“You don’t mean to tell me that them ill-treat a man down here?” asked Jones, beginning to feel alarmed.
“No; not if you don’t interfere wid them. There is plenty of law in the Zone, like in Jamaica. If you mind you’ own business, do you’ work, an’ keep you’self to you’self, you will be perfectly all right. But of course if you abuse them, an’ go about an’ talk all the time about you are a British subject, some of them will hurt you. You meet some of the toughest men in the world down here. I don’t know where them come from!”
“This is a funny place, me friend!” cried Jones indignantly. “They don’t seem to care about a man’s feelings at all. If I was a married man now, what that American say or do would not affect my peace of mind; but I am not a married man. An’ yet I don’t like the prospective view of livin’ in Colon, an’ I can’t leave Sue to live by herself. You don’t think she could come with me as me cousin?”
Mackenzie explained that the Canal Zone authorities drew the line sternly at unmarried cousins.
“Well, in that case Sue an’ me will have to live in Colon, an’ the Americans can keep their house. What am I to do now?”
Mackenzie advised him to report himself at the railway machine shop without delay, and propose to turn in to work the next morning. They would allow him time to get quarters in Colon. He, Mackenzie, was on vacation this week, and would help Jones to find a suitable apartment in a decent part of the town.
Together they went to the machine shop, where Jones beheld in one great building more engines than he had ever seen in his life. They were of all sizes, from the diminutive engines used on soft ground or for conveying materials to the workmen, to the giant locomotives that could pull any number of laden freight cars at high speed. Hundreds of men were at work in this place repairing the engines, the air resounded with the clangour of hammers striking on hard metal, the workers swarmed under and around the iron monsters as though they were ants. Jones was impressed. Here was something he could understand: this mere collection of railway machinery told him, as nothing else could have done, that the building of the Panama Canal was a stupendous undertaking. He allowed Mackenzie to do most of the talking for him, and it was agreed that he should not report himself for service until eight o’clock on the following morning.
This matter settled, they went back to Susan, who had managed to procure some breakfast in the meantime; then the three of them set out on the hunt for a large apartment. The rain, having temporarily exhausted its energies during the night, was not falling now, indeed Mackenzie thought that there wouldn’t be much rain that day. It was gloomy enough overhead, but here and there the clouds had broken, allowing tiny patches of muddy blue to be seen. Colon was wet; but, compared with its condition on the day before, it might almost be said that Colon was bright. The people moving about were in cheerful spirits. Susan herself began to feel lively.
Through the assistance of Mackenzie they secured an apartment in Cash Street, at reasonable terms. Cash Street, probably originally so called on account of its poverty, ran in an east and west direction, was the third long thoroughfare behind Front Street, and therefore was near to the water-front and in the very heart of the populous town. There were numerous cross-streets in Colon, running in a north and south direction and indicated by numbers; the house in which Susan was to live was situated at the corner of one of these crossings: 6th Street it was called. It was a new building, three storeys high, all of wood, with very wide verandas, and painted a bright pink. The ground floor or first storey was devoted to commerce; there a haberdashery shop, a barber’s saloon, and a flourishing public-house found accommodation, and all these businesses did a thriving trade. Susan selected a corner room on the second storey, a room opening on a veranda six feet wide and commanding a view of Cash and 6th Streets. Her inspection of the premises showed her that privacy—even such limited privacy as the poorest might enjoy in Kingston—was not appreciated here. For the tenants kept their doors wide open and were singularly indifferent as to who should see them or what they might be seen doing, while it was as easy to gaze into the apartments of the houses opposite and watch the inmates going about their intimate household duties. She noticed too that the people living in the apartments near hers spoke English. As a matter of fact many of the tenants in this house were British West Indians.
The room engaged, they started out on another important errand, and again Mackenzie was of great assistance. He took them to a furniture shop, where Susan selected a “set” [suite] of furniture, which was to be sent to her new address at once. The salesman, being a Chinaman, did not imagine that “at once” signified some time in the indefinite future, hence the furniture arrived at its destination soon after its purchasers did. It did not take long to arrange it as Susan directed; this done, the men went for the trunks which Susan and Jones had taken with them to the lodging near the swamps the night before. These trunks contained not only clothing but some domestic linen, or, to be accurate, some domestic calico, and while the men were away Susan bought a couple of small iron stoves, a few plates, and some other things which a good housekeeper must have. She learnt that the cooking and the washing must be done on the veranda or in the open courtyard below, which was always wet and could be stared into by all the people passing by. She decided for the veranda. In the courtyard, in addition to washtubs and cooking-stoves, were quite a number of babies ranging from six months to five years of age, and all stark naked, in accordance with the prevailing fashion of tropical Spanish America. To naked babies she was not accustomed. So she resolutely set her face against the courtyard.