Greene County herald. (Leakesville, Miss.) 1898-current, 1910-01-21
PANAMA EDITORIAL TRIP.
Letter No. II.

From descriptions we opine they
have proceeded on much the same
lines the English have in India as to
style of house, sanitary precautions
etc. Here are to be found the hand
soonest buildings Uncle Sam has on
the Zone, both public building and
residences for officials of the Canal
Commission and rs employees for
here reside the head officers of the
Commission The city is laid out on
the edge of Panama City Oh the grad
ual rises which slope up to the hills.
The streets are laid off in symmetri-
cal and beautiful winding terraces
with cherted drives on which no mo-
tor-car or other destructive vehicles
are allowed to pass. The Frel.ch dur
ing their administration planted out
these streets with lines of palm trees
which under the attention of our
government are now in their tower
ing splendor The hedges of shru
berry. the beautiful flowers, and well
kept green grass lawns, all over An
con reminded US very much of the
beauties of Lincoln Park n Chicago,
though of course not on such a grand
scale, but there is promise of still
greater things in the horticultural
line and much money is being still
laid out that way.
Hailing a cab after posting our
mail, we were whirled away to the
beach. The ground gradually re-
cedes toward the sea until there is a
bluffy breakoff of a few feet down to
the sIoping sands stretch which lies
immediately on the water front.
Down on this our vehicle rolled and
our accommodating cabbie urged his
somewhat reluctant pony down so
close TO the water that we hadn t
but few steps to go to reach the
LAYING waters. The writer pulled off
shoes and socks and waded out into
rhe Pacific for sentimental reasons.
Standing there gazing off into the
blue of this gently heaving Ocean We
we were forcibly reminded of the
historic event which occurred four
hundred years ago, when Balboa
after having penetrated the jungles
of the Isthmus emerged on these
coasts and somewhere near where we
stood, marched down into the water
almost to his neck and striking il
with his sword in true CastiIian
grandiloquence pronounced the SOW
reignty OF Spain over its expansive
bosom. The principles of tina i'm
mortal classic of CrotiuS entitled the
Laws of Nations" had not yet come
to be recognized by the world powers
of that day and it was no uncommon
thing for King to imagine himself
as having portion of the sea under
his dominion, Il fal,acy which lime
has shown to be utterly untentable
in national Jurisprudence We thank
ed God that the day had long since
come when much bloodshed was
avoided by the recognition OF all IA
tiOns Of the right of vessels of any
flag to sail unmOlested and unchal-
ienged on the open seas, subject only
to the admiralty laws governing the
country in which the boat was com
miSSiOned, The surf rolled in and
out deluging our feet this minute,
the next leaving US standing on the
sand so lately covered by the inwash
The beach was covered with sea-
shells OF multitude of shapes, sizes,
and colors, Wife and Cabbie and my
self spent sometime picking round
making a selection of about couple
OF hatfulS of these beau ties toss ed up
by the washing waves For small
silver piece we secured a native boat
man to row out far enough from
shore to insure the pristine ocean
purity of the water, and procure US
a bottle of it. We had promised
friends some of this water for
keepsake before leaving home and
we wanted it took far enough from
the shore to make certain that the
slush and slime and Stop OF the sea-
side was eliminated. There was IA
blue line out a piece which distin-
guished from the Shorewater as
tina could be discerned by the
earthly color extending out to where
it and the blue meet Such differ
ences in the color of the water are
common to shores where the bottom
extends out gradually for some dis
tonce before the average ocean depth