Many readers will conclude to wait until the United States has finished the reconstruction of the climate and country before going there, and will agree with me in saying that traveling in the tropics, like eating and sleeping, should be done at home. Indeed, the absurdity of the notion that it is necessary to leave home in order to study a guide book, should be taught to our travel-stricken public. Quarantine, yellow fever, yellow jaundice, black water fever, white swelling, elephantiasis, ague, anemia, neurasthenia, berri-berri, leprosy, dengue, dropsy, dysentery, drinking habits, and dozens of other dread diseases and denouements lie in wait in the tropics. The romance of these things does not consist in exposing oneself to them, but in letting others do it, and of reading about it afterward.

PART I


TO PANAMA

PANAMA FLAG

Part I


CHAPTER I

Chicago to New Orleans—Principally Chicago