say: "I am going to kill a lot of people before I stop, and so I'm tolling their knells beforehand."

It was some little time before we "gathered way" as a sailor would say, for the locomotive was almost a toy (albeit a very dirty toy), but presently we were bowling along the level sand amidst a tangled growth of banana trees, coco palms, and wooden huts, some of which made pretensions to being shops, usually kept by Chinamen, on one side, and an untidy beach sloping down to a dazzlingly blue sea on the other. And then we ran into an oven. A perfect forest of bananas in full bearing encroached upon the line and shut out all breeze while the sun vertically showered down his fervent glare upon us. Through the open windows of the car came a steady shower of soot, for the locomotive was burning patent fuel, and its combustion was far from perfect. Very soon those of us who were newcomers had reduced our garments to the simplest elements, and were looking enviously upon certain cold-blooded individuals who, even in this stewing heat, were wearing serge coats, vests, and trousers. How or why do they do it? I do not know. I am aware that some people have a theory that what will keep out cold will keep out heat, but as far as I am concerned that theory is a false one.

The speed, never exceeding twenty miles an hour, suddenly slackened, and the train stopped, apparently for breath, but really at a station, although at first nothing was visible but the dense boscage around. But on closer inspection a long low shed came into view, and adjacent to it could presently be made out, amid the overgrowth of greenery, great heaps of railway material. And thenceforward, until we reached the great Culebra cutting, we were continually passing rows of locomotives, of travelling cranes, none of which had ever moved

in their own proper vocation, and row after row of construction wagons. The rank vegetation of the country had played the strangest pranks with these productions of an alien civilization. In one place I saw a noble young palm growing erect and sturdy out of the chimney of a locomotive, and in many others strange plants of every conceivable shape and manner of growth were wreathed around wagon wheels, climbing lovingly over cranes, and wandering at their own sweet will about intricate pieces of machinery destined never to fulfil the part for which they were produced. Occasionally we caught glimpses of the Chagres River, every bend and eddy of which said loudly, "Beware of alligators!" and sometimes we came across a picturesque group of women and bright, bronze-like little children, naked as the day, engaged in washing on the verge of some sparkling stream. Be sure that wherever you see the negro woman in this country-outside of the towns, that is-she will not be idle. and in nine cases out of ten she will be laboriously making cotton or linen clothes dazzlingly white. Never mind how, only be certain that the garments will not last long. But as that minor trouble is not confined to any one district in the world where washerwomen are to be found, it would be invidious to dwell upon it here.

Presently we emerged from the stifling banana-growing lowlands into a fairly picturesque country, the sides of the line being dotted at decreasing intervals with piles of rusting railway material as before noted. And then suddenly the mighty Culebra cutting came into view, that Titanic work where a mountain has been hewn in twain in order to allow the biggest ships in the world to pass through it on their way between the Atlantic and the Pacific. This great piece of civil engineering was, with the exception of

Even the inhabitants of this land of "mañana" are awaking to the fact that "mañana" is to be changed to "ahora," to-morrow to now. And that in itself is a portent of no mean dimensions. But I am lingering long on the road to Panama City, almost as long as that procrastinating soot-showering train. No bad likeness of a chimney-sweep out for a holiday, with eyes full of grit and parched throat, I emerged at last at the mean collection of shacks doing duty for the Panama Terminus of this most important railway. I was at once taken in charge by a courteous polyglot young German, who, for a great wonder, did not show his contempt for me because I was an Englander and also a new chum. Perhaps the fact of my having been specially recommended to his good offices, by the great company for which his firm was agent, had more than a little to do with his most kindly reception of me. He hurried me into a carriage, and we drove off at once to the Grand Central Hotel, along the very worst roads I have yet travelled in this part of the world, so bad, indeed, that after ten minutes' drive I felt as if all my teeth were loose, and I was positively sore with bumping about. So villainous were the roads that I kept mentally comparing them with some I had suffered from in Boston and Chicago, and wondering if these were not really worse. So that when we pulled up in front of the hotel-I beg its pardon, the Grand Central Hotel-I had seen nothing of Panama at all.

A very short experience of this hotel is sufficient to cause each newcomer to scan the faces of the American visitors keenly in the earnest hope that some of them are potential hotel proprietors. For some American will surely confer an inestimable boon upon his fellow men-and women-by starting and carrying on a decent hotel in

this most important place. Only think of it! here, on the great highway of the Isthmus, in its principal city, where all the year round there is a steady stream of visitors on business or pleasure bent, the principal, almost the only, hotel is a sort of tenth-rate boarding-house, of which the only thing not entirely condemnatory that can be said about it is that it is big. And for housing like paupers and feeding like pigs one pays like a prince-eight dollars for a bottle of very medium claret, equivalent to sixteen shillings English. I do not wish to deal in superlatives, either eulogistic or condemnatory, but I would strongly advise tourists bound to Pacific ports who are taking this route to put in the time they have to wait at Colon, where there is a decent hotel that compensates for the other drawbacks of the port, rather than be made miserable at Panama and fleeced most shockingly into the bargain. However, the Americans will alter all that. Under their régime one will have to pay, of course, and a high price, but there will be an equivalent for the

money.

After luncheon, as a carriage drive was impossible, a small party of us sallied forth, first visiting the historic Cathedral, which stood on the opposite side of the Plaza to our hotel. While changing I had noted from my cell window the ruinous condition of the building, and especially the way in which, through utter neglect, the various parasitic plants of the country were gradually covering the towers and terraces of the building with a rich mantle of vegetation, the roots of which were, of course, displacing the stones with which the edifice was built. Not that it ever had been a fine building in any sense of the word. Its design was practically the same as usual in these countries and in Malta, two dumpy towers at the corners of an almost flat front, and a long barn-like

body trailing away astern of them, with a sort of dome over the chancel. Within, both building and ornaments were well, just tawdry. Over the whole place brooded an air of decay, as if, after dominating these lands for centuries, the "Church" realized that at last it was losing its grip on them, and languidly acquiesced in the fact. Well, I am no friend to Rome, and the record of her misdeeds out here makes me, when reading it, grow faint and sick with horror, but still, she stands for some recognition of God in these parts; and if she goes there is nothing to take her place. As in France, the people will judge all ministers of religion by what they know of Rome, and will refuse to acknowledge any. In the American strip, however, it may be different. I do not attempt any description of the interior of the cathedral; there is really nothing to describe, or rather worth description. Only I was struck by the fact that during the whole time we were in and around it we did not see one priest or custodian of any kind. There were a few devout souls who had stepped aside from their burdens for a few minutes into its cool darkness to pray, and a nun with a patient other-world face knelt at the door and asked alms for the poor, but of the usual signs of activity in such churches there were But every door was wide open. Emerging from the cathedral into the glaring sunlight we strolled, rather aimlessly I must admit, about the city. But it would not develop itself for us, would not become anything else but a fortuitous collection of mean houses fringing those horrible roads. And presently we became aware for the first time that here, in Central America, that chivalrous creature, the Spaniard, has had all his politeness bred out of him. The ladies of the party, although escorted, were simply stared out of countenance by groups of

none.

well-dressed men, who even followed to have another stare when we hesitated for a minute at the corner of a street before deciding which way to go. At last, under this never-ending scrutiny, we all got so hot and angry that we fled down to the bay and took a boat. During the operation quite a little crowd gathered, taking apparently an intense interest in every detail of our faces. I say ours, but I must limit the pronoun to the ladies, who unfortunately had no veils. The only place I ever remember seeing anything like it before was at Canton, but that calm Celestial scrutiny was not nearly so galling as this. It did not seem personal somehow, the Chinese stare being more like that of an automatic face than anything else.

Once out on the smooth waters of the bay, things began to adjust themselves. Our view of the city was in proper focus, we were not hampered by so many details, and the crumbling treeclad fortifications, with the eternal sea beating up against them as it had always done, somehow managed to get history into perspective. It did not need a great exercise of imagination to see back into the past when these quiet waters were dotted with Spanish treasure-ships, to note them receiving their lading of silver, spice, pearls, and other valuable merchandise, borne here on the backs of Indians from the interior, whose path was punctuated with skeletons in every attitude that a miserable death could suggest. Outside, one rejoiced to think, lay hidden retribution in the shape of a group of little English ships, their crews hungering fiercely for the encounter with the Dons, in the almost certain prospect of snatching from them their ill-gotten treasure, and incidentally, perhaps, sending them with their ships to a swifter and more merciful death than they had given the poor Indians. It all seemed so real and close out here. And, as the

evening drew swiftly on and the gorgeous colors of the sunset bathed the distant city in a glow of varied tints, there hung over the whole scene a glamour of romance that was quite fascinating.

But we returned to shore, and were immediately disillusionized. Squalor took the place of glamour, and evil smells replaced the sweet, fresh sea breezes, so strong and pure, with which our lungs had been filled while on the bay. This latter experience made us think complacently of the coming of the Americans, whose first business, we were told, was to sanitate, to cleanse the city from its foulness, and introduce some decency of living. Rather reluctantly we returned to the hotel, quite afraid to meet the menu after our experience at luncheon. But it was necessary to eat, and we ate, very dubiously and sparingly, and as soon as the depressing function was over we retreated from the building to the Plaza opposite under the palms and the electric light. But it was really impossible for strangers with ladies accompanying them to sit there. In the first place it was exceedingly comfortless, being only a bare stone area with little tables and chairs scattered about, not at all like the romantic Spanish Patio with its fountain and trees and flowering shrubs. And no sooner were we seated than well-dressed, wearyeyed men drifted in, took seats near, and began to stare the ladies of the party out of countenance. So we fled, and meeting the amiable Consul, Mr. Claude Mallet, listened to his wonderThe Cornhill Magazine.

ful stories of vicissitudes in Panama, wonderful specimens of British subjects claiming, not merely his protec tion or assistance, but his aid as ar bitrator in domestic disputes or petty inter-family squabbles. In fact, the Jamaica negro, of whom he spoke in the terms one usually employs in de scribing a wayward child-that is, with some petulance but a good deal of affection-kept him fully amused in the intervals of much more serious work. His society was a great boon to us under the circumstances, and I, for one, felt deeply grateful to him for his geniality and courtesy. Had it not been for him we should have been com pelled to go to bed and lie listening to the baffled hum of mosquitoes outside the closely drawn net, unable to read by the light of the one candle, and meditat ing upon the possibility of the bed having been last occupied by a feverstricken patient, as really happened here quite a short time ago. This, however, Mr. Mallet saved us from, and when we vent to bed at eleven we sank at once to sleep nor awakened until it was time to go to the train next morning and escape from Panama.

The descent into the steaming low. lands from the comparatively fresh air of the hills was certainly unpleasant, although I could not help feling that it was ungrateful to notice it so much after our little visit to a cooler atmos phere. But the sensation of home coming was full payment, and I must confess also the prospect of leaving the Isthmus of Panama was distinctly pleasant.

Frank T. Bullen.