A LIGHT HOUSE IN THE JUNGLE
I saw the upper Chagres in the last days of its existence as a swirling stream full of rapids, rushing along a narrow channel between banks sometimes rising in limestone cliffs 60 feet high and capped by dense tropical foliage ascending perhaps as much higher into the blue tropical sky. The river was at its best and most picturesque as at the opening of the dry season we poled our way up from Matachin towards its source. Then Matachin was a hamlet of canal workers, and a weekly market for the natives who brought thither boat loads of oranges, bananas, yams and plantains. Sometimes they carried stranger cargoes. I heard a commission given one native to fetch down a young tiger for somebody who wanted to emulate Sarah Bernhardt in the choice of pets. Iguanas, the great edible lizard of Panama, young deer, and cages of parrots or paroquets occasionally appear. But as a market Matachin is doomed, for it is to be submerged. With it will go an interesting discussion of the etymology of its name, one party holding that it signifies “dead Chinamen” as being the spot where imported Chinese coolies died in throngs of homesickness during the construction of the Panama Railroad. But the word also means “butcher” in Spanish and some think it commemorates some massacre of the early days. However sanguinary its origin there will presently be water enough to wash out all the stains of blood. In 1913 the place was one of the principal zone villages, with large machine shops and a labor colony exceeding 1500 in number. All vanishes before the rising lake, which will be here a mile wide.
The native craft by which alone the Chagres could be navigated prior to the creation of the lake are long, slender canoes fashioned usually from the trunks of the espevé tree, hollowed out by fire and shaped within and without with the indispensable machete. It is said that occasionally one is hewn from a mahogany log, for the native has little idea of the comparative value of the different kinds of timber. Mahogany and rosewood logs worth thousands of dollars in New York are doing humble service in native huts in Panama. But the native has a very clear understanding of the comparative labor involved in hewing out a hardwood log, and the cayucas are therefore mainly of the softer espevé, a compact wood with but little grain which does not crack or splinter when dragged roughly over the rocks of the innumerable rapids. The river cayuca is about 25 feet along with an extreme beam of about 21⁄2 feet and a draft of 6 to 10 inches. Naturally it is crank and can tip a white man into the stream with singular celerity, usually righting itself and speeding swiftly away with the rushing current. But the natives tread it as confidently as though it were a scow. For upstream propulsion long poles are used, there being usually two men to a boat, though one man standing in the stern of a 30-foot loaded cayuca and thrusting it merrily up stream, through rocky rapids and swirling whirlpools is no uncommon sight.
Photo by Underwood & Underwood
THE RIVERSIDE MARKET AT MATACHIN
Our craft was longer—35 feet in all, and in the official service of the Canal commission had risen to the dignity of a coat of green paint besides having a captain and a crew of two men. Our captain, though but in his nineteenth year, was a person of some dignity, conveying his orders to the crew in tones of command, though not averse to joining in the lively badinage with which they greeted passing boatmen, or rallied maidens, washing linen in the streams, upon their slightly concealed charms. The corrupt Spanish they spoke made it difficult to do more than catch the general import of these playful interchanges. Curiously enough the native peasant has no desire to learn English, and frequently conceals that accomplishment, if he has attained it, as though it were a thing of which to be ashamed. This attitude is the more perplexing in view of the fact that the commission pays more to English speaking natives.
“This boy Manuel”, said my host to me in low tones, “understands English and can speak it after a fashion, but rarely does so. I entrapped him once in a brief conversation and said to him, ‘Manuel, why don’t you speak English and get on the roll of English speaking employees? You are getting $62.50 gold a month now; then you’d get $75 at least’.
“Manuel dropped his English at once. ‘No quiero aprender a hablar ingles’, said he, ‘Para mi basta el español’”. (I don’t care. Spanish good enough for me.)
