Prowling about Panama. George A. Miller
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.
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.
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.
CHAPTER II
THE TRAIL OF THE PIRATES
The present conglomerate of humanity living on the Isthmus of Panama is the racial remainder of some very much mixed social history. Here were enacted some of the most stirring stories and tempestuous times in American history. In 1453 the Eastern Roman Empire fell before the assaults of the Turks and closed the land routes to India. Nearly forty years later Columbus set sail in his great effort to find a westward passage for the commerce of Europe. In this he failed, but on his fourth and final voyage discovered the Isthmus of Panama and landed on the shores of the Chiriqui Lagoon, supposing that the beautiful inland sea must be the long-sought passage westward. Here the town of Almirante still bears his name. At Porto Bello and Saint Christopher Bay he made brief stops and returned to Spain having no idea of the character of the isthmus that he had discovered.
On November 3, 1903, exactly four hundred years from the day that Columbus set foot on the soil of Panama, the Republic of Panama declared its sovereign independence and began its national life as one of the family of American nations.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Caribbean main was overrun by as unscrupulous and bloodthirsty a set of pirates as ever sailed any sea. Even without these rascals there would have been trouble enough, and with them the story is sufficiently lurid for the most melodramatic taste.
One name stands out above his fellows. The intrepid navigator who first saw the waters of the Pacific set forth at the age of twenty-three as an adventurer, and after various experiences embarked as a stowaway for his second voyage. By personal persuasion he became the partner of his master, and after founding a colony in Darien sent Señor Endico back to Spain in irons for his pains.
This left Balboa supreme, with the whole Castilla de Oro (Castle of Gold) country before him for exploration. He at once sent Pizarro to examine the interior and gathered the scattered fugitives from former expeditions. The combined forces took the field against the Indians. When they reached the domain of Comagre, the most powerful chief of the country, peace was made. This chief was a real aristocrat with mummied ancestors clothed in gold and pearls, and he gave to Balboa four thousand ounces of gold, sixty wives, and offered to show him the way to a country beyond the dim mountains where a powerful people lived in magnificence and sailed ships of solid gold. He also entertained his distinguished visitor with tales of a temple of gold called Dabaibe, forty leagues farther than Darien, and said that the mother of the sun, moon, and stars lived there.
Balboa's