ALONG PANAMA RAILROAD
CHAPTER VI
Panama
Origin of the Name Panama—Suggestions for Change of Name—Enlightening a Cab Driver—Scalping in the United States—A Cure for Obesity—Shirking—Description of Road from the Railroad Station to the Hotel Centrál—Plaza Centrál—Tips—The Negro in the North and South—Dr. Frank’s Opinion—How the Tropical Negro’s Wants Are Satisfied—Opportunities for Negroes and Mulattoes in the Tropics—Solution of the Race Problem.
We are told that Panama is the Indian name for good fishing place, or place abounding in fish. Judging from the hotel fare this might be so, for when we did not have canned fish, we had fresh. But this explanation is regarded by archæologists as a fish story and lacks anthropologic evidence. As to etymology, the name sounds and looks more like Greek, Latin or Spanish than Indian. Panamahaha would sound more like an Indian name and would express more.
One enthusiastic writer says the name Panama was given to the city because it is the oldest city on the continent, the Pa and Ma of American cities. The simplicity of the explanation gives it weight. Simplicity and truth are twins, and simplicity was born first.
A Spanish scientist asserts that the original name was Panima from Pa ni Ma, which means neither father nor mother. He claims that as the first city of America, it had neither father nor mother. This is simpler still.
A Scandinavian historian thinks that the original name was Panamerica, which is Swedish. Eric was cut out later, and Panama was left.
A celebrated English captain, whose name has been forgotten, thinks that the real name was Panamaniac, because the inhabitants were unlike the English, and refers to the capture of Panama by Morgan the pirate as proof. The inhabitants who went forth to fight insanely allowed themselves to be scattered and driven back by their own horses and cows. He says that the English do not fear these animals.
Sportsmen say that the name is Indian and that it refers to the method of fishing formerly in vogue by the natives. The fisherman leans over the water and agitates it with his beard and lips, whereupon the fish, who can not distinguish a dark colored face above the surface of the water from a tree trunk, takes the agitation of the water for that made by bugs, darts at the place and lands between the Indian’s teeth, and is caught.