CHAPTER VII
At Gran Hotel Centrál
El Gran Hotel Centrál—Its Plan—Prices—Two in a Room—Church Ruins as Boarding-houses—The Hotel Furniture—Advantage of Two in a Room—Primitive Service—The Plumbing—How to Break up Luxurious Habits—The Temperature—A Walk in the Sun—Baths—Doctor Echeverría’s Appetizer—Effects of Liquor—His Character—The Hotel Food—The Venezuelan Minister—The Custom of Treating—Cigaret Smoking, a Solitary Vice—A Visit to the Home of Señor Arango—Clothing an Injury—Panama Ladies—A Linguistic Defeat—Spanish American Education—Influence of United States upon Central American Customs—Language of the Lower Classes—A Visit to the Southern Club—Cola by the Pint—Beer—Alcohol Versus Syrup—To Bed in the Dark—The Light Habit Broken up—A Definition of Happiness—A Miraculous Dawn and an Awakening Town—The Sun Makes a High Jump—Southern Activity and Northern Indolence—A Delightful Sponge Bath and an Hour of Exercise—Coffee and Rolls—Delayed Eggs and Drastic Americans—A Revolution for an Egg—Reasons for the Light Early Breakfast—Burnt Coffee as a Delicacy.
Gran Hotel Centrál was the only second-class hotel in Panama—there was no first-class one. It is a four-story stone house built around a square patio, or court, about fifty feet in diameter, and is situated on a corner of one of the streets that enter the Plaza Centrál. Around the patio on the three upper floors run verandas upon which all inside rooms open. The two sides of the house that front on the plaza and street have an outer row of front rooms on each floor parallel with a row of inner ones from which they are separated by a corridor. The outer rooms are long and narrow with the window at one end, overlooking the street, and the door at the other end opening into the corridor. The inner rooms have no windows, but have doors at each end, single ones opening into the corridor and folding doors on the veranda in the patio. Fresh air can enter through the doors only. The stairway is out-of-doors in the patio, and the landings on the verandas.
DIAGRAM OF MY ROOM AND THE INSIDE ROOM ACROSS THE CORRIDOR
Each room contained two beds, and the price was four dollars a day in gold for a bed and six dollars if one person engaged the whole room. However, as two guests were not put in one room until there was one in each, it was safe to pay for one bed only, except upon unusual occasions when there was a great crowd of visitors in town. But the best way to travel on the isthmus is to have a traveling companion to occupy the other bed. One’s wife would do, only the isthmus traveling would probably not do for her. The Tivoli, which has since been erected on Ancón hill, may do for ladies but it is American and therefore uninteresting. Hotel Centrál had a sort of monopoly of the business, since the others were either tenth class or unclassible, and there were no good furnished apartments to let in town. I heard of one boarding-house, but that was already full of permanent boarders. In looking for rooms I found but one real estate agent, an American, and I could not understand how he made a living without having anything for rent or sale except church ruins.
When I arrived, all second and third-story outside rooms had at least one occupant, and as I refused to occupy one of those inside windowless rooms in which I would have to sleep with the doors open, I was lodged three flights up, under the mansard roof. It was up near the sun, but commanded a good view over the trees of the park and caught the breeze when there was one. It was well that I had already seen the best hotel in Colón, or I should have been shocked by the rooms of Gran Hotel Centrál, and my visit to Panama would have been spoiled. The furniture consisted of two single iron bedsteads with dirt-stained mattresses of certain age; a small, worn-out, dingy washstand, such as are sold at auction after having been discarded from the servants’ bedrooms of Chicago boarding houses; a plain wooden bureau of the same character, and a small, square, rough table which served both as a center table and writing desk. There were neither closets nor wardrobes, nor hooks for the disposal of clothes. The second bed might have served as a prostrate clothes-press if the mattress had looked less infected, or if its stains had been covered and concealed. The floor was of plain, unpolished, foot-worn wood. In front of each bed was a network of dirt held together by a small piece of antique ingrain carpet. However, I was finally settled and satisfied, for I had the chamber boy nail to the wall a board frame holding five or six small hooks to serve as closet and wardrobe. A candle was also furnished, but no provision made for a light in the corridor. And as there was no bell to call for service, the only way of procuring help if one were taken sick in the night, was to grope along the dark corridor and go down the three flights of starlit steps in the courtyard to the office. Hence I began to think that there might be an advantage in having to share a double room with a stranger; for if either one were taken sick the other could go down to the office and wake up the hotel clerk. One’s valuables might not be as safe with a stranger but one’s life would be safer, and who would not prefer to lose his valuables rather than his life?
In the daytime, there was a quick way of communicating with the office, which had survived the centuries. A bell boy, who was also the chamber boy, messenger boy, etc., was on each floor listening for the sound of a gong in the court. When the office wanted to communicate with one of the floors, the clerk stepped to the corner of the court, or patio, and sounded the gong once, twice or three times, according to the floor he was calling, and shouted up the message or information to the boy. In the same way the boy could call the clerk and shout a message down to him. In busy times the gong sounded frequently, and as it was loud enough for the combination bell boy, chamber boy and man-of-all-work of each floor to hear, wherever he might be, it must have proved a great annoyance to occupants of the inside rooms who wished to take a midday siesta or retire early. But Napoleon slept soundly on battlefields, which, I suppose, were more noisy than this patio.
The plumbing was all in one corner of the building and fortunately could be reached only by a walk along the open air veranda around the court. It consisted of two toilet and two bath-rooms on each floor, one of the bath-rooms with a tub and the other with a shower. The plumbing system was old and imperfect, and would have been condemned in any real American city.
I have given all of this detail out of kindness to the landlord, that the guests may know beforehand what to expect and not give him the trouble I saw a lady guest give him before she accepted the inevitable.
But I was at my journey’s end, had recovered from the shock caused by the accommodations offered me at the Washington Hotel at Colón, and had resolved to enjoy a rest. And this resolve was the key to the situation, for after I had ceased to expect anything better I learned that I could perform the functions of eating, drinking, sleeping, talking, exercising, sight-seeing and faultfinding with about the same satisfaction as if in the most luxurious apartment. When one has nothing to do but lounge, luxuriate, find fault and get sick, then sumptuous apartments help to make life endurable. But as I was busy much of the time, I easily dispensed with modern luxuries, which are bad habits.
The temperature was 95 degrees F. in the shade at 1 P. M. and any pickaninny would have known enough to come in out of the sun. But I had experienced that temperature in the less humid and more bracing atmosphere of Chicago, and so I did as people do in Chicago during temporary hot spells, viz., went about actively and courted sunstroke and general tissue disorganization instead of taking a siesta. I took a walk on the Bóvedas, which is a promenade on the sea wall about a quarter of a mile long. Here it is quite cool in the evening and early morning, but as there are no trees it is scorching hot at midday. I also wandered about among the quaint old buildings and church ruins, and should have enjoyed it but for the extreme depression caused by the heat and humidity.
When I returned to the hotel I asked for a bath and found that they only had salt baths. As I wanted a good cleaning instead of an unclean salting, I gave it up and resolved to hunt a bath-house in the city, although so far I had not seen a house, excepting a few private ones, that looked clean enough for a bath.
I met Doctor Echeverría before dinner time, and we agreed to eat together during the week of waiting for the arrival of the medical congresistas. Doctor Echeverría was a Costa Rican and had been called from San José by the United Fruit Company to organize and develop their hospital and cemetery at Limón, and superintend all medical and mortuary matters pertaining to that port, which was the principal shipping place of the company.
The doctor, who had not heard from home since the washout at Colón, although he had sent a daily cablegram to his wife, invited me to take an appetizer and go to the cable office before having dinner—and I could not well refuse. While we were sipping our poison at one of the dozen or more tables of the spacious barroom, he told me that after coming down to Port Limón, whose lowland climate was tropical, from San José, whose highland climate was temperate, he at first drank no wine or liquor. But he soon found it more and more difficult to do his work; and after a time became depressed and morbid. His friends advised him to take a drink of liquor a short time before the eleven o’clock breakfast and another before dinner. He did so and his depression passed off, and he was again able to work with comfort. I do not know what effect it would have had on me not to take an appetizer before each meal while at Panama, for I had no negative experience. Either he and I, or some one else and I, were always lounging about before meals, and it was either my turn or that of the other one to treat.
In Doctor Echeverría’s case I suspect that he had become anemic and nervous from hard work, a common occurrence in the tropical lowlands, and the alcohol had produced a feeling of comfort in his mind and diminished his nervous tension, and had thus acted as medicine. A man who has a great deal of active physical work to do in the tropics, and gets up early and does a large part of it before eating anything except a roll and coffee, is apt to feel exhausted if he keeps on working during the heat of the forenoon, and to actually lose strength. The coffee and roll breakfast is for those whose work is not physically very active or prolonged, or is done later in the day. I am the more inclined to think the liquor relieved him by its anesthetic influence upon his nerves rather than by any curative action, because I have tried it faithfully on several occasions for indigestion, for loss of flesh, for insomnia and for debility, and have never experienced any beneficial results. In England I drank a bottle of Bass’ ale at my six o’clock dinner and another at bedtime for four months without deriving benefit, either by a recovery of the flesh I had lost or by rapid improvement of the debility of my overtaxed nervous system. I think that, with the rest I enjoyed, I would have recovered my usual health more quickly if I had not tasted the ale. In France I drank a pint bottle of claret at the noon and evening meals for several months, and perceived no benefit either in feelings or in appearance. In Panama I tried similar tactics, and when I arrived home was in a poorer condition in every way than when I left. Perhaps if I had eaten less, and drunk no liquor, I might have experienced benefit from my trip, but it would have meant social segregation. So I feel that I have now done my duty by alcoholic beverages. I have made a failure, but my conscience is clear. I can not make myself over again and must give them up, let come what may.
As an anesthetic, and therefore as a medicine in certain irritable conditions of the nerves, I have found it of temporary benefit, but not curative. My experience with sherry on the voyage back from Colón to Panama was good, but it did not prevent the seasickness from returning whenever the ship took a lively turn. Hence I would advise those who have no definite ideas about alcohol to consider it as a medicine to be prescribed by a first-class doctor; or a powerful poison to be taken as a means of dissipation while health lasts, but not as a salutary stimulant or a tonic. Liquors stimulate the stomach but also favor gastric fermentation and a tendency to inflammation; they bloat and fatten people sometimes, but do so temporarily by interfering with the destruction and excretion of the waste material of the body; they make people permanently rosy, but do so by dilating and weakening the superficial blood-vessels, and they betray the cause of the rosiness by producing a characteristic mottled marking of the cheeks and crimson rotundity of the nose, to say nothing of whiskey pimples. If taken in small quantities during active exercise alcohol may be burned up in the body for immediate use, but if taken at other times it burns the tissues and permanently injures them. Inflammation of the stomach, hobnail liver, Bright’s disease, heart-degeneration, dropsy, apoplexy and premature death from some acute diseases that would not prove fatal in a healthy being, are ordinary fates of those who have tried to improve on nature by the use of alcohol as a tonic or stimulant. Impaired brain power and transmission of such defect to the offspring, and thus the breeding of degenerates, is perhaps the worst result.
Doctor Echeverría was about forty years old, had received his medical education at New York, had practiced several years at San José and, after being called down to Port Limón by the United Fruit Company, had been sent by them to London to study tropical diseases. How much his student life in the United States and his sojourn in England had affected his character I do not know, but he had that gentleness of speech and quietness of demeanor which had always seemed to me to be found only in the Anglo-Saxon countries. And he had also that Spanish courtesy which we seldom see among Anglo-Saxons in its best form. Altogether he was one of the most perfect gentlemen I had met, and it was a great treat to sit tête-à-tête at table with him twice daily. He greatly admired our government, and thought that the faith it had kept with Cuba was a sign of true greatness. We are the only nation whose government lives up to the requirements of a Christian nation.
I was agreeably surprised at the hotel dinners, for I had been told that I should not like the hotel. I suspect that this somewhat prevalent bad impression had been made by the fact that when great crowds visit Panama, the hotel becomes crowded and the service is for the time insufficient. The provisions then become scanty, and canned salmon and canned vegetables intrude themselves disagreeably and perhaps unpardonably, although good food canned is better than poor food that has not been canned.
After dinner we met Señor McGill, who was the political representative and local “chip-bearer” of Venezuela, that intrepid and warlike South American republic that is not afraid of anybody, and would rather take a thrashing than refuse to fight; and which by means of its pugnacity and pertinacity has won the respect of the world. However, Señor McGill was everything but what I expected to see. He did not inspire me with terror. He was a slender, soft-voiced, mild-mannered, agreeable young bachelor whose bulging hip-pocket contained nothing but cigarets, who liked soft drinks and who seemed to be seeking anything rather than a quarrel. And I suspect that President Castro is not as black as he has been painted, and that during the recent political crises all he desired of the great powers was to be let alone. From his patronym, I should infer that Señor McGill was a descendant of one of those scions of Highland or Hibernian nobility who, in earlier days, either with or without letters of marque from the English government, ravaged the Spanish main, plundered Spaniards by preference and others without reference, and finally settled down as Venezuelan nabobs. But he was not that kind of a murderer; he was only a lady-killer. It seemed strange to see a McGill who could not speak English or Gaelic or Hibernian. Yet, he did speak English—not that fluent, eloquent, consonant crowded variation that we in the United States are accustomed to hear from Macs and Mc’s, nor the rough-and-ready dissonance of the naturalized Kaiser-Wilhelmite; but the soft disarticulation of the Spaniard who knows English until he begins to talk it, when the difficulties and duplicities of its pronunciation and his Iberic infirmity in sounding consonants bring to naught all of his knowledge of its phonology and construction.
After we had conversed awhile in a sort of crazy-quilted, downy mixture of Anglo-Spanish, he put the polished chip on his shoulder and invited us to knock it off, or take something. So we took something. It was the tyrannic custom of the country, to be fighting to kill your enemy or “taking something” to kill yourself. Taking something was about the only entertainment (?) available in the evening except cigaret smoking, which was mostly a solitary vice in Panama, and exempt from the sociable treating habit; for every man carried his own package of favorite cigarets and was smoking them, or supposed to be smoking them, all of the time. Games of cards were of course popular at the clubs, but were an expensive entertainment for people of ordinary financial resources who cared to have money for use in other ways.
Doctor Echeverría had several acquaintances in the city and offered to introduce me to some of them. Accordingly after an hour of conversation with Señor McGill, we left him to his cigarets and “treating” friends, and walked and mopped foreheads for three blocks down the street to call upon Señor Arango, a prominent young engineer of the place. The heat had forced the señor, who, like myself, looked as if his fat had already been melted and run off, to remove his coat, vest and collar. He, of course, put them on when we arrived and was thus prepared to liquefy with us. I sympathized with him for having to live in a country where, all the year around, collars, vests and coats were physical encumbrances yet social necessities. Clothing is supposed to protect and comfort the body, not to punish and injure it. The negroes have an advantage over the whites in this respect, for they adapt their clothing to the climate rather than to convention. But we cannot all be negroes, and there are drawbacks to being either white or black.
We were very pleasantly and cordially entertained. The ladies were animated and interesting, but unfortunately they did not converse in English. In the North my Spanish seemed good enough, but when exposed in the warm climate of Panama, and served to ladies, it became mushy and flavorless. It was cold storage stuff. The Panamanians speak so fast that even Doctor Echeverría, a native of Costa Rica, often found it difficult to understand them. But when it came to catching the meaning of the animated, fast talking ladies, and then framing animated, quick answers appropriate to the fairness of their sex and commensurate with the chivalric euphemism of the language, I was glad to talk plain English with Señor Arango. Having studied in the United States, he spoke our language fluently and with a soft, Southern accent that was charming.
Many Central Americans obtain a part of their education in the States and thus learn to speak English, and the building of the canal by Americans will cause many more of them to study it. Indeed, I think that in time the Panamanians, as well as the Cubans and Porto Ricans, will become North Americanized in their customs and habits, except in so far as they will be prevented by the enervating climatic conditions. South American young men more often go to France or Spain to complete their academic education, or take post graduate courses, and thus not only cultivate the French language, but are influenced largely by French customs and ideas. But the Panamanian ladies, who, of course, do not travel extensively, will now have a chance to learn and practice English at home, and perhaps lose thereby a portion of their charm. The Spanish spoken by the educated class of women is quite melodious, but that of lower class, native women, as we heard it on the streets, is anything but agreeable to listen to. They articulate rapidly and in a high pitch of voice, reminding one of the cackle of a hen who has just laid an egg, but with less accentuation. The cackle goes on until the breath is all out, and begins again with the next breath.
When we arose to go, Señor Arango insisted on walking and perspiring with us, keeping on his clothes for the purpose, and led us to the Southern Club in a three-story building near the plaza. As in nearly all buildings in Panama, the street floor was occupied by a store, which left the two upper ones for the use of the club. He took us to the second floor, where we found a bar and a bar-tender, but no one else—not even a mouse. What a lively club, I thought, with nobody but a bar-tender in it. No mischief going on. I did not know then, as I learned afterward when introduced to the club by Doctor Cook of Panama, that the reading and card rooms were on the third floor, and that it was lively up there where the seats and sitters were not all empty.
After the heat of our walk we were glad to seat ourselves on the little Spanish balcony at one of the windows and take the customary “treatment,” viz., a fresco. Señor Arango, who must have been younger than he looked, said that cola was very nice, so we ordered it. It was pop flavored with that name. Doctor Echeverría, who was inclined to be fleshy and had perspired freely, enjoyed it as any hot and thirsty man enjoys cool drinks, and he ordered more. Our host proposed a third round, but I discouraged it. It is no wonder that Central Americans take only an orange and coffee for their early breakfast, when they drink animated syrups in this way of evenings. Yet, after all, there is but little harm in spoiling a breakfast that consists of nothing to eat. Preliminary to separating for the night we sauntered over to the hotel and had another treat. My companions wanted more cola, but I grew desperate and impolite, and said that my stomach couldn’t stand any more cola or nectar; they were too sweet for my temperament, which preferred something bitter. The two pints I had already consumed were working like syrup in the sun, and I preferred to die for a sheep rather than a lamb, and would take a pint of Milwaukee beer to hurry up and complete the fermentation so that I might perhaps get a little convalescent sleep toward morning. Morally speaking, it was wicked for me to take any more alcoholic stimulant after having had the usual liberal Panama allowance during the day, but physically considered the end justified the means. The stomach as a vital organ had as much right to consideration as the head, and the head should share the evils of social customs with the stomach. Alcohol has always done me much less harm than sugar, and when I unfortunately have to choose between two devils I tackle the least. The two gentlemen gave no evidence of their surprise at my unceremonious declaration of honest opinion about their favorite fresco, for they were gentlemen. I was among gentlemen, and could say what I pleased without danger of open reproof. One can not always do so in Chicago and the Great West.
After they had consumed and complimented the Milwaukee beverage just as if it had been their favorite one, we parted, Señor Arango proposing a visit to his summer home on the sabanas (prairies) on the following Sunday.
I climbed up to my sublunar habitation, and as the electric lights on the plaza cast nearly as much light about my bed as the candle would have given, I did not light up. I concluded that candlelight would be of more service to malarious mosquitoes than to me. In Chicago I should have suffered great inconvenience at having no light in my bedroom, but having accepted the situation in Panama and having broken up the light habit, I was quite as happy without it. Happiness did not consist in having private illumination to enable me to see myself go to bed, but in being able to do without it. Unhappiness consists mainly of imaginary wants.
There were no window-panes in the hotel, and when the heavy shutters were opened up widely the cool night air came in freely and the mosquitoes remained outside under the electric lights, enabling me to settle myself to sleep with comparative peace and contentment. My experience on shipboard had rendered my sleep proof against noises, and had thoroughly broken in and hardened me to mattresses that were made to be cool but not to be comfortable.
After what seemed to be a short sleep I awoke, and noticed that the room was much darker than when I had retired. In a few minutes the cathedral clock across the square struck one and I raised myself in bed and looked toward it. But the electric light that had illumined the dial was out, as were, in fact, all of the street lights, and I could hardly see where the clock was. I inferred that the one stroke was for one o’clock and lights out, and wondered that I should wake up so early. I turned over to go to sleep again, but while turning over I thought that the room seemed a little lighter. I immediately turned back again and saw that it was really lighter. I raised upon my elbow, looked out and saw quite plainly by the clock, which could hardly be seen before I had turned over in bed, that the time was twenty-five minutes to six. Within five minutes of profound darkness it had become light enough for me to see the time of day by the clock. By twenty minutes of six it was daylight, and by a quarter to six it was almost as bright as at noonday. For a Chicagoan who had never been told or taught of such a dawn, and why it was so, to have gone to Panama, and then to have waked up early for the first time after leaving Chicago, such a sudden daybreak would have seemed a new miracle worthy of being compared with the standing still of the sun in Joshua’s time—only this time the sun had changed his tactics, and had taken a sudden leap over the horizon.
A couple of carts rattled over the cobblestones at six o’clock, whereupon I got up, looked out and saw workmen beginning work on a new building a short distance from the plaza. Men appeared on the street and the town seemed astir almost in a moment. Clerks were opening doors and window shutters, and one fellow was sprinkling the street in front of his store with a two-gallon sprinkling can such as are used for flowerbeds. It seemed strange to see full daylight develop in fifteen minutes and a sleeping city assume full activity in a half hour. In the North we consider Southerners indolent because they rest two hours in the middle of the day. But it is a wonder that they do not accuse us of indolence because our city workers sleep two or three hours after daylight in the summer mornings, and go to work at eight or nine o’clock when it is hot, instead of at six when it is cool.
My room was cool and pleasant at six-thirty, and I got out my clean clothes, consisting of gauze underwear, a negligee shirt, duck trousers and a skeleton coat. I felt, however, that I ought not to contaminate them by getting into them until I had taken a bath. I had perspired tubfuls of water since leaving New Orleans, ten days previously, but had not had a convincing, conscience-quieting, fresh-water, hot bath; only cold salt ones. Perspiration and dust, rain and disease had all been at me and about me. In the streets and in the barber shop I had seen skin diseases and hairless patches on heads, faces and necks, and felt sure that, like tobacco smoke (which is visible and scentable), some of the dust, or germs from diseased individuals, must have been wafted about me and into my hair, clothes and skin although I could not see them. There was only one way out of the difficulty and that was by means of baths, frequent, and uncompromising, soapy and scrubby. Plenty of soap and water outside, and alcohol and pop inside, seemed to be the only way to live out one’s shortened life in Panama.
Not having a magic ring or an oriental lamp to rub, I scratched my head while I wished for a bath-tub—and immediately found a small wash-basin. I wished for fresh water, and found a large pitcherful. I wished for a portable shower bath, and found my hands, two of them. I preferred a pitcherful of cold fresh water and a wash-basin to a bath-tub full of cold brine. I also reflected that a cold sponge bath with plenty of soap could be made more cleansing than a shower or tub bath with cold water, because the sponge bath could be kept up indefinitely, or until one was clean; whereas the cold shower or tub bath was a chilling affair, and must necessarily be of brief duration and not very soapy. In order not to injure the ceiling of the room below, I spread newspapers on the floor before the washstand, poured the washbowl two thirds full of water and stood for a moment shivering before it, for the cool night air still lingered in the room. It was a delightful sensation to feel chilly within eight degrees of the equator and only a few hours after the all-day boiling spell of the day before.
I rapidly washed my face, neck and shoulders, then wet my head and lathered it thoroughly with soap. In order to get the soap and dirt all out of my hair without irritating or infecting my eyes, I stood on my head in the washbasin (as far as my head and shoulders were concerned) and soaked and washed out the soap. I then changed water, and stood my head and neck and shoulders up side down again in the basin to rinse them. After wiping them I began to feel warm and in a mood for more work. I soaped my left chest and arm, then put my left elbow in the bath-tub, leaned my body over it and splashed and soaked off the soap, using my hand as a movable shower bath. I then did the same to the other side. Not being a woman, I had neither washrag nor powder rag to wash and dry myself, but had two heavy bath towels. The towel was a great success as a washrag in holding water and soaking off the soap; the ordinary little feminine washrag is a miserable makeshift and does not deserve the favor it enjoys. After a long period of cold splashing with my washrag and another of dry scrubbing with my powder rag, I transferred my bath-tub to the floor and stood in it right side up, and was able to complete the bath to my joy and satisfaction with the bowl and water that had originally been intended for face and hands only. As a schoolboy I had been an amateur contortionist, and was not disabled like most of my friends by the fear of bursting a bloodvessel or straining my heart. But what pleased me most of all was that I had had an hour of active exercise, and felt strengthened and refreshed by it. I had found an antidote to the sun’s deadly rays, a life-saving remedy. After getting my light tropical clothes on, I felt as if I wanted something more than the cup-of-coffee-and-half-a-roll-early-breakfast of the natives, and hurried down to the dining-room.
Early breakfast, called “coffee,” was served from six to eight o’clock on a long table in a small dining-room. Near each end of the table were a dish of oranges and a large platter upon which were piled round water rolls, similar to our round Vienna rolls. Two waiters stood at a sideboard, each with a long-handled tin pot of coffee in one hand and a corresponding pot of hot, unskimmed, fresh milk in the other, ready to serve a mixture of strong coffee and hot milk in any proportion asked for.
I found three men at the table, a young, slender, dark-skinned Panamanian and two elderly, dignified-looking, gray-haired and gray-eyed Americans about sixty years of age. The Panamanian was sipping a cup of coffee, smoking his cigaret and reading a newspaper that lay beside the coffee cup. By the time his cigaret was half smoked the coffee cup was emptied, and he left the room—one of those fellows who can eat anything but food, and drink anything but water. I was sure that he had not had an appetizing sponge bath that morning, or he would not have breakfasted on a few whiffs of smoke. However, he had the advantage of me in being able to satisfy his appetite with other whiffs if he became hungry before noon. Perhaps he was a club man and had worked his head and stomach hard all night. While I was helping myself to an orange, the large, portly, dignified-looking American at the head of the table suddenly called out in a loud American voice:
“Where is that head waiter? Why doesn’t he bring my eggs?”
The two waiters immediately rushed out of the room and back, and tried to say in broken English that the head waiter was not there. Since nothing but coffee, rolls and oranges belonged to the first breakfast, it was necessary to order the eggs and pay extra for them, and if one came down pretty early (as heavy-eating, light sleepers usually do), there was apt to be some delay in getting them. Hot fires and head waiters were not usually going at so early an hour.
The old man glared at the waiters fiercely and they stared at him stupidly, not daring to drop their eyes. After a few moments he again broke out:
“Hasn’t that head waiter been found yet? Where is the second head waiter—or the third head waiter? Telegraph to Spain for a live one. This is great service for eight dollars a day. Not even anything to eat when you pay extra for it. If you want an egg you’ve got to fight for it—nothing short of a revolution will make a hen lay, or an egg cook in this country.”
Just then a waiter, rendered nervous by the, to him, unintelligible thunder, allowed a roll to drop on the floor as he was passing them around, and the other waiter quickly picked it up and put it back among the rolls on the table. The second old man who was also waiting for eggs, exchanged glances with me, and I expected him also to speak his mind about the eggs and rolls and waiters; but he did not, for he undoubtedly felt that the efforts of the first speaker would bring his eggs also, and that all of the rolls had been in dirty hands and baskets, and on dusty tables and floors long ago. By way of relieving the tension I said to the one who had been complaining:
“These waiters are native Panamanians and do not understand United States, and how to wait on Americans.”
“They are Panamaniacs,” he growled, “and don’t know how to do anything but wait. They’d wait until a man starved. If these Panamaniacs would stir around and do more working and less waiting they would have an appetite themselves for breakfast, and learn the use of food.”
“I’ll speak to them in Spanish. Perhaps it will start them up,” I said. So I called to one of them in a loud voice:
“Camerero! Busqueme un toreador.” (Waiter! Bring me a bull-fighter.)
“Toreador?” (Bull-fighter) he exclaimed with a look of amazement.
“Si, toreador,” I said. “Por qué no? Es para tener este naranja.” (Yes; bull-fighter. Why not? He is to hold this orange.)
“Pardone, Señor, creo que Vd. quiere un tenedor.” (I beg your pardon, sir, I think you want a fork.)
“Como Vd. quiere” (As you like), I answered, as if I had made no mistake. “Es lo mismo. Quiero enseñar á estos Norte Americanos como se come una naranja. Ellos no saben nada, absolutamente nada. No saben ni comer ni hablar.” (It’s the same thing. I wish to teach these North Americans how to eat an orange. They know nothing, absolutely nothing. They neither know how to eat nor talk.)
The waiter seemed much relieved by this information and said in Spanish that waiters had to be smart men, but travelers who paid for the privilege, had the right to be fools; and went out smiling with polite rage. A moment later the eggs were brought in and the two old gentlemen were soon busy and better natured. The milder one who had allowed the other to do the talking said to me:
“I see that your Spanish did some good.”
“Yes,” chimed in the fiery one, “when you talk to a horse you must talk horse.”
As the result of my long sponge bath, I felt that I myself could enjoy three or four boiled eggs, but I remembered the old adage: “When in Rome do as the Romans do.” As we were to have a hearty meal at eleven o’clock, eggs eaten now would spoil that meal, or if they did not, then the hearty meal eaten so soon after eggs would spoil them. In fact, the fat old gentleman was just recovering from an attack of rheumatism, probably brought on by eating and sitting too much. Accordingly I drank two cups of half coffee and half milk and ate two oranges and two rolls, and left the table feeling quite comfortable inwardly. The Central American takes his café-au-lait with merely enough nourishment to prevent a feeling of emptiness or weakness during the forenoon, but not enough to prevent an appetite for a hearty meal at eleven o’clock, which is usually only three or four hours later.
The Central American coffee is not only made quite strong, but it has a bitter, resinous taste which is developed by roasting it until burnt, and then by boiling it. At first I did not relish it, but after learning to dilute it with an equal quantity of the hot, unskimmed milk, I became very fond of it. Its heavy flavor seemed to give it something of the taste of food as well as being a drink.