WHERE THE FLIES GET BUSY
“What is it”? “Five cents”. “No, no! I mean what is it? What’s it made of”? “Fi centavo”!
In despair over my lack of Indo-Spanish patois, I buy it and find a little native sugar, very moist and very dark, made up like a sausage, or a tamale in corn husks. Other mysterious objects turn out to be ginseng, which appeals to the resident Chinese; the mamei, a curious pulpy fruit the size of a large peach, with a skin like chamois and a fleshly looking pit about the size of a peach-stone; the sapodilla, a plum colored fruit with a mushy interior, which when cut transversely shows a star-like marking and is sometimes called the star apple. It is eaten with a spoon and is palatable. The mamei, however, like the mango, requires a specially trained taste.
CAYUCAS ON MARKET DAY
While puzzling over the native fruits a sudden clamor attracts us to a different part of the market. There drama is in full enactment. The market place is at the edge of the bay and up the water steps three exultant fishermen have dragged a tuna about five feet long, weighing perhaps 175 pounds. It is not a particularly large fish of the species, but its captors are highly exultant and one, with the inborn instinct of the Latin-American to insult a captive or a fallen foe, stands on the poor tuna’s head and strikes an attitude as one who invites admiration and applause. Perhaps our camera tempted him, but our inclination was to kick the brute, rather than to perpetuate his pose, for the poor fish was still living. It had been caught in a net, so its captors informed us. On our own Florida and California coasts the tunas give rare sport with a rod and line.
Like most people of a low order of intelligence the lower class native of Panama is without the slightest sense of humanity to dumb animals. He does not seem to be intentionally cruel—indeed he is too indolent to exert himself unless something is to be gained. But he never lets any consideration for the sufferings of an animal affect his method of treating it. The iguana, ugliest of lizards, which he eats with avidity, is one of his chief victims. This animal is usually taken alive by hunters in order that he may undergo a preliminary fattening process before being committed to the pot. In captivity his condition is not pleasant to contemplate. Here at the market are eight or ten, living, palpitating, looking out on the strange world with eyes of wistful misery. Their short legs are roughly twisted so as to cross above their backs, and the sharp claws on one foot are thrust through the fleshy part of the other so as to hold them together without other fastening. A five-foot iguana is fully three feet tail, and of that caudal yard at least two feet of its tapering length is useless for food, so the native calmly chops it off with his machete, exposing the mutilated but living animal for sale.
Photo by Underwood & Underwood
PANAMA FROM THE BAY; ANCON HILL IN THE BACKGROUND