Prowling about Panama

by George A. Miller

The Panamanian is the predominant man in the interior country. He is not black, nor is he entirely white, but he has straight hair and features that indicate that he is a descendant of the original Indian stock, mixed with the Spanish conquerors who overran the country in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Probably the Panamanian has had less opportunity for advancement than the people of any other country in America. He has had no chance for national life or political self-expression. He has been the victim of the most vigorous and long-continued era of piracy and plunder that the New World has experienced. He has suffered from bad leadership when he has had any leadership at all. He has been exploited by everybody who came to the Isthmus. From the days of Morgan down to the formation of the present Republic, under American protection and guarantee of peace within and without, this native has been the outcast of the world and the national goat of the American flock of nations. He has been kept in ignorance and superstition by the exclusive control of a system of religious oppression and subjection, and if by chance he happened to acquire anything worth getting, somebody was always ready to take it away from him.

This native supplies the labor for such enterprises as have been launched in the fertile western regions of Panama. With anything like good treatment he gives a return for his wages, and if he has a chance to acquire sound health, an intelligent outlook on life, and a share in the results of his labors, he can be made over into a good citizen. He is not a bad citizen now, but he is very much undeveloped.

The products of this great interior region are many and their proceeds in the world's markets are profitable. Present prices make large opportunities for investment, and a reorganization of marketing facilities will mark the beginning of an era of prosperity for Panama. The list of products now being raised in and exported from Panama is a surprisingly long one, and the total of returns from these commodities would give a western real estate promoter material for many prospectuses and promises.

The chief products of the country at present are bananas, lumber, rice, sugar, cacao, meat, citrus fruits, corn, coffee, and coconuts. But there are a hundred other products, many of which indicate large returns if produced and marketed on a commercial scale. Rubber, ivory, nuts, hides, beans, pineapples, potatoes, yams, yucca, cotton, tobacco, plantain, a long list of fruits and vegetables of high value, and a number of minerals are but a few of the useful commodities now being supplied to the markets of the Canal Zone and the world from the interior country of Panama. Nearly every vegetable that grows in the temperate climate does well in Panama. Some of the native fruits, such as papayas, mangoes, and alligator pears, are of delicious flavor and high value. The waters of Panama abound in vast quantities of fish, and there is supply for a number of fish canneries. Live stock thrives and is produced in considerable numbers in the provinces of Coclé and Chiriqui. The Canal Zone is now being used as a farming enterprise and stock grazing range by the administration of the Zone with the intention of making the Zone area self-supporting in meat and fruit and vegetables.

GOOD PINEAPPLES GROW HERE

With an average import trade of ten millions and an export of more than half that amount, Panama is even to-day a factor in the world's markets. It must be said that the largest item on the import list is that of goods shipped to the Zone, and that the chief export is bananas shipped from Almirante, but these items indicate large possibilities in further developments of territories as yet untouched.

The interior of Panama includes three general types of country, very different in climate and produce. The high mountains are a large area of country, much of which is fertile soil clear to the peaks, and all of which on the northern slopes is covered with jungle and forest. These wooded slopes are wet with abundant rainfall, and luxuriant foliage of tropical forms bewilders the traveler with illusions of fantastic creations of nature run mad over the earth. These mountainous parts are for the most part uninhabited, except by the more or less wild Indians, who live apart much as they were living four hundred years ago. No white men have tried to maintain themselves in these regions, and in some districts it is said that a white man's life is unsafe overnight. Tropical beasts and reptiles and birds abound among the weird forms of vegetation that seem to be perpetrating grotesque jokes on the bewildered visitor to the regions beyond the realm of civilized habitations. There are as yet no efforts made to establish towns or plantations in this country. Yet if cleared and cultivated, these regions are capable of supporting a population as dense as that of Porto Rico, where the steep hills and rocky peaks are covered with a population of over three hundred per square mile.