THE FAITHFUL MULE IS THE SHIP OF THE JUNGLE
THE HOMEWARD WAY AT NIGHTFALL
It all began with Columbus himself when he sailed into Almirante Bay and thought that he had found in Chiriqui Lagoon the long-sought passage to India. What he really found, what was to follow his discovery, he could not have dreamed, adventurer that he was! Almirante (Admiral), Cristobal (Christopher), and Colon (Columbus) remain to-day to remind us of the illustrious explorer who first set foot on Panama. But Columbus gave us Panama, and never knew! It was Balboa who first saw the waters of the wide Pacific from the summits of the Isthmian hills. It was Pizarro who packed across the fifty miles of jungle the timbers of the ships which he put together on the beach of the Pacific and with which he discovered Peru, after indescribable hardships and repeated attempts to find the "hill of gold."
On the Pacific side of the Isthmus was founded Old Panama, the first city of the New World, where to-day majestic ruins stand, a fitting shrine for the reverent pilgrim. And between Old Panama and Porto Bello stretches the famous Paved Trail of Las Cruces.
Along this trail lurked the trouble-hunters and makers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. For two hundred years the tinkle of the bells of the gold-laden pack mules was never silent. On this jungle path, when stolen gold was carried by the sackful, trouble was certain to follow. The big trail was a pathway of blood, robbery, and intrigue. All the worst passions and performances of depraved men turned loose and ran riot for a century and a half. These were the days when life was raw and rough at Panama.
To-day the old trail is covered with palms and decorated with orchids. Occasional stones trace the outline of the ancient highway. Where the drunken and ribald song of the muleteer rose about the camp-fire at night, canaries and parrakeets now chatter and sing. The soft caress of the jungle breeze whispers no tales of the days when the trail could be traced by the bleaching bones that lined the right-of-way. The jungle is nature's great blotter for the sins, sorrows, and sufferings of an age now forgotten—but it all happened in Panama.
Panama is not all jungle. To the westward stretch great savannas, between the mountains and the sea; miles and miles of smooth and level country open, fair and well watered, only waiting for the tickle of American cultivation to laugh a crop. It makes a real estate man's fingers itch; but that is another story. Where a little cultivation has been inadvertently perpetrated on the land, tall sugar cane, luscious fruits, and toothsome vegetables attest the quality of the soil and the climate.
Frequent rivers, numerous inlets on the coast line, occasional interesting native towns, old churches, impossible "roads," meandering trails, scattered herds of fat cattle, a few sugar mills, numerous trapiches (cane grinders), fenced patreros (pastures), and everywhere the mixed-blood natives—this is Panama in the western provinces.