SQUARE IN COLÓN
Showing Tent of the Merry-go-round
The Washington Hotel was, in fact, the only one in which one could live without suffering in health from the heat, noises and inconveniences. It was not a good hotel, but it had three features that rendered it attractive, viz., its name, a bath-house and a sea breeze. The reason for the difficulty in obtaining lodging was that it belonged to the Panama railway and was leased to the manager rent free, with the proviso that he was to be ready at all times to take care of any of the railroad employees that might be sent there. This made it necessary for him to wait until late in the day before filling all of his rooms. His foreign diplomacy that repelled the doctors was dictated by American business methods.
While I was waiting, Doctors Frank and Newman invited me to camp with them for a few hours or days until I could get a bed elsewhere. I accepted, and found them located in the same old three-bedded, one-sided, breezeless bunking-place in the wing of the building, that had driven me away two weeks before. It was a sort of room-like receptacle used for late comers. The third bed was occupied by a stranger, and the place was so full of the belongings of the three occupants that there was not even space for me to sleep on the floor.
After piling my things behind the door and under the table I went to the combination sitting-room, writing-room and barroom. This was about twenty feet square and the only place to sit in unless we except the barber’s den, which was about ten feet square, and the hotel office, which was of the same size but more than half filled by a large flat desk. The hotel conveniences were practically all out-of-doors, and every one sat on the lower veranda, where the steady sea breeze blew as if from a thousand electric fans. The veranda was worth forty parlors and sitting-rooms, and no one complained.
I waited patiently until the hotel-keeper had taken the indispensable siesta, and was rewarded by getting a bed in a double room on the second or upper floor. It had a door and window facing the sea to let the breeze in, and another door and window on the opposite side to let the breeze out, and covered verandas on both sides. By keeping the windows and doors open a veritable gale could be kept blowing through the room and over the beds day and night, thus making sleep not only possible, but delightful and refreshing. It was like being blown into the temperate zone, like going home for the night; and I felt that with this room and the lower veranda I could remain at Colón a month with great benefit to my health, instead of daily losing ground as those who were staying at the other hotels certainly would.
WASHINGTON HOTEL, STREET FRONT, COLÓN
Behind the lower sign a short passageway leading
through to the water front