Newport daily independent., 1913-09-22

 Down verdure-clad slopes and ter
 racing reaches
 Where orange and mango and pine
 apple grow,
 One wanders through Eden to ocean,
 washed beaches-
 An Eden that only the sun-children
 know"
 Thus James s. Gilbert, the late la mented poet of Panama, wrote of Taboga Island. It was so enticing that I determined to be one of the steamed away in little launch twelve miles out into the Pacific to that beauty spot. It is all that MT. Gill bert called it, and more, and 1t Is no wonder that the sanitarium, estab- lished there by the French canal com pany and reopened by the Americans, Is so we'll patroniZed. If you are a canal employe-white-an have been i'll, the doctor may be kind enough to send you over to Taboga for two weeks to recuperate. If you are a mere visitor you can put. up at the unpretentious little hotel con- ducted by William Jones, the Ameri- can six-footer who looks like a miner and dances like a cotillon leader. In either case you will be fortunate, for you will find those "verdure-clad slopes" gorgeous with flowers and alive with brilliant birds. and the "ocean-washed beaches" the finest places in the world for a swim. You can sail about the pretty bays with the native fishermen, or you can climb up the hills where the boys are vociferously driving the kine home to be milked, or you can merely lie in the shade and dream dreams of the Spanish lgalleons and the buccaneers. A more delightful place for rest and the repair of shattered nerves would be hard to find.
 Taboga has a history, too, small as 1t is. De Luque, the second bishop of Panama, looked upon the island, saw that 1t was good and established there his country residence. In fact he maintained . household there the year round, for, like many another churchman of the old days, he did not adhere closely to tn rul> of celibacy. His memory is preserved by bath ing place in a stream that runs down the mountain side, called the Bish- ops Pool. It was reserved for the use of him and his retinue. Above it is the Family Pool, for women and children, and still higher up is tho Pool of the Letters, for the men. The last one derives it's name from the inscription "J. F. B., Ohio" carved on nearby rock. This is reminder that in 1852 the Fourth infantry. U. s. A., crossed the isthmus en route for garrison duty in California, hav- ing sailed from New York on the United States mail steamer Ohio. Cholera was prevalent at the time in Panama and the American soldiers and the sailors from the Ohio were attacked by the disease, about eighty of them dying. Some of the sick were left on Taboga island to recov- CT, and evidently one of them did re- cover sufficiently to climb up to the bathing pool and leave the record that is a mystery to the native 1n- habitants of this day. Incidentally U. s. Grant, then a captain. was with the Fourth infantry on that trip.
 If you climb up the hill, following this stream most of the way, you win come to a place at the summit of a pass called Las Cruces. There. set in cement, are three small crosses commemorating the most exciting in- cident in the islands history. Ac- cording to a Spanish work written early in the last century, shipload of Peruvian pirates came sailing up the coast in 1915 and decided Taboga was a good place to loot They land ed and drove the small Spanish gar rison out of the village and up the mountain. But in the pass the sol diers rallied, the inhabitants came to their assistance and there, says the chronicler. a most bloody combat ragged for hours. Finally the pirates were routed and fled to their ship. leaving three men dead on the field of Aattie!
 The isthmus reeks. with history. some of the most interesting pas. sages of which have to do with Porto Belio. ~- But the visitor who goes there with mind full of the mighty aehts and great trade of the old