Tramps should go to Panama and by lying fallow renew the exhausted and dissipated physical stock of their ancestry. There they can feast on the plentiful bananas, pineapples, mangoes, papayas and breadfruit, take siestas under inviting palm trees, and lodge cheaply under wayside wagons, or in dried mudholes, according to the season. They need not toil, neither need they spin, yet not Solomon with all his wives to keep his house from him ever took the comfort they can take. Never to be cold or hungry, nor to be reproached for improvidence, nor be brought to want for not working, nor to be dependent upon saloons and jails to keep from starving and freezing; such is the paradise awaiting them on the isthmus.
Only the rich man can not take advantage of the conditions in Panama. The waiters are not well enough trained, the first breakfast is too skimpy, extras are too difficult to procure, furniture is too uncomfortable, perspiration too wet, etc. The rich man starves, tires out, gets sick and has to return to the North, with its steam-heated houses and complex cuisine, to save his life and live in comfort—if the rich ever do live in comfort. Some think they do, but they don’t—although they might easily learn how from their servants.
We shopped a little, buying Porto Rican straw hats, duck trousers and other thin clothes, and found the prices about the same as those in the United States for similar articles of good quality, but much cheaper than in Costa Rica. Although the tickets were not yet on sale, we engaged seats for the bull-fight that was to take place Sunday, January 1st. I had never seen a bull-fight, although I often had wished to. I did not hanker after the so-called entertainment, but as a student of the Spanish people and of their literature I considered it a ceremony of educational and emotional value. We had intended visiting some of the Chinese silk and curio stores, but the general custom of closing at about five o’clock made it necessary to postpone this part of it. As we were four or five blocks from home, my companions insisted upon taking a cab to the hotel. I preferred walking, which was better for the health, but being in Panama had to do as the Panamanians did. The five-minute ride, however, cooled us off and made us feel better, showing that the end justified the means.
During our walk and ride Señor McGill kept lighting cigarets and would have kept us doing the same if we had not refused. Doctor Echeverría did not smoke and I only smoked cigars. The señor was, however, very moderate for a South American, for he only smoked about a dozen cigarets during the afternoon. One of our delegates, a physician from San Salvador, said that he smoked about seventy-five a day, and that many of his acquaintances did likewise. It serves to keep men occupied, just as embroidering and knitting serve to keep women occupied. As the tobacco in the Central and South American cigaret is very black and much stronger than in those made in the United States, I should say that seventy-five of the former would equal about a hundred and fifty of the latter in its effect upon the nerves. Evolution can go no farther. Such consummate cigaret fiends are however not common in the United States. Yet the habit seems to influence men badly whether they smoke strong or weak tobacco. The practice of smoking often, seems to grow on them until finally they want to light a cigaret every time they meet a friend or have a moment of leisure. They light one every time they sit down, again when they get up, and every time they hear news or wish to impart news to others. One can keep tab on their feelings and impressions and intentions by watching their cigaret play. The habit leads them to give way to their impulses and inclinations without resistance, and they finally get to smoking automatically, without thinking about it and without really enjoying it. They smoke with the same kind of nervous satisfaction that Napoleon walked the floor when he dictated correspondence, and with correspondingly direful results. It affects themselves and their friends, however, instead of their foes, for it keeps them smelling worse than a groom. The habitual cigaret smoker habitually smells. There is only one worse habit, and that is to go about publicly sucking an old pipe. This hurts every one within sight.
Señor McGill left us at the hotel, and the doctor and I went to our rooms to replace wilted linen. I had just removed my coat and collar, and was pulling my outer shirt over my head when the dusky maiden of many seasons came in to fix my room. I got a glimpse of her in time, and pulled the garment down with a jerk and cried, “Get out! Scat! Don’t you know better than to frighten a man to death in this way?” I hadn’t time to compose anything but plain English.
“Si, señor!” she said, as she started for the water pitcher.
“You’ve seen enough. Get out, I say.”
She merely smiled in a matter-of-fact way as if to say, “Don’t mention it. I’ll excuse it this time.” Tropical women seem to know that men have no modesty.
I was too nervous to speak Spanish, and she was too stupid to guess what my English meant, so I pointed sternly at the door. She looked at my outstretched arm and, seeing no weapon in it, smiled again and said, “Si, señor!”
Finally I got the combination and shouted: