up in front of a Chinese shop. The Jamaican clerk, aided by the San Blas errand boy, came out to supervise the unloading. The mule wriggled about out of position, a Spanish policeman came along and everybody got out and "cussed" the mule.
That is Panama, every day. Across the street is an Italian lace shop run by a Jew. Next door is a printery, operated by a Costa Rican. Just beyond is a French laundry conducted by a man from Switzerland, and on the next corner is a beautiful Chinese store where they sell everything from Japan. Cloisonné and lacquer and curious carvings, silks, embroideries, scientific instruments—they are all here. You can buy Canton linen, Hongkong brass, Nikko carvings, Hindoo embroidery, German cutlery, French microscopes, Canadian flour, New York apples, and California grapes all within a block. And the products of Central and South America are all about.
The street in front of the shops is full of Panamanians, Peruvians, Ecuadorians, Chileans, Colombians, and San Blas Indians, besides some representatives of every country of North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Canal Zone Americans walk past Yankee business men, and native police crowd the mestizos off the sidewalk.
Panama is a jitney town, and the honk of the never-silent horn punctuates the clang and dash of the trolleys and automobiles down a fifteen-foot street in a mad race to see which can get through first. Overhanging roofs nearly touch above blooming orchids and talking birds that scream across the narrow streets. Gloomy interiors and stumbling stairways lead up to spacious apartments and breezy balconies. Above are occasional roof-gardens. All the rooms have high ceilings, all the streets are paved, and all the kids wear clothes—sometimes.
There is no possible human shade or tint that is absent here. The Anglo-Saxons are white, more or less. The Jamaicans are black, mostly. The Panamanian is most often a soft and pleasing brown, done in a number of wholly unmatchable tints. And the natives from these many sunny countries round about are of every known color-tone, from chrome yellow to Paris green. This is the human kaleidoscope of the earth: shake it up and you will get a different result every time.
You may not like it, but you can never truthfully say that Panama is not interesting—all the time.
The streets are clean. Daily sweepers and nightly garbage men take care of that. The sidewalks are narrow, of course. Perhaps these two-foot sidewalks account in part for the innate courtesy of the Latin mind. One must be either polite or profane when he makes his way along these little ledges, often two or three feet above the street. A portable stepladder would help some.
Some of these houses are old, very old. A few are new; most of them have stood here one or two hundred years. There are many three stories high, a few boast of four stories, but the most of them have but two. Third stories are popular because of the breezes that blow and make life comfortable.
Plazas are small, but parked and well kept, and they are used as only Latin-Americans know how to use a plaza. The little ones are garden-spot oases in the deserts of bare walls and wide eaves. Santa Ana Plaza is the heart of the city, and there is no hour of the day or night that there are not people there. If you really wish to see the world go by, sit on the stone bench at Santa Ana Plaza and look about you. If you stay long enough, you may see anybody, from the latest naked brown baby to the last chosen president of any country you may name.
Sitting in the plaza is a business by itself in this country. The North American uses a park as a short cut, cross-corners, to get somewhere. But with the tropic citizen, the plaza is an end in itself. He is not going anywhere, he is just sitting in the plaza. He may not even be called a bench-warmer—the bench is already warm. He is sitting in the plaza—that is all.
The band-night parade in Santa Ana Plaza is an institution. Around the central garden they saunter, to the swing of the very good music from the central pavilion. The outer walk is wide, and so is the parade. Clockwise walks the inner circle, three abreast, all young men. In the opposite direction saunter the young women, also in threes. 'Round and 'round they go, talking, laughing, listening, looking, lingering, while the band plays on. It is a good band too. And not the least of the exhibit is the clothes the women wear. In matter of graceful and apparently comfortable costumes the Panamanian girls need apologize to none of their northern sisters. Who is to blame the boys if they keep on walking around for the sake of seeing the seeable, especially when she may be quite worth watching? Every added turn means one look more. It is all very dignified and proper, but human nature is the same old composition in every land, and the blood in the heart runs red, no matter what the tint or tan without. In a land where the customs of chaperonage are exceeding strict, and no young woman is supposed to be left alone with any young man for the briefest moment, it is easy to see why the band nights in the plaza are popular. Ostensibly the young women, after the manner of their kind, have no interest in the young men, but just the same, their soft brown eyes have the same old way of wandering at the right moment; it is the same old trick and it works in the same old way.
The cathedral plaza is rather a different matter. Here gather the elite, in numbers on concert nights, and more or less on other fair evenings. The grown-ups sit about on the benches and the children run and play, care-free and comfortable. Well-dressed and content, these are the best of the old native stock that used to live "inside" the walls of Panama that the Spanish king thought he should be able to see. There are usually a few Americans with the crowd, and it is a peaceful and restful family scene. Were it not for the incessant clatter of the trolleys and jitneys the place would be a good rest-cure. But as matters now stand, there is too much pandemonium for any permanent peace.
Out at the point of the seawall, near Chiriqui Prison, stands an old stone sentry box. It appears to belong to the prison now, but there was a time when the outlook from that point on the bay of Panama was the viewpoint of Panamanian life as it faced the Pacific and marked the place of departure for shores unknown. It is prosaic enough now to stand beside the little old stone tower and watch a big liner leave the canal and throw back its smoke-plume as it steams out to sea, having left the Atlantic Ocean seven hours before. Gone with the days of the explorers and pirates are the mystery and menace of it all. The sentry box meant something then. Its lone occupant scanned anxiously the horizon for the sail that might mean fresh plunders, news from the world beyond, bountiful booty or stolen treasure, or perchance a fight to the finish with other pirates as unscrupulous as the villains on shore. Now the children gather there at sunset to play, care-free on the high wall overlooking the Gulf of Panama.
Old Spanish houses are built with the yard inside. It is delightfully intimate and cozy, but not very democratic. Green and clean and cool are these little parked "interiors" of the better houses. Some of the common patios are dirty and disheveled, and the worst of them are better left alone, but the American Health Department looks after the sanitation of them all.
Chino (Chinese) shops sell everything, but, aside from the fine stores on Central Avenue, are mostly devoted to native trade. Out in the interior the Chinese storekeepers transact practically all the business of the country. Wherever there are two or three families gathered together, there the Chinese storekeeper is sure to appear, ready to harvest any small or large coins that may be in circulation.
There were at one time about five hundred saloons of all sorts in Panama, This number has been greatly reduced with hope of complete extinction, owing to the exigencies of the near-by American soldiers on the Canal Zone. The monthly payroll of the Zone is a stream of gold, and it is a case of losing that gold or cleaning up Panama. Military orders and voluntary boycotts made Panama a lonesome town for the latter part of 1918.
