President Amador and Mrs. Amador were present, having embraced this opportunity to make the excursion with us and visit their country residence on the Island of Toboga where they were to remain a few days. Colonel Gorgas and Captain Carter and their families, as well as several other Canal Zone and Panamanian government officials, were also among the passengers.
Two boats had been engaged and two banquets prepared, but as half of the congress was still on the Atlantic Ocean, there was no use in reserving a boat and a banquet for it on the Pacific, so we discharged one boat and took all of the provisions with us on the other, thus guarding against a banqueters’ famine.
As we steamed along the shore our old Spanish-looking town of Panama was on our left and the tropical islands on our right. The city, which occupied a rugged projection of land, was a picturesque sight in the intense morning sunlight. The white gleaming walls, dark roofs and deep shadows formed a lively contrast, and were beautifully framed by the blue of the sea below and sky above, and the green of the foliage around them. When opposite the city the boat turned stern toward Panama and passed outward between the islands, some of which were quite large and some very small. The small ones looked like mountain-tops and ridges projecting out of the water, and probably formed parts of a submerged ridge. The sea was smooth and the sea breeze felt refreshing and cool to us in our duck pants and pongee coats, and the two hours of riding to Toboga passed quickly and comfortably. The word comfortably expresses a great deal in the tropics, and means more than the words fun and enjoyment. There is a suggestion of good luck and thankfulness in it.
At Toboga a cluster of tiny red-tiled houses stretched along the shore between the blue sea in front and the higher, densely foliaged land behind, constituting a little fishing village of wondrous beauty as viewed from the boat. Arriving off shore we sent the President and Mrs. Amador to the beach in a row boat, for there was no disfigurement of nature by piers or breakwaters.
Tempted by the beauty and novelty of the foliage, several of us hired one of the row boats that hovered about the steamer, and were soon on dry land. As a fresh cooling sea breeze was blowing we had a pleasant walk of about a quarter of a mile to the sanatorium, a two-story, wooden, rectangular building which was built on posts over the water’s edge and girded by the conventional wide veranda. It is said to have cost about $200,000, and was built for convalescent and debilitated employees of the French Canal Company. In Chicago it could have been built, I should say, for about $2,000, but would have been a ruin long ago. There were good baths and a fine spring near by. With the island-bound bay and cool sea breeze on one side and the luxuriant tropical forest on the other, it was an ideal place for invalids and poets, but a very idle place for well people. It was a place for lounging, dreaming, bathing, smoking, and romantic gazing at the beautiful sky and earth. But active outdoor sports were incompatible with the climate, and the social and business activities that were needful to relieve the monotonous splendor of nature were lacking.
TABOGA ISLAND
We sauntered back to the landing-place picking ripe mangoes and accepting large pineapples from the natives, who would take no pay because we were guests of the president. Altogether the novelty of the little stroll on this most beautiful of tropical islands produced a feeling of enthusiasm and admiration for nature such as we used to experience as boys when we visited new scenes with new eyes. It seemed like something new under the sun.
On our way back to Panama we sat down to a banquet breakfast of the same character as on the sabanas the day before and which, with the sea air, the stroll on the island, and the starvation “coffee-breakfast” in the early morning to perform the function of appetizers, we ate with as much if not more relish.
In the evening Dr. Lucy Waite, Doctor Senn and myself dined with the Pan-American peacemaker, John Barrett, and his secretary in their interesting bachelor apartments near Plaza Centrál. Innumerable pictures and mementoes gathered by Mr. Barrett during his travels and while he was representing the United States at the courts of the mighty, gave the place the interest of a museum of art. We felt that we were fortunate in having him devote an evening to us, for he was one of the busiest men in Panama. But I have learned in my dealings with North Americans that the busiest men nearly always have more time for extra work than those who have not enough to do. A successful, busy man seldom does as others do, and Mr. Barrett did not do as the Panamanians did. The words siesta, gossip and barroom were meaningless to him. He paid no attention to the rule that one should neither drink hard nor work hard in the tropics. His motto was: “Work everywhere, drink nowhere.” He was such a hustler that grass did not grow under his feet nor hair on his head. He had traveled extensively in the Orient. He had visited the five great viceroys of China and had sat upon the dais with the Empress Dowager and had talked her out of 700,000 taels. He arrived at Manila only ten days after Admiral Dewey, and outstayed him. He became personally acquainted with Aguinaldo and thus was more successful than Dewey. The Sultan of Sulu offered him a harem, but he was busy, and had to refuse. While U. S. minister to Siam he accepted, however, an invitation to address the graduating class of the Young Ladies’ Seminary of Bangkok, and told them that they were charming young ladies, but soon would be old cows with their tongues hanging out. He had mistranslated his well-prepared English manuscript and had mispronounced what he did not mistranslate. He was excused on account of his youth and beauty, and because he came from a new country where refined speech and Oriental etiquette were not cultivated. He had also been minister to Argentina, but he did not mention the breaches he had made there. Possibly there was not time enough.