The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1903-09-27

100000 Q o o o o o
They talked a great deal about the
creeping Johnny''-the Panama pas
sengers-but when we asked them what
| they meant by Creeping Johnny" the
Spaniards crossed themselves and
would not speak, the Frenchr1an smil-
ed an enigmatic smile and shook his
head. Il have not the pleasure of his
acquaintance" he said; you must ask
some one else" And the two Ameri-
cans bade us wait until we saw him.
But none of the Panama passengers
wanted the canal opened up again.
COD forbid" said the Spaniards: I've
know what it means to stir up the
ground down there! Why should we
| want to die before our timer
When the Panama passengers were
out of hearing the other passengers
looked at each other and smiled. Some
of the California people went so far as
to wink. They had heard ."Far-away
County" stories before
one morning we awoke to a suffo-
eating, moist heat. The sea breeze
fell, and all the soggy air was heavy
with the smell of decaying vegetation.
There's Panama" said the Captain:
and we peered through a white mist
which crept over the purple water
from the land, and saw Panama. lit
tie collection of huts and tiled roofs
crowded down into the greenest, fresh
est, wettest green I ever saw.
Creeping Johnnys here to meet u.s.
said one of the Panama passengers,
looking at the crawling mist. "You
want to keep out of the sun today
A lighter, which, in tipsy leakiness,
was like the boats the children build
to sail in the bathtub, came out and
took us ashore; Creeping Johnny creep
ing before US into the town like white
ghost of warning. When you get close
enough to Panama to look under the
growing green and really see it, it is
charming. You see little town that
looks exactly like a picture out of a
child's gayly-colored book. The very
house where the Man from the Moon
stopped to get his porridge on the way
to his fatal trip stands close to the
landing. The garden where Peter, Pc
ter, Pumpkin-Eater shut up his wife in
the pumpkin lies along the street
to the hotel; and if Hickory Dickory
Dock doesn't live in one of the queer
little houses lying in the binding heat
of the Panama street it's because he
doesn't know where he belongs.
The houses are built of shells-pink,
green, blue, scarlet, and white. The
ever-present moisture in the air makes
every tiny shell in every quaint wall
shine as shells shine in the water, and
every tiny house is rooted with great,
heavy red tiles; and in every garden
gorgeous flowers and amazing vines
III
heavy, sickening fragrance. In all
the color and through all the cloying
fragrance stalk the obscene buzzards,
rolling their heavy heads from side
to side, for fear of missing some choice
bit of rotting carrion.
The hotel in Panama is quite a fine
place, built in the heavy, cool, dark
Spanish style. They give you great,
dim, cool rooms opening on a court,
and you sleep in a great, heavy mahog-
any bed and wash your hands in
basin of delicate Sevres.
There are screaming parrots in the
courtyard. and there is fountain
there, and the pigeons roost in the
shadow of the fountain and the air is
heavy and moist and suffocating. So
suffocating, that when I went to sleep
I dreamed of the vines the Panama
passenger had told me about, and woke
strangling and fighting for breath.
They are used to Americans in Pan
anna. Coffee buyers, booksellers, on
their way to the little coffee states, men
selling American notions, merchants
coming down to look into trade, men
whose business is not so easily learned,
and men who lie in wait for the steanl-
ers bringing home newspapers, ard
who stink away from the sight of an
American face.
When a man rides out in the tropic
sun at midday, when he wants melted
ice for drink, when he sits out in the
moonlight and watches the mist creep
IN from the old canal; when he falls
in the market next day, raving and
calling for the doctor instead of the
priest, the Panama people do not mar
vel at his ways "A mad American"
they say. and they pick him up, send
for the undertaken, and go their ways
thanking the God of the slothful thar
they are not as these men are.
"The French were fools" they say
"and died as fools die, but the AmerI-
cans are madmen."
We saw the houses that the French
men built for themselves down there
in the moist and wet heat.
The De Lesseps house stands looking
bopefully toward the sea. A great,
white house it is. or was, before the
mold crept up the lofty walls and
stained them a scrofulous yellow. Its
wide porches shiver in the wini that
PUSHES up the neck at night and the
great staircase trembles to the slight
est football.
The wide doors of highly polished
wood that were fashioned in france
shake on their creaking hinges row,