and any of them might be the castle site of the lord of the main.

In and out between their wooded shores the steamer winds its way till it dodges in through some narrow "boca" to find a tortuous channel leading to a landing place, that must always be approached at the whim of the tide. Whether there be a thousand islands or not, no one knows; but I have stood on the steamer deck and counted fifty in sight at a time, while other fifties rose up to meet us as those nearby dropped astern. Here and there some lonely light blinks its vigil through the night, and the swells of the Pacific break in fantastic sea-ghosts against the rocky cliffs.

AN EMPIRE IN THE MAKING

Navigation of these waters is not a science, it is an art. The captains of these coast craft know every tree and rock and river mouth for four hundred miles, and make their way through tortuous channels by markings that no landsman can see. There is one grizzled navigator, said to be unable to read or write, who knows every marking on the coast for six hundred miles, and in the long years of service has never made a mistake or met with an accident. Possibly his success might be due to the fact that what he does not know does not confuse him. His mental horizon may not be very distant, but at least he escapes a lot of worry about things that he (and you and I) cannot control. When the tides have a rise and fall of eighteen feet, and all harbors are but shallow river mouths, the negotiation of the coast ports becomes a matter requiring much accuracy of judgment.

The old trail across the Isthmus is the Mecca of many pilgrims who by some searching find its scattered stones amid the riotous jungle. The later trail was opened after the city of Panama was moved to its present site. It began at Colon, followed the Chagres River to the present site of Gamboa, and then wound its ways over the low summit of the hills down to the new Panama and terminated at the "Nun's Beach," where now stand a Protestant church and school. Here the pack trains were unloaded and the high tides carried the rafts and lighters out to the ships waiting in the little harbor.

The dark days of Panama were the days after the gold trade failed. Even the gold of Peru was not inexhaustible, and the trade across the Isthmus could not stand continued centuries of robbery and murder. It had to end some time, and end it did; and when the end came all the Isthmus lapsed into a slough of despond and lethargy of inertia. For a century and a half Panama was as forgotten as the Catacombs.

But Panama went her way, whether anybody cared or not. The people left on the Isthmus were the racial remnants of the mixture of mankind that had found its way back and forth for two centuries, and they were fairly able to take care of themselves. The rich forests and fertile soil would bear fruit and food enough to sustain life whether anyone worked or not, and the result was not the development of a virile race of men. How could it be? Probably few spots on earth have had less incentive to develop hardy and enterprising character than the Isthmus of Panama.

A FEW GOOD ROADS ON THE ZONE

The prowler about Panama will find a wide variety of interests and inspirations. Whatever his peculiar, personal fad he can find it somewhere. Then he can prowl to his heart's content.

If he prefers the sea, there are fifteen hundred miles of coast line to explore with something new to every mile. Or he can launch out a bit, and in a day's time make his way to the famous Pearl Islands, where are life and industry so distinct that weeks mays be spent in studying the development of a civilization, insular and unique. The coast of Darien has boundless possibilities for the explorer; and the San Blas Islands would keep the ethnologist busy for months. For an enchanted inland sea the Chiriqui Lagoon is unsurpassed.

If historical romance is desired, the prowling is certainly abundant; and if the prowler is a lover of nature, wild and luxuriant, rioting in marvelous and indescribable forms of overflowing life, he has but to equip himself for jungle travel, and he will find wonders by the mile, and fantastic nature piled mountains high and chasms deep. If it is mountains, they are here in scenic beauty unsurpassed. If the explorer is a student of human nature and cares to attempt the unscrambling of this blend of blood that flows in swarthy faces, he will be busy here for a lifetime. And if none of these will do, and the curious landsman will have nothing short of the exploring of vast unchristened wildernesses where no human foot has ever trod, and where strange and dangerous forms of unclassified life wander at will through the overgrown forests, he will find it—and doubtless he will find much more of it than he wants before he gets back to civilization.

If it is promotion schemes and development projects, then here at least is a commodious place to put them. Here, in agricultural and colonizing schemes, somebody will yet get rich—and other somebodies poor.

If the prowler's interest is primarily social, and he would browse about one of the most interesting cities in America, let him come to Panama. Ancient Spanish streets, scrupulously clean—can these be found anywhere else? Side by side, over and under, the sixteenth and twentieth centuries run together.

And what makes Panama to-day the crossroad of the world? For him who in the love of engineering skill holds communion with high human achievement, and prefers to prowl around the locks and docks, and study the marvelous successes and adaptations and devices of the latest and greatest feat of brain and hand, this is the very center of the earth. No man with a soul for the poetry of mechanics can stand in a control house of one of the locks and see the enormous gates swing back at the movement of a finger without feeling that man, with all his limitations, has yet in his being some image of the Creator. To see an ocean giant rise up slowly in the teeth of gravitation and slip through the gates on to the higher level, is to wonder whether the portals that look so gloomy to us may not, after all, be not exits but entrances to a new and higher level of life. What a text! The ship does not rise by straining but by resting in a narrow place. And no ship ever yet got through the locks without a pilot. The whole process is as silent as the forces of eternity. There is a lot more, and it bears no copyright. Help yourself.

CHURCH AT NATA, OLDEST INHABITED TOWN IN THE NEW WORLD, FOUNDED 1520

And for the prowler in the region of philosophy, what a place! What changes in the geography and commerce and industry and policies and politics of mankind must follow this last achievement on the historical Isthmus of Panama, "quien sabe?" ("who knows?") None but the Omniscient. Trade routes and bank exchanges, commercial dealings and national programs will all be affected by this three-hundred-foot wide highway of water. If but some power the gift would give us to come back a century hence and see what will be doing then!

What social and moral transformations will be wrought in the coming years by the release of spiritual forces through the new religious life and free faith brought to Panama with the coming of the Canal? Out of the soul-bondage of a system of superstition and ignorance will come a new human consciousness of the worthiness of life and the high privilege of living. Whether it is to prowl or prophesy, the material is abundant, and the pilgrim will find rare material a-plenty all about him. Panama is perplexing and peculiar, but he who finds the key to the riddle will be kept busy.

Perhaps the amateur explorer has a penchant for old churches. Here they are. Seven of them, with a couple of first-class ruins thrown in. The rich monasteries of Peru and Mexico are missing, but for that there is a reason. Every bit of treasure was stolen as fast as accumulated. Yes, if unmolested in the past, Panama would be a mine for the antiquarian to-day. But any active imagination, even on half-time shift, can find here material for romances, warranted to interest every member of the family, at reduced prices, if paid for in advance. From the Flat-Arch Church to the ruins of Old Panama it is good prowling all the way.