This neighborhood is the center of the coffee-growing industry which should be profitable in Panama if a heavy protective tariff could make it so. But not even enough of the fragrant berries are grown to supply home needs, and the industry is as yet largely prosecuted in an unsystematic and haphazard manner. It is claimed that sample shipments of coffee brought high prices in New York, but as yet not enough is grown to permit exportation. Cacao, which thrives, is grown chiefly by English and German planters, but as yet in a small way only. Cotton, tobacco and fiber plants also grow readily in this region but are little cultivated.
PROCLAIMING A LAW AT DAVID
There being a dearth of newspapers and readers, new laws are promulgated by being read aloud
A curious industry of the Chiriqui country, now nearly abandoned, was the collection of gold ornaments which the Guaymi Indians formerly buried with their dead. These images sometimes in human form, more often in that of a fish, sometimes like frogs and alligators, jointed and flexible, were at one time found in great quantities and formed a conspicuous feature of the Panama curiosity shops. In seeking these the hunters walked back and forth over the grounds known to be Indian burial places, tapping the ground with rods. When the earth gave forth a hollow sound the spade was resorted to, and usually a grave was uncovered. Jars which had contained wine and food were usually found in the graves, which were in fact subterranean tombs carefully built with flat stones. The diggers tell of finding skulls perfectly preserved apparently but which crumbled to pieces at a touch. Evidently the burial places which can be identified through local tradition have been nearly exhausted, for the ancient trinkets cannot longer be readily found in the Panama shops.
THE CATTLE RANGE NEAR DAVID
In Chiriqui province there is much of this open savanna or prairie land bordered by thick jungle
Another Panamanian product which the tourists buy eagerly but which is rapidly becoming rare is the pearl. In the Gulf of Panama are a group of islands which have been known as Las Islas des Perlas—the Pearl Islands. This archipelago is about thirty miles long, with sixteen big islands and a quantity of small ones, and lies about sixty miles south of Panama City. Balboa saw them from the shore and intended to visit them but never did. Pizarro stopped there on his way to Peru and plundered them to his heart’s content. Otherwise their history has been uneventful. Saboga on the island of the same name is a beautiful little tropical village of about 300 huts, on a high bluff bordering a bay that affords excellent anchorage. Whales are plentiful in these waters and Pacific whalers are often seen in port. San Miguel, the largest town of the archipelago, is on Rey Island and has about 1000 inhabitants. The tower of its old church is thickly inlaid with glistening, pearly shell.
DESPOILING OLD GUAYMI GRAVES
The pearl fisheries have been overworked for years, perhaps centuries, and begin to show signs of being exhausted. Nevertheless the tourist who takes the trip to the islands from the City of Panama will find himself beset by children as he lands offering seed pearls in quantities. Occasionally real bargains may be had from “beach combers” not only at Rey Island, but even at Taboga, where I knew an American visitor to pick up for eleven dollars three pearls valued at ten or twelve times as much when shown in the United States. There are stories of lucky finds among divers that vie with the tales of nuggets among gold prospectors. Once a native boy diving for sport in one of the channels near Naos Island brought up an oyster in which was a black pearl that was sold in Panama for $3000. The report does not say how much of this the boy got, but as the pearl was afterward sold in Paris for $12,000 it is quite evident that the share of the middleman, of whom political economists just now talk so much, was heavy. The Panama pearls are sometimes of beautiful colors, green, pale blue and a delicate pink. On the Chiriqui coast a year or two ago a pearl weighing about forty-two carats, about the size and shape of a partridge egg, greenish black at the base and shading to a steel gray at the tip, was found. It was sold in Paris for $5000.