CHAPTER III
PICTURESQUE PANAMA
A Panamanian cart loaded with English tea biscuit, drawn by an old American army mule, driven by a Hindoo wearing a turban, drove up in front of a Chinese shop. The Jamaican clerk, aided by the San Blas errand boy, came out to supervise the unloading. The mule wriggled about out of position, a Spanish policeman came along and everybody got out and "cussed" the mule.
That is Panama, every day. Across the street is an Italian lace shop run by a Jew. Next door is a printery, operated by a Costa Rican. Just beyond is a French laundry conducted by a man from Switzerland, and on the next corner is a beautiful Chinese store where they sell everything from Japan. Cloisonné and lacquer and curious carvings, silks, embroideries, scientific instruments—they are all here. You can buy Canton linen, Hongkong brass, Nikko carvings, Hindoo embroidery, German cutlery, French microscopes, Canadian flour, New York apples, and California grapes all within a block. And the products of Central and South America are all about.
The street in front of the shops is full of Panamanians, Peruvians, Ecuadorians, Chileans, Colombians, and San Blas Indians, besides some representatives of every country of North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Canal Zone Americans walk past Yankee business men, and native police crowd the mestizos off the sidewalk.
Panama is a jitney town, and the honk of the never-silent horn punctuates the clang and dash of the trolleys and automobiles down a fifteen-foot street in a mad race to see which can get through first. Overhanging roofs nearly touch above blooming orchids and talking birds that scream across the narrow streets. Gloomy interiors and stumbling stairways lead up to spacious apartments and breezy balconies. Above are occasional roof-gardens. All the rooms have high ceilings, all the streets are paved, and all the kids wear clothes—sometimes.
There is no possible human shade or tint that is absent here. The Anglo-Saxons are white, more or less. The Jamaicans are black, mostly. The Panamanian is most often a soft and pleasing brown, done in a number of wholly unmatchable tints. And the natives from these many sunny countries round about are of every known color-tone, from chrome yellow to Paris green. This is the human kaleidoscope of the earth: shake it up and you will get a different result every time.
