CHAPTER III
Panama Bay and Paramount Barrett
An Excursion to the Island of Toboga—Panama from the Sea—A Picturesque Village—A Delightful Stroll to the Sanatorium—A Banquet Aboard—We Return Refreshed and Invigorated—A Dinner with Minister Barrett—His Travels and Experiences—He Wheedles One Empress and Amuses Another, Beats Admiral Dewey, Refuses a Harem, Shocks a Female Boarding-school, Suppresses a Revolution, Discourses upon Elephants and Has a Joke Played upon Him—At the Ball—Mr. and Mrs. Wallace—Twenty-five Thousand Dollars for Grave Digging.
An excursion and banquet on the bay and a visit to Toboga Island twelve miles out had been planned for us, and we assembled Thursday morning at eight o’clock at the railway station. A short ride by rail took us to the large pier at the Boca or mouth of the canal from which a channel has been dredged through the shallow water out to the Island of Perico. We started from the Boca because the pier at the city of Panama stood on dry land at low tide, and the boats were lying about on their sides much of the time.
President Amador and Mrs. Amador were present, having embraced this opportunity to make the excursion with us and visit their country residence on the Island of Toboga where they were to remain a few days. Colonel Gorgas and Captain Carter and their families, as well as several other Canal Zone and Panamanian government officials, were also among the passengers.
Two boats had been engaged and two banquets prepared, but as half of the congress was still on the Atlantic Ocean, there was no use in reserving a boat and a banquet for it on the Pacific, so we discharged one boat and took all of the provisions with us on the other, thus guarding against a banqueters’ famine.
As we steamed along the shore our old Spanish-looking town of Panama was on our left and the tropical islands on our right. The city, which occupied a rugged projection of land, was a picturesque sight in the intense morning sunlight. The white gleaming walls, dark roofs and deep shadows formed a lively contrast, and were beautifully framed by the blue of the sea below and sky above, and the green of the foliage around them. When opposite the city the boat turned stern toward Panama and passed outward between the islands, some of which were quite large and some very small. The small ones looked like mountain-tops and ridges projecting out of the water, and probably formed parts of a submerged ridge. The sea was smooth and the sea breeze felt refreshing and cool to us in our duck pants and pongee coats, and the two hours of riding to Toboga passed quickly and comfortably. The word comfortably expresses a great deal in the tropics, and means more than the words fun and enjoyment. There is a suggestion of good luck and thankfulness in it.
At Toboga a cluster of tiny red-tiled houses stretched along the shore between the blue sea in front and the higher, densely foliaged land behind, constituting a little fishing village of wondrous beauty as viewed from the boat. Arriving off shore we sent the President and Mrs. Amador to the beach in a row boat, for there was no disfigurement of nature by piers or breakwaters.
Tempted by the beauty and novelty of the foliage, several of us hired one of the row boats that hovered about the steamer, and were soon on dry land. As a fresh cooling sea breeze was blowing we had a pleasant walk of about a quarter of a mile to the sanatorium, a two-story, wooden, rectangular building which was built on posts over the water’s edge and girded by the conventional wide veranda. It is said to have cost about $200,000, and was built for convalescent and debilitated employees of the French Canal Company. In Chicago it could have been built, I should say, for about $2,000, but would have been a ruin long ago. There were good baths and a fine spring near by. With the island-bound bay and cool sea breeze on one side and the luxuriant tropical forest on the other, it was an ideal place for invalids and poets, but a very idle place for well people. It was a place for lounging, dreaming, bathing, smoking, and romantic gazing at the beautiful sky and earth. But active outdoor sports were incompatible with the climate, and the social and business activities that were needful to relieve the monotonous splendor of nature were lacking.
TABOGA ISLAND
We sauntered back to the landing-place picking ripe mangoes and accepting large pineapples from the natives, who would take no pay because we were guests of the president. Altogether the novelty of the little stroll on this most beautiful of tropical islands produced a feeling of enthusiasm and admiration for nature such as we used to experience as boys when we visited new scenes with new eyes. It seemed like something new under the sun.
On our way back to Panama we sat down to a banquet breakfast of the same character as on the sabanas the day before and which, with the sea air, the stroll on the island, and the starvation “coffee-breakfast” in the early morning to perform the function of appetizers, we ate with as much if not more relish.
In the evening Dr. Lucy Waite, Doctor Senn and myself dined with the Pan-American peacemaker, John Barrett, and his secretary in their interesting bachelor apartments near Plaza Centrál. Innumerable pictures and mementoes gathered by Mr. Barrett during his travels and while he was representing the United States at the courts of the mighty, gave the place the interest of a museum of art. We felt that we were fortunate in having him devote an evening to us, for he was one of the busiest men in Panama. But I have learned in my dealings with North Americans that the busiest men nearly always have more time for extra work than those who have not enough to do. A successful, busy man seldom does as others do, and Mr. Barrett did not do as the Panamanians did. The words siesta, gossip and barroom were meaningless to him. He paid no attention to the rule that one should neither drink hard nor work hard in the tropics. His motto was: “Work everywhere, drink nowhere.” He was such a hustler that grass did not grow under his feet nor hair on his head. He had traveled extensively in the Orient. He had visited the five great viceroys of China and had sat upon the dais with the Empress Dowager and had talked her out of 700,000 taels. He arrived at Manila only ten days after Admiral Dewey, and outstayed him. He became personally acquainted with Aguinaldo and thus was more successful than Dewey. The Sultan of Sulu offered him a harem, but he was busy, and had to refuse. While U. S. minister to Siam he accepted, however, an invitation to address the graduating class of the Young Ladies’ Seminary of Bangkok, and told them that they were charming young ladies, but soon would be old cows with their tongues hanging out. He had mistranslated his well-prepared English manuscript and had mispronounced what he did not mistranslate. He was excused on account of his youth and beauty, and because he came from a new country where refined speech and Oriental etiquette were not cultivated. He had also been minister to Argentina, but he did not mention the breaches he had made there. Possibly there was not time enough.
When General Huertas moved on Panama City with an army of 300 men and began to dictate to President Amador, Mr. Barrett advised the president to disband the hostile army. The president, to whom this method of warfare was a novelty, humored the young minister and told them to disband. But they refused. He offered them sixty days’ extra pay, half down and half a week after they had disbanded, but they demanded all of the money before disbanding. They might serve without pay but they would not stop serving without pay. Mr. Barrett advised the president not to heed this demand and made an eloquent speech that brought them to terms. He told them that Uncle Sam was back of President Amador. The soldiers were not accustomed to this kind of warfare and disbanded. After the army had disbanded, their guns were stored in the American warehouse at Ancón and the defense of the city and maintenance of order entrusted to the police, who performed after that the double duty of soldiers and policemen. And now, with no army except one of words, the words of Uncle Sam, Doctor Amador is secure in his position, and at last, “The path of glory leads to the gray,” as the poet Grave wrote.
Mr. Barrett’s delicate private supper was such a relief after the gorgeous banquets that we had been working at, that we did not really require any attention from him. His servant was entertaining and relieving us to our entire satisfaction. But the worry and responsibilities of public office in an unsettled and up-building foster-republic, and the fatigue of constant activity, did not prevent him giving himself up to our unrestrained enjoyment.
He gave us much information about Siam, where he was known as “I am, I am, the great white minister at Siam.” He said that the Sultan of Siam was very intelligent and progressive, that he had many wives but had decreed that his son and successor should have but one, and thus had shown that he possessed the courage of his convictions. Mr. Barrett told us that he had seen Siamese babies smoking cigars six inches long, and described a case in point. He said that elephants were not weaned until they were three years old, were not grown up until they were twenty, and that their working days were from thirty-three to sixty-six years. He said that elephants were afraid of mice, and gave an instance in which a mouse stampeded the royal herd, and it took six weeks to get them back in line again. He told us that the white elephant was pink, that the white was all in the white of his eye.
He and the other foreign diplomats dined once a week at the Emperor’s table. Barrett’s regular seat was beside the Empress-in-chief, and it fell to him to entertain her. In due time ordinary subjects of conversation had been worn threadbare, and the Empress helped him out by appointing a subject at each dinner for conversation at the next, which enabled him to look up his vocabulary and his ideas. On one occasion she asked him to give her some ideas on ladies’ hats. He studied hats in the cyclopedia and dictionary during the few stray moments of quiet and leisure he could find, and came to the dinner feeling competent to address the Empress in her own language on a feminine subject. But while he was discoursing eloquently about hats, and mingling Oriental compliments with incidental wisdom, she suddenly burst out laughing and kept on laughing until she burst some stays. The Emperor then became intensely curious to learn how the White Minister had done it. When finally the lady had gotten through laughing she told him what Mr. Barrett had said, viz.: “Your Majesty wears the most beautiful busts of any empress or queen in the Orient. Their originality of shape and harmony of coloring have charmed many an artist.” Mr. Barrett laughed also, thinking that he had pleased the Empress, but later learned that he had used the word bust in place of hat. However, he had not failed to amuse the Empress, which was quite a distinction.
Apropos of hats, we asked him why he had not married. He said that he preferred to be happy. His political duties already called upon him to do many things that he knew nothing about, but had not yet exacted that. He preferred to be a bachelor, and, as Doctor Waite expressed it, he shone better as a solitaire. He had read somewhere that wives talk in their sleep. He could endure any kind of babel or babble for eighteen hours a day, but not for twenty-four.
He had a little joke played upon him at his dinner that was not premeditated. The waiter was a quick and active man, as I suppose everybody about Mr. Barrett must be, and served us rapidly and well. But he got behind in his work and was hurried in serving the dessert, and had allowed the water glasses to become empty. He rushed out after water and in his haste grabbed a couple of bottles of white wine instead of White Rock water, and filled our tumblers with it. Mr. Barrett was busy talking and did notice the error. We were thirsty, and as the wine was very mild and of excellent quality we gladly drank it like water. I merely remarked that it was the best water I had tasted in Panama. We were soon through eating, and just before arising Mr. Barrett somewhat hastily took a large draught out of his tumbler. He swallowed and cleared his throat and looked at us. But as we said nothing, he said nothing, and he probably does not know to-day that we drank his best wine like plain water.
After giving us another hour of instructive and amusing conversation while sitting on the little Spanish balcony outside of the windows, he accompanied us to the ball. Here were assembled the beauty and talent of Panama. Preparations had been made for a grand dance and an elaborate supper at many small square, and a few tête-à-tête tables. We met nearly everybody we had met before and many that we had not, both Panamanians and North Americans. The naval officers of the Battleship Boston also added éclat to the occasion.
I had pleasant chats with our Chicago friends, Mr. and Mrs. Wallace. They lived in a house owned by the U. S. government not far from Plaza Centrál in the crowded part of the city. But Mr. Wallace had contrived to get out of the crowd to a certain extent by going upwards. He had built a sort of roof garden or open-air story on the top of the house, and had made other improvements that rendered it in comfort, although not in kind, as nearly equal to our North American homes as is consistent with the climate. He was enthusiastic about his canal work and apparently happy, and expecting to keep right on, although a few months’ residence in Panama is a great disillusioner. Mrs. Wallace seemed cheerful and contented in her new surroundings and apparently enjoyed great popularity in society. Whether she would have been able to stand the climate for ten or twelve years without injury to her health, and whether he could have retained sufficient vigor during such a long sweltering period to prosecute the work, must have been a question of some concern to him. It certainly would have shortened the natural course of his life somewhat and was not worth while unless there was something in it for him besides money. Wealth is not his who gets it, but his who enjoys it. He who gives a part and risks all of his life, and sacrifices all of his comfort and enjoyment of life, and does the work, deserves credit and appreciation.
At the time of the reorganization of the Canal Commission the newspapers of the country were talking wildly about a hundred thousand dollar man with power and authority to build the canal and build it quickly. They spoke of finding him, but left Mr. Wallace practically out of consideration. I do not doubt but this gave Mr. Wallace an attack of dyspepsia and that he took a gloomy view of things and saw himself at the end of four or five years with his health shattered by struggles with climatic and Congressional influences and hindrances, and discarded by a forgetful and impatient country. The country had already begun to go back on his contract, and the understanding with him, and I suppose he felt that he had the same right. If it was a question of salary only, why earn it in Panama where red heat and yellow fever were suggestive of future rewards and quick realization? Twenty-five or thirty thousand dollars is a small sum for digging one’s own grave and then not being allowed to occupy it. “To thine own self be true; and ...”