Evening star., 1921-03-09
PANAMA DEPICTED
LAND OF THRILLS
lsthmus Republic Scene OF
I Numerous Adventures,
7 From Noble to IgnobIe.

The republic of Panama. which was
experiencing strained relations with the
reighboring republic of Costa Rica over
a disputed boundary. is the subject of
the following bulletin issued by the Ma
tional Geographic Society:
THE Isthmus of Panama. which now
almost exactly corresponds to the re-
public of Panama. has probably had as
many thrills to the square foot as any
other section of the earth of similar
size. They have ranged from the ig-
noble to the noble. from the drunken
debaucheries Of bloodthirsty pirates as
they sacked the prosperous cities of the
country 20 the feelings of Balboa as he
Stood the first white man to view the
waters of the Pacific. and those of the
American engineers who saw the COM
pletion there of the worlds greatest en-
g:neering feat. And through it all large
tracts of the little country have re-
manned much as they were when Column
bus first set foot there in l3O2. and,
happy to find part of a real continent
after seemingly interminable islands,
named it Terra Firme.
Panamn's Geographic Joke.
Panama perpetrates one of the great
est of geographic jokes on those VINO
visit it, 1t very convincingly makes east
west. From Panama, City the sun rises
out of the Pacific, which to most Ameri-
can minds is the proper place only for
setting suns. And he who sails through
the canal from the Atlantic 70 the Pa
Cific travels not from east to west, as
he naturally expects to do. but from
west TO east. or more accurately, from
northwest to southeast. one gets the
impression, as one writer has phrased
it. that there is something crooked
about this The crookedncss is found
10 be in the isthmus, which runs pre-
dominantly east and west, instead of
north and south. and. in addition. makes
a double curve like the letter 5 so that
at one place the Atlantic waters are aC-
tually west of those of the Pacific
ut may seem far cry from the lay
of the land at Panama to the South sea
but because of the east and west trend
of the isthmus the popular name Tor
that huge, islanddotted ocean has
largely taken the place of the more
nearly correct South Pacific When
Balboa stood on an isthman mountain
crest in 1913 and discovered the great
ocean stretching off to the southwark
he naturally named it 'El Mar del Sur
the South sea. \ few days later, when
he had won his way to the newly dis
covered ocean, he waded into 1t and
made the singularly modest claims for
the King of Spain to sovereignty over
the sea and all lands and islands bor-
dering on it. from pole TO pole. TIL
Judgment day
Stream of Gold From Peru.
"Since a few years after Balboa's
discovery the Isthmus of Panama-for
long time called Darien-has been the
gateway for commerce between the east
and the west and between Pacific South
America and Europe. The old city of
Panama was founded as the entry port
on the Pacific side in 1918. more than a
hundred years before the Pilgrims land
ed in Massachusetts,. Portobello. known
to all readers of pirate tales, was the
Atlantic port, and between them was
constructed a paved trail At the height
of Spanish colonial power gold and sill
yer from Peru was carted across this
old trail like cordwood
Such great wealth was an irresist
ible attraction to the buccaneers who
time they swooped down on the
isthmus froGa their strange island
commonwealth near Haiti. OLD
Panama was entirely destroyed in
1871 by such an expedition. under the
leadership of the notrious Henry Nor
gan. later Sir Henry. On other oc-
casions. Portobello. in spite of its
formida BILE fortifications. was taken.
and even occupied by the pirates as
"A base for months at "a time. One
of the old forts of Portobello. use
less in the village to which the one
time opulent port has shrunk. was
demolished during the building of the
Panama canal, and its stones crushed
to make material for concrete.
Republic Politically Isolated.
"Politically the republic of Panama
is d thing apart. II was formerly
a state of the republic OF Colombia,
in South America, but gained its in
dependence in 1903 Geographically it
20 N"-t ~ F'entral America, but
1t has been left out of the recently
Iol..~4 ....o. OF Central America.
This isolation is no doubt due in
large part to the existence of the
canal under United States ownership
extending through Panama territory.
THE little republic is shaped like
section OF waving ribbon or a
squirming snake. 1t is thirty-one
miles across AT its narrowest point
and not much over fifty miles wide
throughout most of its $50 miles of
length. II is about the size of South
Carolina. The greater part of the
Atlantic side of the isthmus is oc-
cupied by iungics. The population
is between third and half of
the central mountains and part OF
the Atlantic coast toward South
America. There is a large negro
element in the population. The re-
nainder are Of Spanish extraction
and of mixed blood The majority
Of the more civilized and progressive
Inhabitants live on the Pacific side
Of the island. and are concentrated
noticeably In the western end toward
the Costa Rican border Since the
cession of the Canal Zone to the
United States, Panama has had no
army. but has depended solely on its
national police force"