''••*' i:j'l||jr ;•!; • ;-0:iqJ. ;;■'"; :-:: II.:! .^;;; &£?■oor. The larger part of the way between 'Frisco and Panama there is no line but this, which is the reason of the poor table. Most of us, however, do not have to growl because the Englishman saves us that trouble, in keeping with the British lion's reputation, when things are not what they should be. His remarks sometimes are very funny. I was laughing about it once to a Scotchman on board and he said Scotchmen feel the same way, but they are more "two faced" than Englishmen and do not talk as much. A family of children and their mother came aboard at Guatemala who are going to join the father on the Isthmus. He is an Irishman and the mother is a Spanish-American. The engineer, like all English people, thinks children should be very carefully brought up. He told one of the little girls as she passed us on the deck one even- ing that it was too late for her to be out, she ought to have been in bed long ago. The child said nothing. I said, "Mr. Henry, if that child had been an American she would have turned and looked at you with scorn when you told her she ought to be in bed." "Wouldn't have sat at Panama 43 down again for a week, not with any comfort, if she had," he growled, but I do not think he is as terrible as he pretends to be. I saw two wonderful landscape views when anchored off Guatemala, of which I hope to get pictures. There are two views, yet there is only one. Back of the city of Guatemala are two enormous volcanoes whose summits seem to pierce the sky. One is named Agua (Water), the other Fuego (Fire). I forgot whether these are extinct or slumbering volcanoes, but my im- pression is they are slumbering, therefore liable to have an eruption any time. The remarkable feature of this scene is that a part of the day these mountains are plainly visible and at other times completely invisible, while the rest of the landscape remains the same. You can imagine my surprise the first time I went to look for my grand volcanoes, which are such majestic fea- tures of this scene, and found them absolutely gone. At certain times they are obscured by clouds. One of the passengers snapped this scene when the volcanoes were visible and when invisible and promised me some of the pictures when developed. One night we passed a burn- ing volcano and distinctly saw the red hot lava pouring down its sides. It is very lonesome now that so many of the passengers have left us. They do not have piers in these countries and passengers and freight are carried to and from the steamers in boats. Every one leaving at this port was seated in a large basket on the deck of the steamer and lowered 44 Light on Dark Places into the boat, which carried them and their bag- gage to the shore. The officers of the ship say they give me one day in Panama, then I will be glad to cross the Isthmus to Colon and take passage for New York. Colon is worse than Panama. The little lady from Guatemala bade me a very sweet good-by, saying, "All success and happiness is what I wish for you." It seems so incongruous that people of the tropics possessing such sweet manners can look with such indiffer- ence on such cruelty to animals. We are. due at Acajutla, La Libertad and San Juan November 25th, 26th and 27th, respectively, and at Panama November 30, 1905. I shall not mail this letter until I have landed, so that you may know I am on the Isthmus and not lost on the Pacific. It may be a month or more before I write again; it will all depend on how things go with me. Yours hopefully. Panama, R. P., January 21, 1906. I could not write before, but I have taken notes every day about things of interest. The "Peru" anchored in sight of Ancon on the morning of November 30th, but could not go to the dock until 5 P. M. because we were obliged to wait until another ship left. As soon as the ship reached the dock printed notices, distributed by the Department of Sani- tation, were presented to everybody warning us to avoid the bites of female mosquitoes. The males, it seems, do not care for blood — vegetari- ans, I presume. at Panama 45 The dock is at La Boca (The Mouth), I think, of the canal. The engineer who came aboard to meet his family, said there was plenty of work in the Zone for everybody. We left the ship and boarded the train for Panama. All the hotels were miserable, we had been told on the boat, and all charged a very high price for their wretched accommodations. The best, the Central, charged $4.00 gold per day, $8.00 Panamanian. 1 he native money is rated one-half value of ours. We decided to try the New York, as that had been recommended as just as good and cheaper. It was dark when we reached Panama, but the dim light showed a town similar to those of the Mexican country and a lot of cabs with abused- lookmg little horses. There were no sores visible which I have since heard is due to American in- fluence. I hated to get into a cab drawn by such half-starved-looking little animals, but no other course was possible, as I found myself standing ankle deep in mud and concluded that it was un- doubtedly the rainy season, which lasts from about April until December. As nearly all the steerage passengers were bound for the New York Hotel and we knew they would more than fall it, we went to the Central. This is a bare forlorn place, but there are others infinitely worse. Some days later I tried the New York The room I was shown to had soiled sheets on the bed and the landlady was astonished that I insisted on their being changed. It is the custom in most Spanish- American hotels to leave the soiled linen on the beds for the use of the next occupant. Early next morning I went to the Administra- 46 Light on Dark Places tion Building, where the engineering offices are at present located. As soon as buildings are completed £t Culebra the engineering force will move there. I went to the chief engineer's office, found his secretary, stated my business and asked him if he remembered my application which I had sent from California enclosing rec- ommendations. He said that he did remember and that the chief engineer would be at the office in about a half hour and as soon as he came he would tell him that I had applied for a position. I then gave him a short note which I had written on the steamer, stating I would like a position in Panama and asking the favor of an immediate answer, as, if there was none for me I wished to take the next boat for New York. The chief engineer soon arrived and his secretary disappeared to tell him of my request. He returned in a few moments and said, "Did you come down here to work?" I stated that I had and cannot imagine why he should have asked such a question when I had sent him the following letters: COPY. COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK. June 16, 1905. Miss Mary A. Chatfield, 815 Shotwell Street, San Francisco, California. My dear Miss Chat field : In reply to your letter of May 14th I herewith desire to say to any one to whom you should pre* at Panama 47 sent this letter that you had been in my employ as a stenographer at Columbia University for two and a half years. Besides the work of the Electrical Engineering Department, you did considerable Civil Engineer- ing work and are acquainted with most of the technical terms in both branches. Your work was neat and accurate and the composition excellent. I shall be glad to send any further recommen- dation to those to whom you apply and beg to remain, with best wishes, Yours very truly, George F. Sever, Professor of Electrical Engineering. COPY. COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK, Electrical Engineering Department. October 28, 1904. Miss Mary A. Chatfield has been stenographer and typewriter of the Electrical Engineering De- partment of Columbia University for more than two years and has performed the duties of the position to our entire satisfaction. Her work has included not only correspondence and records in connection with our educational work, but has also covered a great deal of outside engineering correspondence which the various officers of the department have carried on. The character of this work is very much more difficult than in or- dinary business matters, involving as it does technical terms, tabulations, formulas, etc. I 48 Light on Dark Places feel confident that she would be thoroughly com- petent and willing to perform almost any kind of stenography and typewriting and have no hesi- tation in recommending her very highly for such work. Very truly yours, F. B. Crocker, Professor of Electrical Engineering, COPY. COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY. June 5, 1905. Miss Mary A. Chatfield was employed for sev- eral years at this university in the Electrical En- gineering Department, and during that time I found her work reliable and satisfactory. She is always careful and takes an interest in trying to get things right. Miss Chatfield has had quite a varied experi- ence in all kinds of scientific terminology, which is a thing I find it takes some time to acquire. FlTZHUGH TOWNSEND, Instructor in Electrical Engineering. COPY. COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY. June 7, 1905. This is to certify that Miss Mary A. Chatfield was employed as stenographer in the Electrical Engineering Department of this university for several years and I have always found her work to be most satisfactory. She is painstaking and accurate and I recommend her as an excellent stenographer. M. Arendt, Lecturer in Electrical Engineering, at Panama 49 When he returned he took me to an office up- stairs, introduced me to a young man and left. He did not seem to know what to say, but sat and looked me over from head to foot, so I started the conversation by telling him of my long experience as a stenographer and that if I could stand the climate I wanted a position on the Isthmus. In response to this detailed ac- count of my qualifications he said, in a brogue somewhat difficult to understand, "There is a girl in Material and Supplies who began on $75 a month, will you begin on that?" My impulse was to get up and walk down stairs, but I thought of my small roll of bills and said, "Having had $3.00 a day in New York City for more than three years, I am not willing to accept less than that on the Isthmus of Panama. I was placed by the Remington office in New York after a test examination and several months afterward got a position I liked better thru the Business Women's Club." He then said, "Would you be satisfied to begin on $100 a month?" I said, "No, three dollars a day in New York is a great deal more than $100 a month in Panama." "Well," he said, "I cannot offer you any more than $100 a month to begin on because it is a rule of the Canal. Commission that any one appointed on the Isthmus cannot begin at more than $100 a month. We have just sent to Washington to have a stenographer of wide experience sent to us as soon as possible, but if you want the position you may have it." My thoughts were not pleas- ant as I considered that, having paid my own fare, I must begin on less than if I had been sent 50 Light on Dark Places down at the expense of the government; also in taking this position I was saving the expense of sending the stenographer from Washington. I then said, "Will you raise my salary if I remain?" He said, "We will raise just as soon as we see you are competent." I then told him I would take the position and asked at what salaries stenographers began that were sent down by the government. He replied, "$125 a month." The chief of this division, Meteorology and River Hydraulics, soon came in and I was introduced to him. This branch of the canal work will interest you greatly if I can make it plain to you. It is neces- sary to measure the rise and fall of the tides of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, also the high and low water marks and velocity of the streams — it would not take me long now to get beyond my depth, but I hope to understand this per- fectly as I continue in the work. I have sent you an interesting novel entitled "Baron Montez, of Panama and Paris." The characters in this book are not fictitious and you can believe almost all of it, if not all. The house still stands which the baron gave to the actress that she might con- tract yellow fever. Notice where the reporter questioning the French engineer alludes to the work being done by this division. These are the questions and answers in the book : Q. "How are you going to provide for the tremendous floods in the Chagres River that wash down each rainy season dirt enough to fill up the whole canal?" at Panama 5r A. "By means of a large dam and a reser- voir/' Q. "The floods in the Chagres being provided for, what will you do with the higher rise of ti#!e in the Pacific than the Atlantic?" Then they threw him down stairs. There are several gaging stations thru the Zone, each in charge of a man called a hydro- grapher. It is difficult to get good men to take charge of these gaging stations. So many men sent down here drink to excess, which is detri- mental to the success of the work of those having charge of delicate instruments, required to keep exact records. One of them swaggered into the office one day. I had just written instructions to be sent to him and other hydrographers. As he asked for his mail I called him and gave him his letter of instructions. He crushed it up in his hand without looking at it and said, "I've got packs of such letters. I never read them." I was afterward told that instead of returning to the station that day he got drunk and slept all night in a seat in the plaza. I am informed that the Isthmian Canal Commission send numbers of such people down here at the request of senators, congressmen and heads of departments. They come with neither mental nor physical examina- tion. As far as I can see or hear the advertised requirement that employes of the Isthmian Canal Commission must pass a Civil Service examina- tion is a ruse to enable them to refuse to send people they don't wish to send to the Isthmus. This violation of Civil Service rules applies to all branches of the work here. If the rules were en- $2 Light on Dark Places forced none but competent people could be sent here. The brother of our chief clerk, just sent down by the commission at a request from the Isthmus, was taken sick the day after his arrival and sent to the hospital. The verdict was that he had an ulcer in his stomach and it would be at least two months before they could dismiss him. A stenographer who came down on the same boat went immediately to the hospital and, tho he was engaged to work in this department, has not appeared since. Another stenographer who is working in this department arrived with a big boil on his neck. He is certainly worthy of admiration for, tho tortured with this miserable boil, he works every day and works well. "METEOROLOGY, the department of nat- ural philosophy that treats of the phenomena of the atmosphere, especially those that relate to water and climate, their relations to each other and the laws to which they are subject. 2. The character of the weather and of at- mospheric changes of any particular place. It is necessary in meteorological observations to know the highest temperature of the day and the lowest temperature of the night." "HYDRAULICS, the science of liquids, espe- cially water, in motion. 2. Engineering. The art that deals with mov- ing water, the regulation of and protection against its natural action, its artificial conveyance for useful purposes and the mechanical utiliza- tion of its force." "HYDROGRAPHY, the science and art of de- termining and making known the conditions of at Panama 53 navigable waters, whether ocean or inland, chart- ing the coast and rivers, determining the depths, the quality of the bottom, the times of the tides and measuring the currents." "HYDROLOGY, the branch of physical geog- raphy that treats of the waters of the earth." Desiring to perfectly understand these hereto- fore unfamiliar terms, now so often dictated to me, I asked for an unabridged dictionary and was told there was none nearer than the gov- ernor's office downstairs. I took my pencil and book and went to seek the unabridged. The end of the hall was fenced off and occupied by a colored man, who, in reply to my inquiry, said, "Come right in here," and raising the bar across the end of the hall, showed me into the room adjoining. I entered a spacious apartment, in the middle of which at a desk sat the Great, the August, the Governor. I approached and stated that I was looking for an unabridged dictionary and had been told that the only one in the build- ing was in the governor's office. He slowly raised the book in one hand and passed it to me. I thanked him and retired to a corner of the room and wrote down the definitions. I then re- turned the unabridged, saying, "Thank you." He replied, "There is a dictionary in the next room, don't you know." I said, "I did not know it" and departed. When I got back to the office I inquired what the governor was before he came here and was told that three years ago he was a stenographer in Washington on $1,800 a year. This incident recalled a time when, in seeking his stenographer to borrow some carbon, I blundered 54 Eight on Dark Places into the private office of one of the great engi- neers of the world. When I told him for whom I was looking, he said, "My stenographer works in the next room and she is not here to-day, but I can show you where the carbon is." This incident set me thinking, and I recollected the courtesy and kindness I had received in the past from different people of position and wealth and from those who had neither. How little per- haps I had appreciated it at the time and how much less expressed my appreciation ; therefore I wrote a few letters to people I had not seen for years telling them of my happy recollections of them. One's sojourn on the Isthmus will prob- ably be detrimental to their bodily health, but it may be beneficial to their souls. Tho you may feel reasonably well yourself it makes one feel serious to see so much sickness and death around. I have usually found men and women in high positions very courteous. When I was such a small child the memory of it seems almost a dream, Dom Pedro, the last Emperor of Brazil, visited the school I attended. He was looking into the educational methods of other countries that he might more intelligently improve that of his own. As sooi as we were assembled before him my eyes were immediately directed to the top of his head, which my childish imagination had encircled with a crown of flashing gems. So sure was I that he would be thus adorned (or disfigured) that I could hardly believe it when I saw nothing but a mass of snow white hair, just like anybody's grandfather's! Further, this sur- prising old gentleman, this descendant of a hun- at Panama 55 dred kings, was insisting that our lady principal should not remain standing. "Madam, I pray- that you be seated," he said. I do not think any of his loyal subjects felt more sympathy for him in his banishment and exile than I did, but a ruler who frees slaves, be he an emperor or a president, seems obliged to suffer the martyr's fate. Mr. Arango told me that during the massacre of the citizens of the United States when return- ing from California (described in "Baron Mon- tez") the parents of three little girls were mur- dered among the other victims. So young were these little daughters of the United States that they did not know who they were and it has never been learned by the people on the Isthmus. They were adopted and brought up by Pana- manian families. These ladies may be the right- ful owners of fortunes others are spending. I was angry at first to find that I had been placed under a Panamanian engineer, but pres- ently discovered him to be a gentleman, and an educated man, which I hear cannot he said of many from the States. He was educated in the States, as are most Panamanians who can afford to be. I shall learn Spanish, as by so doing I may be more valuable in the position. When I took his first dictation I felt as I imagine a drowning man feels when the water closes over his head. I could not understand a word, but pulled myself together and took down the sounds, which, when I looked over the dictation I was able to transcribe correctly. I soon became ac- customed to his accent. Another stenographer in 56 Light on Dark Places the office and I agree that we would rather take his dictation than that of the chief clerk — the gentleman with the brogue. I do not know what nationality he is. He claims to be a Scotchman and when I inadvertently spelled the first syllable of his name Mc instead of Mac one day he or- dered it corrected, saying, "I am not Irish, and if I was I wouldn't own it." As an instance, one day in transcribing notes, I found they read the U. S. Theological Survey. Knowing that the U. S. has no such survey, I said, "You were dic- tating, were not, of the United States Geo- logical Survey?" "Yes," he replied, "do your notes read theological survey? Before you came one of the other stenographers understood me to pronounce that word the same way and did not know any better and the letter came near being sent reading U. S. Theological Survey." Next day I met the English engineer that was on the boat. He was waiting for the connecting steamer for Peru. I must tell you how nice he was to me. He asked me before I left the S. S. "Peru" if I really meant to try to work in Pan- ama. When I stated that I did he asked me if I had any relatives who were Masons in good standing, that he wanted to put me in the Masons' care. I told him that four of my mother's brothers wore Knight Templar's badges and that my mother's grandfather had belonged to the Prince of Wales Lodge in England, but I declined to have any Masons called on for me. I might also have told him that two of my father's uncles had been Royal Arch Masons, but did not bother. It always seems so silly to me to be at Panama 57 calling on Free Masons for help when you ought to have sense enough to take care of yourself. Sometimes they would be poor things to call upon — Mr. Decker is a Mason. One of my an- cestors was helped very materially by Masons in the Revolutionary War, tho he did not inten- tionally ask for aid. He was captured by the British and as they lowered him into the hold of one of the prison ships such a sickening feeling of disgust came over him at the dreadful odor, he involuntarily made some motion with his hands. To his surprise he was immediately drawn up and exchanged for an English prisoner. Believing he had made a Masonic sign of dis- tress he joined the Masons as soon as he went home and found that he had done so. I was ashamed to tell the English engineer how disap- pointed and disgusted I was, and in reply to his kind inquiries, told him everything was lovely. I wished afterward I had not and let him do any- thing he thought proper to make things smooth for me. He said, "I am glad to hear you have come out so well. I was worried about you." Then he gave me a magazine for a parting gift and went to his ship. I never missed a chance when on the boat to try and impress upon him the superiority of the United States to England without the slightest success. Once I told him with a perfectly sober face that I understood all Englishmen made their wives black their boots. Then he began to roar, lion-like, and said that he had often blacked his wife's boots when he could not afford to hire 58 Light on Dark Places them blacked, but he never allowed her to touch his. I left the expensive Central Hotel as soon as possible. I was fortunate in having help in look- ing for a room because nobody appears to under- stand English in Panama and unless some one goes with you who has some knowledge of Span- ish you have a hard time. Imagine my astonish- ment and pleasure the second day I was in the office at seeing an engineer whom I had met in New York City, a graduate of Columbia Uni- versity. He recognized me immediately and helped me to find a room in an old Panamanian house. The landlady had had her back balconies divided into several small rooms. The house is built around three sides of the garden at the back of the house. Beautiful variegated foliage plants and a tree, similar to our hollyhocks both in flower and leaf, but larger, grow in the gar- den. These charming plants formed such a con- trast to most of dirty Panama that I engaged a room. Had it been in the old part of the house it would have been comparatively cool, but being in one of the wooden partitions on the porches, it was hot enough to suit his satanic majesty. I hired it for a month and thought I would melt before the time was up. As is the custom in many tropical buildings the top of the partitions of the rooms is lattice work, and when your neighbor comes in late and lights the lamp after you have gone to sleep and wakens you with the glare it is annoying, also when said neighbors come in drunk. There was a terror who roomed at the end of the row and I think he must have "at Panama 59 been drunk every night, for he always swore like a pirate, and as I never heard him do so dur- ing the day, infer he was intoxicated. He usu- ally talked an hour or more to his room mate about all subjects under the sun, often his ideas as to the wife he expected some time to have, al- ways interspersing his remarks with oaths. Oc- casionally some of his masculine neighbors would call out, "Stop swearing," but he never stopped. My landlady was a native of Panama and a widow of a Frenchman who was with the French Canal Company. She is very amia- ble and had several nieces at her house, which made it very pleasant. They never talked or walked with a man alone and acted as afraid as I would with a lion, a four-footed one. One evening I went to the plaza with one of the other lodgers and after we had walked about awhile we saw these young ladies sitting there with some relatives and asked them to walk with us. With them was a little crippled gentleman, and to be courteous, I stepped back to walk with him, leaving my escort with them. I had no sooner done so than the Panamanian girls grabbed me as tho I was their only shield from perdition, and pulling me forward, exclaimed, "Not walk English, not walk English. We must walk Spanol." A band plays on the plaza every Wednesday and Saturday evening, then the Pan- amanian ladies come out, safely guarded by watchful relatives, and promenade and listen to the music. Reckless American youths sometimes try to flirt with them. I was sitting on the porch at the house one night when a young Texan 60 Light on D^rk Places (with very prominent ears) rushed in breathless, seated himself beside me, and mopping the per- spiration from his brow, said, "Any American ought to be ashamed of himself to take any no- tice of these Panamanian women any way." "Why so?" said I, scenting something amusing. "Myself and three other fellows," he said, "were walking on the plaza listening to the music and five Panamanian girls came along together. We looked at them and they said, 'Good evening/ We answered and started to walk with them, when their brother and a lot of his friends started for us and chased us off the plaza and all around the streets and I have just dodged them and got home. We never said anything but good evening, any way." "If you do not think you should no- tice them, why do you ?" I asked. "Oh," he said, "some of them are awfully cute." "Yes," inter- rupted another, "and these were nothing but lit- tle school girls with short dresses on, any way." "And," continued the other, "it's nobody's busi- ness but their brother's, any how. The others had no business interfering." Then I got a chance to put in a word and said, "You gentle- men had better go up to New England and get a little sand. Why, if this had occurred to a man from New England he would have turned around and wiped up the street with half a dozen Panamanians with one hand." Texas looked at me and said, "Oh, New England! You are al- ways blowing about New England." This lately has become true, for when I do not know what else to say I begin to brag about the men of New England and I think if they could hear me they at Panama 6i would be very astonished at my account of their marvelous perfections. I often am myself. When the men of Panama fancy a lady they stand and gaze at the windows of her house for some time (rubber, as our small boys say), and after some days venture to talk to her thru the iron bars which always protect the windows, but are never permitted, even when engaged, to be alone with her. What do you think of this? Would you want to marry anybody that needed watch- ing? I enclose a picture of a Panamanian street. It is good, but flattering, because you cannot see the dirt nor smell the odors caused by the accu- mulation of filth and the lack of sewerage. The smells are horrible, and every one says that bad as it is now, it is far better than before Colonel Gorgas commenced to clean up the streets. He has robbed the turkey buzzards of their ancient job by forbidding people to throw swill and other refuse into the streets. They are now com- pelled to put it in tin cans, which are emptied daily. I learned something to-day which disgusted and astonished me to the amusement of the in- itiated. One of the hydro lgers from Washing- ton sent in a request to have the fees refunded which he had given to the servants on the ship when coming to the Isthmus. Being nobody much, his request was refused, but I am told that many people do have the fees they give servants refunded to them! Think of it — the tax-payers must pay some people's servant's fees ! And this 52 Light on Dark Places is a republic! No wonder some people can fee servants ! One of the most deplorable steals perpetrated, of which I have heard, is that of a large quan- tity of fine Oregon lumber, bought for the build- ing of the greatly needed quarters for employes, which disappeared mysteriously on the coast of Central America on its way to the Isthmus. I hear there is an abundance of excellent tim- ber on the Isthmus, but there are no sawmills. Opposite where I roomed first are the ruins of an old monastery about 400 years old. It is an enormous brick building and the walls are still standing, tho the roof is gone. It was burned before it had been built a year. Farther down the street are the ruins of an old cathedral, dis- tinguished by having a flat arch, which I am told is unusual as it is made of brick or concrete or both. Such arches are usually curved. I did not think anything about it except that it is not as graceful as a curved one, but it seems to be con- sidered very remarkable. Notice the narrowness of the sidewalks. Two people can walk abreast only by walking arm in arm on nearly all the streets. The interior of the large cathedral on the plaza does not look badly, but the smaller churches remind me of our 5 and 10 cent stores because their altars are decorated with paper flowers and other cheap articles. I never appreciated the meaning of the term "monkey shines" until I watched the antics of a white- faced monkey at the first place I roomed. It is dark brown with the exception of its face Facing- page 6. at Panama 63 and neck, which are white ; hence the name. The top of the forehead is distinctly marked from its face by dark brown hair which makes it look as tho it wore a little skull cap. It was tied on the front porch in the morning to avoid the sun and on the back porch in the afternoon for the same reason. When on the back porch its rope was long enough to admit its going into the last room, and in the absence of the occupant it helped itself to his shaving brush, clothes brush, etc., and threw them around on the porch. The owner swore that he would send him to the Happy Hunting Grounds. The window was kept closed for awhile after this, to prevent fur- ther depredations, but it was not many days be- fore I saw Mr. Monkey coming out of the open window with the jacket of a pair of silk pajamas in his paws. I took it away from him and put it back and shut the window. The faces he made at me are beyond description. There was a dear little Cuban lady at this house whose husband and brother were working for the commission. Her brother untied the monkey one day later than the usual hour. Mr. Monkey was furious ; I presume because he had been left in the sun' and when the young man untied him he sprang upon the top of his head, which was covered with hair enough for three ordinary men, clutched it in both paws, pulled it as hard as he could and danced up and down. I never saw a funnier sight. Then he sprang down and grabbed a flower pot and threw it on the porch, emptying a lot of dirt. Fearing the landlady's wrath, I took the flower pot and began throwing back the dirt. 64 Light on Dark Places While I was doing this he grabbed another and threw that on the porch. Then the young man caught him and held him while we finished re- pairing the damage. This monkey would hang by his tail to the woodwork of the piazza and brace with his hind feet and hold out his fore- paws and catch anything that any one would toss him from the ground below. He got lots of dainties because we liked to watch him catch things. One day one of the gentlemen in the office said, "I saw your friend the monkey this morning hanging by his tail from the front porch of the house wiping his face on a towel and after he had finished he threw the towel into the street." That is the habit of monkeys. When they get thru playing with anything they do not bother putting it back where they found it, but throw it as far as they can. If you get up early enough you can buy monkeys, parrots, etc., at the market. Folks rise at dawn here and do their marketing. Before 10 o'clock everything is sold and the venders gone. I shall not do any marketing, as you know I hate to rise early in the morning. It is a great trial to have to be at the office at 8 o'clock instead of 9 as in New York. We have two hours at noon, but I would much rather have one hour at noon and get to the office at 9. However, I am not running things. If I were there would be some changes, for I never saw such a state of affairs. When my month was up at the French lady's I changed my room on account of the heat. I had been taking my meals across the street at a Jamaican lady's, the mother of the British Vice- at Panama 65 consul. This was the best place in Panama to board and had she had a vacant room I would have gone there to live. As it was, I decided to go to the Hotel Central and not trouble hunting other lodgings because we expected to be moved to Culebra very shortly with the rest of the en- gineering force. I stayed several days at the Central, but soon tired of it, for altho I had to pay $4.00 U. S. a day I got about $1.50 worth for it. Having had the good fortune to meet an English missionary, a Miss Johnson, in the mean- time, she found a better boarding place for me. I wish I could give you the history of this lady's life. She is down here in Panama just to do all the good she can, and I do not think she is paid anything for it. She has a small income of her own, I think. She has parents and brothers and sis- ters in England, but always wanted to be a mis- sionary. Her health was not up to the standard re- quired by the missionary board when she was younger and they would not send her out, so she went herself. She was in Egypt a great many years teaching Egyptian girls sewing and other useful vocations. She has ridden horseback days at a time across the desert without a saddle, for the Arabs will not ride on a saddle that a woman has ever ridden on. She goes around Panama taking care of sick people that are not in the hospital and doing all the good she can. One day when I was at the Central I had a headache and ordered a soda cracker; the manager said they had none in the house and never offered to get me one, tho I had eaten nothing all that day. I managed to get word to Miss Johnson and in 66 Light on Dark Places about an hour she came with a dozen crackers, after having gone a mile for them. She conducts church services at various churches in the Zone when the ministers are away. She intends to go down among the Peruvian Indians as soon as some one can be found to take up her work at Panama. She says the place in Peru where she and another missionary intend to work is such a dangerous post it is necessary to have horses saddled, ready to ride away at any moment to save their lives, because the Roman Catholic Church is bitterly opposed to Protestant missions and often excites the ignorant and easily influ- enced Indians to violence in order to rid them- selves of Protestant missionaries. The Arch- bishop of Panama is a Roman Catholic priest, yet one frequently hears of the archbishop's daugh- ter and other things of the same sort, which are so much a matter of course that no one but a newly arrived American stops and stares when any one mentions them. I have been told by Cubans that it is a very common occurrence for the heads of families in Cuba to positively for- bid the priests to visit their houses. I was so pleased to receive your letter, which came on the same mail with a dozen others, that I could hardly read it. I kept picking up one and reading a few lines, then picking up an- other. It was more than a month since I had received a line from anybody because I had been at sea so long. As many others are asking the same questions you are I may sometimes send you copies of letters I have written to other people. at Panama 6j Congratulate me on passing the Civil Service examination. My rating, tho not as high as I would have liked, is higher than I hoped, all things considered, 78.81. Passing mark is 70. Had I passed at 100 I am sure that, under the regime here, it would not have done me one cent's worth of good. I think that it is detri- mental, rather than otherwise, to have better qualifications than the many humbugs possess, because it makes one a target for their animosity. There is a man in the office who is trying to run the whole thing, and he has not even sense enough to let me alone tho my position is dis- tinctly understood to be that of the stenographer of the chief of the division, who with the chief clerk and myself have one office entirely to our- selves. I cannot make a remark to some one else but he flatly contradicts me. I said the other day that I should think that in Panama, as is the custom in New York and some other cities, offices would be closed Saturday afternoons. He promptly informed us that it was not the cus- tom in New York to close the offices on Saturday afternoons. As I worked there over three years, several months of which I was substituting, thus going from office to office, and cannot recollect a single one that did not close on Saturday after- noons, besides knowing a great many girls who worked in other offices, I feel able to state that it is customary for offices to close Saturday after- noons. The chief clerk, who, like many other people here in positions of authority, is lacking in training and experience for such a position, while floundering around in bewilderment, was 68 Light on Dark Places persuaded by this officious young ignoramus to allow him to dictate in all matters. He assumes to possess knowledge on all and any subject, among them engineering. I said to him one day, "If I am going to have a new typewriter it would be well for me to have keys marked with engi- neering signs, as I have formerly when working for engineers. I have rather forgotten what they are, will you please write them down for me ?" "Signs," he said, "what signs ? I did not know there were any signs." He was sent down by the commission at a salary of $150 a month and sent out to superintend some work with a university graduate under him who was re- ceiving but $100 a month. This engineer had to teach his supposed superior, and this is an every-day state of affairs on the Isthmus — infe- riors teaching supposed superiors, only nobody supposes they are superiors. And this work, the greatest engineering feat in the world, which should be entrusted to intelligent and experienced people, is being conducted in such a manner as to make the United States ridiculous and causing an incalculable amount of unnecessary expense. I have written numerous letters at the dictation of the chief clerk to the several men in charge of the gaging stations asking them to give him an account of the material and supplies he has sent them. Tho he has written repeatedly but one has made a report and he does not know whether this is correct or not. I doubt if the propriety of keeping a record of what he distributed would ever have crossed his mind were not the local auditor continually calling on him to render an at Panama 69 accounting. The equipment of the gaging sta- tions includes very costly instruments. The en- gineer (?) who did not know the signs had an- other opportunity to do engineering work. The head of one of the other engineering departments recently wrote our chief that he heard he had an engineer in his office doing clerical work and he needed one, and requested him to transfer him. Our chief immediately told Mr. Burrill he would transfer him, but that gentleman declined to be transferred, saying he preferred clerical work! He has written the commission complaining be- cause he was discharged from his position draw- ing the salary he was sent down at, namely, $150. And why should he not complain? If the com- mission sends men down without ascertaining whether they are worth anything or not, is it not the commission's fault rather than that of the men they send? I have heard that he said he paid the man that recommended him for getting him the position. Our chief clerk got his position because at the time he was appointed the assistant engineer of this division was a great friend of his and in- duced Mr. Arango to make him chief clerk. They have since quarreled over a Panamanian girl and are bitter foes. The c. c. was sent down by the commission at $75 a month. They do not even pretend to examine clerks sent at $75 a month. Why not, unless they are sure they know nothing? He, therefore, jumped from $75 a month to $150. I am told that before com- ing to the Isthmus he was a motor man. Mr. Arango told me once he was distracted with the yo Light on Dark Places incompetent people that were sent down to him (this means from Washington) for whom he had to find places in his division. I think the Isthmian Canal Commission is more to blame for sending such people down than the incom- petents are for coming. You can realize the temptation to a man who has run motor cars all his life, or done rough mechanical work, to take a chief clerkship, or some other responsible posi- tion to get the salary, even tho he knows he is utterly unfit to fill it, if those having authority allow him to jump into it from the foot of the ladder. This practice, of course, drives compe- tent men away from the Isthmus in disgust, as they, will not take orders from men who know less than they do. There has been a sewer laid in the City of Panama by American engineers, so-called. I have just heard that it is not properly constructed and the work will all have to be done again. Of course, properly qualified men were not in charge of the work. I found a copy in my desk of an official report stating that numbers of young en- gineers had come here, graduates of universities, and left, disappointed, because of the lack of recognition of ability, etc. In response to your anxious inquiries as to how I expect to avoid catching yellow fever, I am pleased to inform you that I am frequently ordered out of my room in the early dawn so that the sanitary department can fill it with burning sulphur. The last time they came I ordered them off in the most stentorian voice I could assume and told them to give me an hour to get dressed. at Panama Jt The man in the next room swore and said he wished the French were running things now so that a fellow could take yellow fever in peace if he wanted to. I have had the diversion of attending two wed- dings thru the kindness of the chief clerk, who is very popular in Panamanian society. The first was that of an English nurse at Ancon Hospital and a Jamaican clerk working for the commis- sion. It was a very pretty wedding and the next day I was telling the lodgers at the house about it. One of my audience asked if the groom was sober. I said, "Of course, what do you mean?" He said, "If he was it is the first night he has been since he has been on the Isthmus." "Why," I said, "what do you mean?" He said, "Just what I say; if he was it is the first night he has been since he has been on the Isthmus." The other bride was a Panamanian lady, her groom a German merchant. It was in the cathedral. The service was all Spanish and very long. I did not attend the reception because my escort did not have a dress coat. I have been making several copies of "Instruc- tions in Steam Gaging" and I am going to send you one and a photograph of a gaging station. The last time the nearest station was inspected by Mr. Arango and the chief observer I accom- panied them and Mr. Arango says that, when convenient, I may go on these trips of inspection to other stations so that I can get a clear under- standing of the work. Where I am now boarding I am served with the regular tropical breakfast, namely, one cup of coffee, one roll and one 72 Light on Dark Places orange. This suggestion of a breakfast they call "coffee." At lunch time they serve what thev call breakfast, which is enough for a large dinner. I wish they would deduct a little from the breakfast and add it to the "coffee." It was specially inconvenient the day I visited the gag- ing station, for I was hungry before I started, and as we were very late in returning, about 2 o'clock, I became positively ravenous and asked the hydrographer in charge of the station for a cracker. He brought out all the food he had and I solaced myself with some oranges. I enclose post cards of the Administration Building, the cathedral facing the plaza, a view of the Bay of Panama, some of the Ancon Hos- pital Buildings, showing palm trees, Pacific en- trance of the canal at La Boca, views of the Cule- bra cut and a picture of some colored women carrying heavy loads on their heads. One day I saw a colored woman walking along the street wearing a man's crownless sailor hat and in place of the crown she had a large ripe pineapple. Evidently she considered this the proper way to carry it for she had nothing in her hands. If you study these pictures they will answer many of your questions. They are taken by Mr. I. L. Maduro, Jr., of Panama, and if any of you want more you can get almost every scene on the Isthmus by sending for the complete set. The interesting ruins of Old Panama are a few miles from the present city of Panama. The pirate Morgan destroyed the old city about 400 years ago, murdering or enslaving the inhabi- tants and carrying off their wealth, which was at Panama 73 enormous. The present site of Panama was selected as being safer from such attacks. I in- tend to visit the old ruins and will then describe them in detail. The washerwomen wash clothes in the rivers and pound them on the rocks, as you have heard ; and as you imagine, the clothes are short lived. The food one receives down here depends largely upon where one eats. At Mrs. Humbert's we had fairly good food, but the native meat is very tough. I suppose because it is killed and eaten the same day, but maybe it is tough any way. My impression is that they do not take any pains in feeding and caring for the cattle. Pie, cake and such dainties are almost unknown. The idea of dessert is fruit, guava jelly and such things, which are called sweets. Some of the restaurants are called good and some are not. The natural supposition would be that the gov- ernment mess at Corozal would be the best, but the food provided is so bad that the I. C. C. employes quartered there say they cannot eat it and wait every morning until they reach Panama and take their first meal, as well as the others, at a . Panamanian restaurant. Corozal is the first station north of Panama. Food served at a gov- ernment mess should be much better than that served anywhere else because there is supposed to be no profit to anybody at a government mess. What think you of the following? There is a man here who has been in the Philippine serv- ice. While there he availed himself of the oppor- tunities to rob dead soldiers, who had been gradu- ated from colleges and universities, of their cer- 74 Light on Dark Places tificates. These he has been selling in Panama, erasing with acid the names of the dead and in- serting the names of the purchasers. This he published while drunk. There is a club here bearing the proud title of the University Club, whose membership requirement is that members must either be graduates, or have been students of some college or university, and it is an open secret that numbers of members are shams. I infer that the great majority must be, because bona fide college men surely would never tolerate such a state of affairs. You can imagine from this instance what some are who have influence here. The Chief of the Sanitary Department is reputed to be doing his work as tho he were ac- countable to some individual, instead of the tax- payers of the United States. They say he is driving the natives demented at the way he is cleaning out dark corners and that even the basins that contain holy water in the churches do not escape his ruthless orders. There are three or four large dry goods shops here and prices are as high and higher than those of New York City. Many of the smaller stores, as soon as they see an American, ask anything they think they can make you pay. Chinese mer- chants here carry very beautiful goods in silks, fans, brie a brae, etc. The little Cuban lady where I first roomed told me that if I wanted to buy any silk to let her buy it for me for I would not have to pay anywhere near as much for it. I was about to buy a nice silk dress, but learned that, owing to the dampness of the atmosphere here, clothes mold and rot even when kept in at Panama 75 locked trunks. Woolens, silks and shoes will become covered with mold in a short time. Scis- sors and knives unless constantly wrapped in pa- per or put in a pasteboard box will soon become covered with rust. Gold, silver, copper and brass do not appear to be injured by the atmos- phere. This molding and rotting of clothing is an item not to be ignored in considering the ex- pense of living here. I do not know just where our office is coming out. I talked it over with one of the other stenographers awhile ago. I am idle half the time and he is idle all the time, they say, and I am_ very much annoyed by having dictations which I properly should receive given to other stenographers. The chief clerk and his adviser when anything is being dictated that they do not want me to know, and I think there is a good deal they do not want me to know, have a stenog- rapher who is a friend of theirs take the dicta- tion. I am told by people working in other of- fices that in order to provide lucrative positions for their special friends the office force is to be increased after the 1st of January. I told the other stenographer I did not like to have some one else doing work that belongs to me and asked him if he did not feel the same way. He said, "Why, child, it is not our fault ; we do not need to worry about that. We are here to earn our living and do what we are told to." As he is several years my junior his paternal form of address, coupled with his serious face, was amus- ing. He also stated that this office was far from being the worst managed one on the Isthmus, 76 Light on Dark Places He sat at the desk I have, before I came, and in looking thru it I found the paper he received from Washington notifying him of his appoint- ment at $60 odd a month. He is now called a stenographer and paid $125, tho they had sent to Washington for an experienced stenographer to put in that place. He is a good friend of the chief clerk, who has made his own position solid by ingratiating himself with the secretary of the chief engineer. The head of our division could not remove him if he wanted to. I have been positively promised that my salary is to be raised to $125, dated from the 1st of January, and the second day that I was here our chief instructed the chief clerk to cancel the order sent to Wash- ington for the experienced stenographer as the position had been filled on the Isthmus. He also asked me later if he could count on my staying. I said I would stay a year any way. I wonder how long I can stand the climate. I believe two years is as long as any one should stay. If peo- ple remain here too long they sometimes get into such a condition they cannot live anywhere else. W r hat do you think of this? To get supplies to some of the gaging stations they have to be poled up the river in canoes. These canoes are very primitive affairs, hollowed out of trunks of trees, and traveling in them is a dangerous mat- ter even in pleasant weather, and the poling of them is very hard work. The usual munificent salary paid to the negro laborers is 10 cents U. S. currency an hour. For this extra hazardous and laborious transmission of supplies the rate is 13 cents an hour. Some of the laborers working in at Panama yy another department at 10 cents an hour, learning that they could earn 13 cents, applied for and received this job. Mr. Arango received a letter from their former employer instructing him that he must discharge these negroes. Reply was dic- tated to me stating that they would be discharged at the earliest possible moment and an explana- tory apology made for paying 13 cents an hour, for the reason that it was such hard work. I said to the chief clerk, "Is this Russia or the United States? If a poor, miserable negro labor- er has a chance to earn 13 cents instead of 10 must he be thrown out of work?" He said, "Yes, that is the custom down here. In the posi- tion I held before this I spent most of my time going around and seeing that the laborers were discharged when they tried to work for another department in order to get a few cents more. It was my business to see that they could not get work anywhere on the Isthmus." "Well " I said "would you like that?" He said, "No, but I couldn't help it." And he could not unless he resigned ; then they would have sent out another chaser. We have had a big fire here; it looked for a time as tho most of Panama would be burned. The chief clerk and others were helping the fire- men a good part of the day. Under the Panamanian law no divorces are allowed. How do you think poor women arrange to escape abuse from brutal husbands from whom there is no legal deliverance? Simply by not marrying at all, thus giving their partners no rights whatever; therefore if they get beyond en- 78 Light on Dark Places durance they are able to put them out. "Any- thing that accomplishes its purpose is, to a de- gree, beyond criticism." Cristobal, C. Z., May 31, 1906, Care Div. Material and Supplies. You will note that I have been transported to the other side of the Isthmus. I have received your several inquiries as to what has become of me and you doubtless received the post cards I sent as apologies for letters. When I last wrote you I was in a hopeful frame of mind. Then came the landslide and I experienced a long in- terval of despair. I would ere this have returned to the States, but like many others, having en- dured it six months, it seems that it would be decidedly foolish not to stay two more and get the vacation I then expect to obtain. Each em- ploye is allowed six weeks' vacation, with pay, for every twelve months, and this may be granted after eight months' service if convenient to those directing the work. Then followed a short inter- val of hope. Now I have none ; that is, not much, but I have resolved to ascertain if it is an actual fact that, as I have often been told, unless you have influential friends to look out for your in- terests your rights will be altogether ignored. This seems to be the case. One might just as well be a British subject, or any other subject, as a citizen of the United States. One may as well be extremely unfit for the position they hold as to understand their business thorOly, or a confirmed sot as a respectable citizen, if you are a friend of the head of your department or have a political at Panama 79 pull. You will receive a higher salary, which also means better quarters. You will, in open disre- gard of precedence, or fitness, or citizenship of the United States be placed over the heads of those entitled to be advanced and receive twice the sick leave. It is generally understood that if you are not a friend of the head of your depart- ment the only way to get fair treatment, usually, is thru your senator or congressman. When I go on my vacation I will see what I can do. The chief engineer was ordered to Washington in January and the assistant chief acted for him in his absence. When the plan for the work of our division for the coming year was presented to him he slashed his pencil thru it and ordered the office force cut down to a chief clerk and office boy and the gaging stations closed. Thus most of us were scattered about the Isthmus in vari- ous directions and it looked as if the division would be abolished. I have never learned his reason for this action. If he did not like the plan he threw every one out except those who designed it—the chief clerk and his friend. They had arranged that the c. c. should be called su- perintendent of office and have his salary raised to $200 a month. Mr. Burrill was to be chief clerk and receive $150 a month. This gave them each an advance of $50. Being a tenderfoot as to Isthmian customs, I was confused by the whirlwind and distressed. Others, longer in the service, laughed, and told me not to mind a little thing like that. The head of our division tried to do the best he could for us all. Understanding that they wanted a stenographer at Ancon Hos- 8o Light on Dark Places pital, he sent me to the acting director of hos- pitals to see about it. I objected to leaving the engineering department, but not knowing what else to do, went to see about the place at Ancon and found it was at Colon Hospital, the other side of the Isthmus. Then I cared less for it, but was persuaded to "just go and see about it." Much against my will I traveled over to Colon on the celebrated Panama Railroad and arrived covered with dirt and cinders. 1 carried a rec- ommendation signed by Mr. Arango, but dictated by the chief clerk. This was not the first recom- mendation he wrote. That I refused to accept, for it was so ridiculously untruthful. One of the fabrications was that I had been with them nearly a year. When I reached Colon Hospital I had an in- terview with the superintendent and asked him what the work was. He said the chief clerk would tell me all about that. The chief clerk told me nothing whatever about it, but we agreed if I decided to take the position I would let her know in two or three days. I never had any de- sire to work in an institution and have none now. When I returned to Panama I told Mr. Arango I was not going to take the position if I could possibly find anything else within two or three days. I learned afterward that they had been trying to find some one for a long time and could not. I said, "I suppose I do not dare to stay here until I find something else because Mr. Sullivan would not allow it." He said, "Go down and see Mr. Sullivan yourself and perhaps he will be willing to allow you to stay until you find at Panama 8i a position that suits you." I immediately started for the door, but was headed off by the chief clerk, who said, "Mr. Sullivan is away this after- noon." I believed him and returned to my desk. Later developments lead me to think that Mr. Sullivan was there, but the clerk did not wish me to talk with him. Next morning the chief clerk of another de- partment, at the request of a friend of mine, sent word to Mr. Arango that he wanted to see him personally about having a stenographer sent down to fill the position of a young man who had just died. Our chief clerk immediately stepped up and said, "I will send Vernon down there." "He wants to see Mr. Arango person- ally," said the messenger. This was a $125 posi- tion. "There is no need of your going down, Mr. Arango, I will send Vernon to that position," said the chief clerk. Vernon, by the way, is an Englishman. It transpired afterward that he asked to see Mr. Arango personally because he wished to make special request that I be trans- ferred to that position. With much reluctance I departed for Colon Hospital, but believing that I could soon return to engineering because I knew that stenographers experienced in engineering work were very much needed. I have learned since, of what I was then ignorant, that the Su- perintendent of Labor & Quarters cares nothing whatever whether he places people in positions suitable for them or not. I mailed the following letter to Mr. Stevens, marked personal, just as soon as he returned to the Isthmus : 82 Light on Dark Places COPY. Colon Hospital, February 4, 1906. Mr. John F. Stevens, Chief Engineer. Sir: On December 1st I had the honor to be ap- pointed by you as stenographer to Mr. Arango, Division of Meteorology and River Hydraulics. During your absence a sweeping cut was or- dered in this division and every stenographer was transferred. I am in the office at Colon Hospital. I did not wish to come here. I do not wish to remain here. I have so informed the superintendent, who has agreed to sign my transfer at any time. I am doing nothing but the work of a copyist, which any typewritist could do who had not a year's experience, and who knew nothing at all about stenography. Therefore my long experi- ence, especially in engineering work, is benefiting no one. Since being hired by you I have received my rating from Washington for the U. S. Civil Serv- ice examination I took last October with the in- tention of having a position on the Isthmus. I have passed nearly ten per cent above the re- quired percentage. I earnestly and respectfully request that I be reinstated in the Engineering Department at an early date. Very respectfully. This letter did not even receive the courtesy of a refusal. I afterwards took a day off and at Panama 83 went to Panama hoping to see Mr. Sullivan, but was told he was in Empire. I asked Mr. Stev- ens' private secretary why above application was not answered and he said he had never seen it and thought it must have been lost in the mail, perhaps Jackson Smith had it, etc. The largest part of Colon Hospital is built in the ocean and it also extends a considerable dis- tance on the opposite side of the drive. It has been necessary to continually enlarge it. The superintendent is naval officer, which is a neces- sary qualification for the position. Tho he were to leave the next doctor in authority would not be advanced because he is a civilian. Generally in the hospital when a vacancy occurs the person next below is advanced. This should be the practice in all departments on the Isthmus, but it is not. I heard much about the kindness and consideration of the superintendent for every- body before I went to the hospital. The report was true, the office, however, saw little of him, his time being spent in the operating room, wards, grounds, etc. My initiatory work at the hos- pital office consisted of making seven copies of endless columns of figures that had been accu- mulating for some time on paper too heavy to make three good copies. • This continued for three days ; then I told the chief clerk that I had been informed they wanted a stenographer and had taken the position with that understanding. She said there was no stenography; then I went to the superintendent and told him I did not want the position. He said he was very sorry and that he would sign a transfer as soon as I could 84 Light on Dark Places get one, that he had asked for a stenographer be- cause there was no copyist mentioned in the list of government employes and they wanted some one who could run a typewriter. I applied to all the engineers on the Isthmus, I think, but the division engineer at Cristobal was the only one who said he would hire me. Two others said they would like to, but it would not be possible to get quarters for me. I afterwards learned that Mr. Maltby values experienced workers, as business men do, and tries to get them, and that there are fewer mistakes made in his office than any other on the Zone; also there was never the trouble with his people about re- turning their tools, etc., as there was in other departments. He is said to be about the only engineer on the Isthmus in a very responsible position who really is an engineer ; that he worked his way thru college, etc. He wrote me he had sent my application to Mr. Jackson Smith, Super- intendent of Labor and Quarters, requesting him to appoint me to the position in his office, and that it rested with him to do so. I did not think it necessary, but wrote Mr. Smith, telling of my experience in engineering work and my great desire to be transferred. He wrote me that he had appointed some one else to the vacancy in Mr. Maltby's office before he asked for me. Some time afterward Mr. Maltby sent to the States for an experienced stenographer, a lady. I went up to the office to see her, and, meeting Mr. Maltby, thanked him for trying to hire me when he did. I then learned that Mr. Smith had written him that I was already transferred. at Panama 85 The hospital force consisted of the head clerk, who, I was told, came down as a friend of the head nurse and worked three months for nothing to get experience, another little girl who was just beginning, a man and myself. Each re- ceived $100 per month, except the head clerk, who received $125. I think the lowest salaries on the Isthmus were paid in the Colon Hospital office. We had to work legal holidays and half a day every other Sunday as well as every day. In speaking of the fact that almost all of the people in clerical positions on the Isthmus were very inexperienced or very incompetent to the judge at Cristobal later, he said he did not think there ever would be many first-class workers in that line on the Isthmus because there was noth- ing to attract them. There isn't; and there is everything to astonish, exasperate and repel them, and when experienced women apply they will not hire them. About this time President Roosevelt made a rule that no one was to be appointed who had not passed an examination and examinations were held on the Istnmus, the printed notices of which specially stated that they would not make those taking them eligible for positions anywhere else under the government. This proves that these examinations do not amount to much, and I do not think above-mentioned rule hindered the heads of departments in the least from engaging their friends without passing examinations. After being at the hospital a month I realized that I might write applications for years, resign, leave the Isthmus, and the government be at the expense of sending down another stenographer, 86 Light on* Dark Places but unless some influential person interceded for me I would never be transferred. Table board at the hospital and at the Wash- ington Hotel cost the same, $25 a month. I had gone to the hotel as I thought by so doing I might hear of a position elsewhere. I applied in vain for the many I heard of, and at last, feeling desperate, one evening, after dinner, I went to Judge Collins and asked if I might have the favor of an interview with him when it was con- venient. He said, "Yes, come to my house to- morrow evening after dinner." His daughter then directed me to the house. "Who can say that fortune grieves him, when the star of hope she leaves him?" At the appointed evening I started for the residence of Judge Collins with my Civil Service rating and letters of recommen- dation. I told him of my experience on the Isthmus and that the superintendent of the hos- pital was willing to sign my transfer, but that I was convinced that unless some one helped me I never would be transferred. I would have liked to have told him under what difficulties I had struggled to take the supposedly necessary Civil Service examination, but was afraid I might bore him if I talked too much. When I had finished and breathlessly awaited his verdict, he said, "Now tell me, would you like to go back to Panama, or along the line, or work in Cristobal ? I know them all and I will speak for you to whichever one you prefer." My relief at his kind question threw me into a state of mental con- fusion and I could not decide where I did want to go. Finally he said, "How would you like to at Panama 87 work for the Chief of the Division of Material and Supplies?" He has a very pleasant office at Cristobal" Had I thought I would have said I prefer Mr. Maltby, as he is an engineer, but the dominant idea in my mind was, "He is so kind I will give him as little trouble as possible." Mr. Tubby eats at the same table Judge Collins does at the Washington Hotel, so I said, "Yes, I will be grateful if you will ask Mr. Tubby." Then a lady and gentleman called and Mrs. Collins came in to receive them. The judge introduced me to her and to them. During the conversation the lady said she thought Panama was such a beauti- ful city. I thought she was joking, but her face showed her to be serious. I asked her what other cities she had seen. She said none but Colon, she was born in Panama. Everything is comparative, you know. At the appointed time I again called on Judge Collins and he said that he had seen Mr. Tubby, who said his was a very busy office and he would be glad to take on three or four more stenographers if he could get them, and for me to call on him. I did so, and after nearly a month's delay in securing sanction from Ancon of my transfer I was appointed stenographer in the Division of Material and Supplies at Cristo- bal. The second month at the hospital, thinking it would be but a week at farthest before I left Colon, I asked a Jamaican lady whose husband works for the Panama Railroad Company, if she would do me the favor to board me for a week or less. This she did, and the week dragged out to a month, but she was very gracious about it. 88 Light on Dark Places One day when boarding with this lady the manager of the government mess at Cristobal dined there. He advised me to continue boarding with this lady rather than at the government mess, even tho that would necessitate my travel- ing about a mile and a quarter each way for my meals ! I wondered if he were slightly demented. Imagine a man condemning his own manage- ment! He said he could not get cooks and the food itself was very inferior. Think of that when they charge $27 a month at the government mess, and the ordinary price for table board is $25. I could not understand this, but that was before I had learned many things. I did not receive $125 for my second months' work as I had been promised, and hearing all the employes Mr. Sullivan transferred were re- ferred to him when they tried to see Mr. Stevens, wrote him. Following is his reply with enclosure from the secretary of the chief engineer: COPY. Empire, March 12, 1906. Miss Mary A. Chatfield, Colon Hospital, Colon. Dear Madam: I have your letter of March the 3d, and in re- ply I beg to say that just at present I am unable to say to you whether or not we would have work for you in the Engineering Department. Referring to the $25 that you claim for salary for January, I beg to call your attention to the attached letter from Mr. E. P. Brannan, secre- at Panama 89 tary to the chief engineer. Under the circum- stances I am very sorry to have to say that I can do nothing for you in this matter. Yours truly, J. G. Sullivan, 'Assistant Chief Engineer. COPY, Panama, March 10, 1906. Mr. J. G. Sullivan, Assistant Chief Engineer, Empire. My dear Mr. Sullivan : Referring to your letter of March 9th and re- turning papers relative to claim of Miss Mary A. Chatfield for $25 still due her on her Janu- ary salary, which, she states, was the increase promised her. In reply I beg to say that I am advised that no definite promise was made by Mr. Arango or his office that her salary would be increased to $125, but she was given to understand that if the organization, of which you are conversant, as submitted by Mr. Arango, was put thru, that she would be increased to $125 per month, but as this organization was not put into effect, she did not get the expected increase. Under these circumstances I do not think that we can do anything for her. Respectfully, E. P. Brannan, Secretary to the Chief Engineer. Upon receiving this answer I wrote the chief 90 Light on Dark Places clerk of the Division of Meteorology and River Hydraulics the following letter, sending a copy to the assistant chief engineer and the receipted bill from the Hotel Central. I send you copy of the bill, also of the unsigned notification they sent me regarding my January pay check : COPY. HOTEL CENTRAL, Panama. Mary A. Chatfield. Debe. Star & Herald, 6826. Enero 2/10, Su pension $64.00 I bot. vichy 1.00 $65.00 Panama, 10 Enero, 1906. Received, Hnueiiman. FACSIMILE. Panama, February 5, 1906. Miss Mary A. Chatfield, Colon Hospital, Cristobal, C. Z. Dear Melle: I be to hand you herwith your January Pay Certificate No. 15534, kindly sign this and re- turne same to this office. Very respectfull, Division Engineer. at Panama 91 COPY. Colon Hospital, Cristobal, March 17, 1906. Mr. D. W. MacRae, Chief Clerk, Division M. and R. H., Ancon, Canal Zone. Sir: I beg to inform you that the reply of the as- sistant chief engineer to my request that the $25 still due on my January salary be paid contained a letter from Mr. Brannan, the second para- graph of which reads as follows: "In reply I beg to say that I am advised that no definite promise was made by Mr. Arango or his office that her salary would be increased to $125, but she was given to understand that if the organization, of which you are conversant, as submitted by Mr. Arango, was put through, that she would be increased to $125 per month, but as this organization was not put into effect, she did not get the expected increase." I, therefore, desire to recall to your recollec- tion that on December 1, 1905, after I had ap- plied to Mr. Stevens for a position and Mr. Brannan had taken me to Mr. Arango's office, you made the following arrangement with me : I. That I was to begin working at the rate of $100 per month, tho I objected to so low a figure (the offering of which caused me consid- erable surprise as you informed me that you had just sent to Washington requesting that "A stenographer of wide experience" be sent to you. A day or two after my installation in the office Mr. Arango told you, in my presence, to write 92 Light on Dark Places and cancel the request as the position was satis- factorily filled on the Isthmus), but that the raise in my salary would be prompt. You said, "We will raise just as soon as we see that you are an experienced stenographer." I fully ex- pected that the raise would be made before the 1st of January, as I have never known or heard that it required a month to ascertain whether a stenographer was experienced. 2. Again, shortly after the ist of January you made a definite and positive statement when I asked you at what date I could feel sure my sal- ary was $125 a month. You said, "It will be dated back from the 1st of January!' I then stated, as you cannot fail to remember, that I particularly wished to know when I could feel sure my salary was increased to that amount, because when I could do so I intended to move to the Hotel Central. You will undoubtedly re- call that I did move to the Hotel Central and that when I inquired of you where I could find an ex- pressman to move my trunks you sent Juan to find one. Referring to my receipted bill, I find that I stayed at the Central eight days, after which, finding I received less attention, tho I paid more money, I moved to another boarding house. 3. Again, later, I asked you if a stenographer of my experience was not entitled to $150 a month, especially considering that $125 was paid to so many inexperienced stenographers and to those who had never passed a United States Civil Service examination; that from what I had read in printed matter sent out from Washington I at Panama 93 had not doubted that my salary would be $150 a month. You replied that but one stenographer had been sent from Washington at $150 a month and you did not think that salary would be gen- erally received by stenographers. I then said, "I thmk they send out very deceiving statements from Washington." On every one of these occasions your state- ments and mine were positive and definite. I beg to recall to your memory that the "Or- ganization," "as submitted by Mr. Arango," etc., was never mentioned by you to me, nor was it mentioned to me by any one else. I received my first knowledge of the existence of this organization by the short letter which Mr. Arango dictated to me to accompany it when he presented it to Mr. Sullivan. I was then abso- lutely ignorant of its contents until I discovered a typewritten copy of it in the basket where Mr. Arango's letters and papers were put to be filed, after its presentation. I am sending a copy of this letter to Mr. Sullivan and again requesting the payment of the $25 still due on my January salary. Very respectfully, Mary A. Chatfield. I have received no reply from Mr. Sullivan, but four different friends, or acquaintances, have reported to me what they knew of the result of my letters. I also wrote a few lines to Mr. Arango asking him to read the letter I sent to Mr. MacRae. As soon as Mr. MacRae received my letter he rushed up to Ancon Hospital to ask 94 Light on Dark Places his adviser, Mr. Burrill, who was recovering from some operation, what he should do. He then returned and wrote something to this effect, addressing it to Mr. Arango : That he told me that if I could prove that I could do the work of a man receiving $125 that I would be paid the same figure ; that he told me he expected to recommend an increase as plans had been made awaiting the approval of the chief engineer for an increase in the work of the divi- sion; that he had purposely kept me "in the dark" about the re-organization of the division, as from one or two small things he had heard I did not keep my "mouth shut" inside and outside the office. In the recommendation he dictated for me to take to the director of hospitals he stated, "her work has given the greatest satisfac- tion in every way." Tho Mr. Sullivan did not answer me, I am told he appeared suddenly one day about this time in the office of the Division of Meteorology and River Hydraulics and found fault with every- thing that was being done and with everything that ever had been done and completed his visit by cutting down Mr. MacRae's salary from $150 to $125 per month. As soon as he had departed the bereaved Mr. MacRae went weeping to his friend, the secretary of the chief engineer, and told his tale of woe, who told Mr. Stevens, who reinstated him in his former salary, viz., $150 per month. "Off again, on again, Finnegan." In addition to the unwelcome transfer imagine my disgust when I reached the station at being informed I must pay $4.40 gold for my baggage at Panama 95 because by an oversight the words "And bag- gage" had been omitted from my pass. Just fancy, there is no baggage allowed on a ticket or a pass on the Panama Railroad. Passengers have to pay 2 cents a pound gold for their baggage. Then the porter demanded 30 cents gold addi- tional for allowing my trunks to stand in the baggage room from 8 o'clock A, M. until 1 o'clock P. M. the same day. I had not money enough with me to settle, so had to leave one trunk and then had to borrow 60 cents from an acquaintance. I have since learned it is the cus- tom of the Panama Railroad to treat people in this way. I enclose a post card picture of myself and a distant cousin whom I met on the Isthmus. Don't you think we look alike? I also enclose the letter of the other stenog- rapher from whom I borrowed the money at the station. You see he is not popular with the c. c. and his friends — is not their style. He goes home every Saturday night and spends Sunday with his wife. They have a small coffee and cocoa plantation and until he is given quarters his wife has to stay on the plantation. Empire, February 8, 1906. Dear Miss Chatfield: Your favor of the 6th instant just to hand; I wish to thank you for your kindness. Am not sure, but fancy I have got the better of you, be- ing under the impression it was 60 cents. How- ever, if you do not grumble I shall not. I rather fancy you could make the railroad return you g6 Light on Dark Places the money they robbed you of, at any rate it might be worth trying for. I read in the Journal that Mr. J. F. Stevens was back at his office again. I saw Martin yesterday and he gave me the impression that he was calling on you be- fore he left for New York. Was in the office yesterday, but Burrill would hardly look at me. Wait a bit, he might perhaps strike Empire one of these Sundays, but not the smell of a cup of coffee would I give him. They never sent me my pay cheque ; it cost me $3 tin money to go in for it. I asked him why he had not sent it and he replied that he was holding it until I came in for it. I start outdoor work to-morrow of some kind, don't know what it is yet ; am acting as a stenographer whilst Mr. Wood's man is sick, but he will be back in the morning. Have had a room assigned me about 6 square feet, not room to swing round in. Will be unable to get a house for another month at least, so Mrs. Pierce must stay up at the plantation till then. When I do get a house shall be delighted to have you up with us. If I were you I should apply direct to Jackson Smith, or, better still, the great John F. S., stat- ing the facts of the case and request a transfer as stenographer ; sorry you are in such a poor place. This is MacRae's handiwork again; they man- aged to get rid of us very nicely, but the laugh will, I hope, soon be on the other foot. Should I hear of a position suitable for you, will hold it down if I have half a chance. Hoping to hear from you again, and trusting you will soon obtain a settled position, Isthmian and tropical and simian. Facing page 91 at Panama 97 Believe me, with every good wish, W. Pierce. It is amusing to read the comments of the different friends to whom I have sent this pic- ture. One of them, telling me to be sure to come to see her, says, "But don't you dare come to my house with that monkey in your arms." Another, "I like your picture and that of the little monkey so well that I have pinned it on the wall to have it where I can see it. Is it a friend of yours?" Another, "I suppose that is a dirty little monkey you have under your arm. I do not envy you the pleasure, dear." Another, "Be sure and bring the other monkey with you when you come home." Those are feminine comments, the following is a masculine: "I have your letter of March 17th and also the picture of yourself and him or her whom you designate as your little cousin. You certainly look very tropical under the cocoanut tree or palm tree, whichever it is, and if it is the custom to go wandering about with snakes or monkeys I believe it is a very bad place for those of us in the north who use intoxicating liquors." His belief is correct. Of course, you have seen this letter from the President on the cover of "Everybody's": The White House, Washington, January 11, 1906. • To the Officers and Employes of the Government and especially of the Isthmian Canal Com- mission on the Isthmus of Panama : I desire that you give the fullest information 98 Light on Dark Places to Mr. Lindsay Denison, the representative of "Everybody's Magazine," who is about to visit the Isthmus, concerning what has been done and what is being done on the canal. I desire that he be told the whole truth, no matter whether it hurts or not; and so long as it is the truth and not distorted, I shall see that no man is harmed in any way for telling it. Theodore Roosevelt. I was talking it over with other employes last night and said, "Everybody must be guided by that letter and give information about the many things that are wrong, especially the bad food, at the government hotels." These men said, "That is all very well. The president is sincere, but he is not able to stand back of what he says. If any man were to report anything against the heads of the departments here he would be discharged at once and the president could not save him." You see where the trouble lies. The men are afraid. They said they were considering meet- ing the president when he comes to the Isthmus, a whole lot of them, and telling him about the food. I hope they will, but fear it will fall thru. I do not believe in violence, as a rule, but if the men who are stealing on this food business were lynched — no, lynching would be entirely too good for them. They ought to be tried with the great- est deliberation and consideration of every de- tail, receive a life sentence and be fed on such food as is served at the government hotels. That would be far worse than lynching. Colon is full of little Chinese shops and I am at Panama 99 going to try and get you a picture of one. They have shelves from the floor to the ceiling on three sides and most of them are enclosed in glass; for the reason, I presume, that it protects to a great extent, silks and all other goods injured by the moist atmosphere. Like the Chinese merchants in Panama, they carry many beautiful goods, and I would send presents to you and others, but so many of the other employes tell me their friends have had to pay just as much duty as the cost of the gift. Many men at Panama, Christmas-time, sent their sisters and other girls silk kimonos and the happy and unhappy recipients in all cases had to pay heavy duty. Almost all the Chinese stores carry groceries and in one corner liquors, principally rum. I hear many dreadful stories of the terrible quality of this rum and the results of drinking such awful stuff. It is drank prin- cipally by negro laborers and natives and is so injurious that the sale should be prohibited. It is called rum, but should be called poison. Then there is the great Panama Railroad commissary, which you have read more or less about in the newspapers. There is an endless amount of things I want to write you, but I have not time now, so just enjoy this until the next one comes. Sincerely yours, Yes, it is true that when Spaniards write to a lady they close the letter with, "I kiss your feet" or "I throw myself at your feet," or some such superlative expression, the English equivalent of which in such a case is "Yours sincerely." In tor* ioo Light on Dark Places closing a letter to a gentleman they write, "I kiss your hands." Miss Johnson told us that when she wrote letters to Egyptian officials she was obliged to close them with the expression, "From the worm that crawls beneath your feet." Natu- rally, she did not like to write servile rubbish, but if she had not done so her requests would not have been considered, for that is their degraded custom. Cristobal, June 30, 1906. Your letter received and your sympathy, in- dignation, etc., appreciated. You need not worry in the least about me, for I am quite well. Most of the women on the Isthmus are well. The few who are very sick would have been sick any- where, I think. You know some women are sick all the time more or less. If it were not for the bad food served at the government hotels and drinking there would be far less sickness than there is. As it is the health of men down here is not as good as that of women. Really, I sym- pathize with them to a great extent regarding their drinking. Do not be shocked, but listen to my explanation. The food served is not fit to eat and just to sit down and look at it is enough to make any one go out and get drunk. Most of the men here are unmarried and many that are married cannot get quarters for their families and they have to eat at the government hotels. They are not even allowed to make a cup of tea in their rooms. Official orders prohibiting cook- ing in bachelor quarters are periodically issued. I, being in married quarters, may have a little oil at Panama ioi stove, so I make myself a nice cup of ten when I choose, and ice water, but before buying an ice box I had no way of getting a drink. I tried several times to get ice water in the evenings at the government hotel, but there was none except just at meal times. Do you wonder that the men go to the saloons? I asked for an ice box, but was informed that no one but married people were furnished with ice boxes, so I bought one at the commissary. The married people in the house had lots of fun over the refusal and told me I must get married, but I declined to do so just to get a little snide ice box. This was brought to the house, but they refused to carry it upstairs. I complained to the manager of the commissary, Mr. Burnett, but he informed me that those were his orders. You ask what sort of people are here. There are all sorts of people here; lots of them wanted by the police in other parts of the world, and such arrests have been made. Lots of people are here under assumed names, and lots of spend- thrifts and deadbeats. Some men have borrowed so much from their friends and acquaintances here they could not get trusted for 5 cents. We have three quite prominent "society" ladies here whose husbands fit the last description, yet they are among the best dressed women here and habitually appear in silk stockings. The two principal reasons why there are so many unde- sirable people here are, first, it is the policy of the Isthmian Canal Commission to prevent nice women from coming here, and, of course, any place where good women are scarce is always a 102 Light on Dark Places tough place. According to what the married women tell me there are legions of fast women here, and there are plenty to be seen on the streets. One of the married ladies told me that the plan of building government quarters for these women had actually been considered and she thought if they did every respectable woman had better go away somewhere and die. The other reason is that good workmen coming here and finding they have not a fair chance with favorites leave. Numbers of business women have applied for positions here. Four of my own friends, all experienced stenographers, have done so. I have tried to get positions for them in offices where I knew they were working night after night because of an inadequate force, but always the same reply — "It is not the policy of the commission to hire women." I hear of other applications from women continually; many men have tried to get positions for their sisters, but they are always refused. Aliens, sots, sharpers, any old thing, will be given a position in an office by the Isthmian Canal Commission, any- thing but an American woman. No American women have been exempted from taxation for this canal, neither have the fathers, brothers, rela- tives or friends of the working women of the United States, and how they can allow women to be refused work here I cannot understand. Our desire and hope is to get the larger salaries we should receive in this climate to keep us out of the poorhouse when we get too old to work and we should be encouraged, not refused. There are at Panama 103 some very nice people here, but not the same ratio as in ordinary places. When I worked at Colon Hospital there was a young man brought down unconscious from Gorgona. He had contracted pernicious malaria, and being a Christian Scientist, had refused to take medicine. When he lapsed into unconscious- ness the doctor at Gorgona sent him to the hos- pital. They injected quinine and did everything they could to save him, but he never recovered. The prevailing illness is malaria ; one of the most fatal, pneumonia. Yellow fever, smallpox, etc., tho sometimes epidemic, are nothing in compari- son to pernicious malaria, which often means death. Many and many were the corpses I saw carried past the office wnen I worked in the hos- pital. The majority of the victims of malaria are the negro laborers, who work for the munificent wage of 10 cents an hour U. S. currency, 20 cents Panamanian, which is deducted during illness or absence of any kind. I never knew night work to have anything but a bad effect on anybody when carried to excess even in a healthy climate. What do you think, then, when I tell you that in the office where I am now, until about a week after I came, every man was called out every night to work until 1 1 o'clock! This continued for weeks! The sec- ond day I worked there I went up in the evening to write a letter to my aunt and found one of the stenographers there who told me I had bet- ter not stay. I looked at him in astonishment and said, "What do you mean?" He said, "We have been working for weeks until 11 o'clock every 104 Light on Dark Places night." I said, "They do not do that upstairs. Why don't you all protest?" He replied, "One man said he couldn't stand it, and if he was called out night and day, too, he would have to leave, and they let him leave, so that made more work for all the rest of us." Then he looked out the window and said, "Here comes the head man now." I said, "Here I go now, out the back door, or thru the window if necessary, to the tune of breaking glass." This also meant no extra com- pensation whatever. People on salaries, working for the government on the Isthmus, never re- ceive extra pay when working over time, nights, or holidays! I also enclose letter from the stenographer in Japan: COPY. Care Bluff Hotel, Yokohama, June 12, 1906. My dear Miss Chat field: I have been trying for some time to get off a few lines to you, but have been busy — was going to say exceptionally busy, but cannot say that as I am usually loafing. Have had a very easy posi- tion out here, as the man I work for lives in the country and has bad eyes, so in the winter time he used to take a train shortly after 3 and not come up until 9 130, but now I have much longer hours, but must not complain, for they are still comparatively short, and every Saturday after- noon off. Somehow or other, the past three weeks, my correspondence has piled up. I man- aged to get off a few postals of inquiry to some at Panama 105 of my friends whom I thought would be affected by the fire, and have had letters from some of them, and they certainly had thrilling experiences. Last night I received a long letter from a friend who lived on Post Street, just across from the Jewish Club. She said she was awake when it happened and thought the end of the world had come — the house shook and trembled, and the cry of the people and the noise of falling build- ings were terrible. The chimney from the next house fell and crashed thru their house and a friend of ours was covered with brickbats, but not seriously injured, tho frightened to death, as she had not been awakened by the quake and said she would have possibly slept thru it had she not been buried by the bricks. They rushed out and walked the street, being afraid the house would fall in. Just as they reached the street they saw the Jewish Club fall down. The next day one of them ventured back and rescued two trunks, for which they had to pay $38 to have hauled away. Otherwise they lost everything; their house, which was a large one, burning the following morning at 9 A. M. They had a little insurance, which as yet they had not received. I spent eight very delightful months in Hono- lulu, and left there October 18th last, arriving here October 29th, Sunday morning. The fol- lowing week I secured a position with an attor- ney — an Englishman, who has been out here for over twenty years, and has a thoro knowledge of the Japanese language, and is married to a Japanese woman. I have a pleasant, sunny office, but no furniture, nor has any office here, to speak io6 Light* on Dark Places of, as all the buildings with few exceptions, are in old shacks. The Standard Oil has the best build- ing in town. The salaries here are quite good, principally $100 gold per month, a few get more, but some less. Then there is a possibility in some offices of making extra by doing outside work, and this I did a great deal last winter, but have not done much the past few months and feel the loss. However, to offset any extra you may make in addition to a good salary, living expenses, all reports to the contrary notwithstanding, are very high. I believe three years ago everything cost just about one-third of what it does now; but with the advent of peace and a big war debt to pay off, things have gone skyward and the foreign population are paying for the war. The ist of September a new import duty takes effect and necessaries for Europeans will be heavily taxed. There has been an influx of tourists never before heard of, and all the hotels and boarding houses have doubled their prices, as they have been full to overflowing, many people even stop- ping with Japs until they could get better accom- modations. You cannot get any kind of board and a nice room for less than between $40 and $50 per month, and rikisha fares are pretty high from the standpoint of a 5-cent fare, but I should think cheap from the standpoint of the man that "pulls"; 5 cents gold is the cheapest fare, and to go home where I live, which is on the bluff, where most white people live, is 10 cents gold, and this four times a day — which is necessary when k rains or snows, then extra fare, makes at Panama toy 35 or 40 cents just to go to and from the office on wet days, and any extra tip is more. Many a day my fares amount to about 50 cents gold, but if one is a good pedestrian and does not mind dirt much, you can walk some and save money that way, but walking when it rains is out of the question, as the streets, which are not paved, are a sea of sticky mud and have no sidewalks. I would walk oftener nice weather, but you must walk in the middle of the road, and every one passing you in rikishas and carriages makes it unpleasant as they raise a dust materially and mentally. I cannot say that I regret coming here, but if I had not had a position I certainly would kick myself for spending so much for nothing. I should never advise anybody to come here for just what you can see, unless one has barrels of money and plenty of time — should rather go to Europe a hundred times, for there you get your money's worth. I have been quite satisfied so far, but I would not think of staying forever. While life is very easy, there being plenty of servants, I don't see why one should be waited upon hand and foot, and if there is anything good at Panama I may strike straight for there when I leave here. I have been quite unsettled as to just what direc- tion to take, and at times have thought that I would go from here down to Australia via a Japanese line of boats, which are very good and quite reasonable, and from there go over to South Africa — Cape Town, where, I understand, 108 Light on Dark Places one can make a good salary and climate not so bad. However, I shall not be leaving until Sep- tember or October — hardly before October, so be sure to write me real soon and let me know what you think of the Isthmus or what you think of a trip with me to South Africa, tho I hardly know how we could take it together, for I could not advise you to take the enormous ex- pense of coming over here to start. But this all will be settled later. Yours sincerely, Gertrude Burton. P. S. — Please write me what you think of my coming down to Panama in November or Decem- ber of next year. G. B. The first part of this letter refers to the San Francisco earthquake. Here is an instance told me to-day by the chief clerk of one of the departments which illustrates the adherence to the Civil Service rules: The head of his department, wishing to have a friend of his come down who is a bookkeeper, wrote to the Isthmian Canal Commission requesting them to send him and at a larger salary than according to rule. To make a good appearance he also wrote the commission that the young man was an expert stenographer, because stenographers are needed on the Isthmus, when the truth is the man is not a stenographer at all. The commis- sion immediately replied consenting to send him. Thanks for the "Ladies' Home Journal" you sent me. I have read the "Ideas of a Plain at Panama 109 Country Woman." Whenever I want to read something ridiculous I look for them. When the natives express their opinion of many of the men who come down here they say, "He is crazy with the heat." I say they haven't brains enough to go crazy and I think that is what is the matter with the author of the above ideas. I believe that said author and the author of "The Confessions of a Wife" are both men, making desperate ef- forts to guess at a woman's thoughts. The idea of that old woman sitting in a shel- tered home, as she represents herself to be, pro- tected by a liberal-minded husband who is will- ing she should have all the privileges imaginable, and preaching at women who have to go out and battle with the world — as the authoress of "The Long Day" expresses it, "Work or Starve," "Work or Starve" continually in their mental hearing, as tho they could help themselves. Any one reading her rubbish, if they could possibly be so devoid of sense, would think that women like to pound typewriters and stand behind coun- ters and other equally alluring pastimes. If she could see the number of brides that come to this roasting country and live for months in one room, which serves as kitchen, bedroom, parlor — patiently and impatiently waiting until better quarters are built — she would not think women are averse to marrying. I am sorry the old goose thinks it such a reprehensible thing that women who do not wish to marry (whom they can) should want a fair chance. She had better "Wander from her own fireside" with the no Light on Dark Places "Woman who toils" for a few months and get some understanding of her subject. Following is a clipping which, with a little addition, I think, will truly explain the lack of marrying to- day which "The Plain Country Woman" so de- plores: "Readers of the 'Woman's Magazine' have had lots of fun discussing the subject, 'Why Many Men do not Marry.' Applied to individual cases the question can be adequately answered by a good square look at the unfortunate." If they would change their statement from jest to earnest and say a good square look at the unfortunate's salary they would give the true reason, and if the "Plain Country Woman" would step up in line with Ida M. Tarbell and bring a few batter- ing rams to bear on the monopolies that are rob- bing the masses of millions, she might help them to get money enough to marry with. If you want to read a lot of deceiving non- sense read some of the magazine articles written about Panama by men who come down here and roost a few days and nights with plenty of money to obtain the best of everything on the Isthmus, and the inclination to swallow all the lies of those interested in deceiving the public, and with no opportunity, if they had the desire, to get into the ranks and learn the facts. Following is a copy of a letter whxh I find on my desk, evidently taken from the file and for- gotten to be replaced, which shows the skill of many of the stenographers employed on the Isthmus. Such specimens are every-day affairs; at Panama hi FACSIMILE COPY. Cristobal, May 23, 1906, File Misc. 658. Mr. W. G. Tubby, Chief Div. M. and S., Cristobal. Sir: Please find enclosed list of material left here May 7th, '06, for Harrington, and as per infor- mation attached on slip enclosed. I think you will find this material has been re- ceived by the Mechanical Storehouse and unless drawned out are still in stock at the present time. Very respectfully. The man who dictated and signed the letter is, of course, as brilliant as the stenographer or more so. It is possible that the stenographer may have known better than to say, "I think you will find this material has been received by the Me- chanical Storehouse and unless drawned out are still in stock at the present time," but some ste- nographers think that their dictations must be written exactly, no matter how illiterate the lan- guage of the dictator. Indeed down here in many cases it is the only way to have a peaceful time because there are so many dictators who do not know that they do not know and if a stenog- rapher corrects their mistakes they will call you and command you to correct your errors. I also enclose a letter from another girl in San Francisco describing the earthquake. It is most interesting, being her actual experience. ii2 Light on Dark Places COPY. Mill Valley, Marin County, California. May 9, 1906. Dear Mary : I had thought to hear from you before this and fear that you, too, had a shaking up when we did, for I know your part of the country is con- tinually subject to those freaks of nature. You have never mentioned in your letters any startling news about them so I take it for granted you have grown quite accustomed to their antics. I never thought anything about one and this re- cent one has made me aware of the fact that they can be very terrible. It is an awful sen- sation, especially if one is in bed, and most of us were on the morning of the 18th. There was a gentleman stopping at a neighbor's of ours, who had lived in Central America for many years, and he said he had never experienced anything quite so terrible in that line. Well, you wouldn't have known your old haunts after that quake. Nearly every chimney in the neighborhood was lying on the street, and several of our prominent edifices, such as the corner grocery store, etc., were flat on the ground. All this was but a small factor. Our house was not damaged very much and we did not feel the earthquake half as badly as the people who lived on the level streets. Our chim- ney fell into the back yard and everybody's else in the vicinity also fell into the yard, and every dish, vase and anything that happened to be hanging on the wall bounded to the floor. When we started to make a survey of the premises after the quake we had all we could do to enter at Panama 113 the rooms for the debris on the floor. As I wrote before this was only a small factor as compared to the awful fire that followed it which swept 27 miles of our beautiful city; the largest fire of its kind in the history of the world. The number of people destroyed by the fire and the quake will never be known. Our house would never have gone if it were not for the villainous act of two rascals who deliberately set fire to the Alcazar Building on O'Farrell Street. They got off easily, however, and were only shot down after they had done their miserable work. The town was under martial law right after the quake and people were shot right and left in the streets for disobedience of orders, looting, etc. The morning after the quake droves of homeless peo- ple wandered about our streets with all their worldly possessions on their backs and they were pitiful sights with their blackened faces, and the little children were a more pitiful sight, half naked and some badly burned. We had all day to move away or get away from the fire, but we were all so confident and full of hope that it would be stopped, as it would have been if it were not for those devilish rascals. Then it was too late, for as soon as that building went, which was a regular fire trap, the whole part of the city adjacent and below went like wild fire and we had only time to take to our heels. Then, too, even during the day one could not hire an ex- press man for love or money. They charged ex- orbitant prices, ranging from $50 to $100 for delivering a trunk. Also people seemed to feel so disgusted at the turn of events that they didn't ii4 Light on Dark Places give a nang what happened. We saved just a few things that we could easily pack, for in such a case one can't lug very much when one is com- pelled to walk miles and miles to get away from the fire. My mother turned the door on Beauty, but I went bacK and got her and she was so scared to death and half panic-stricken that I was compelled to carry her all the way, and the little pup was an awful nuisance, though I didn't mind, and we dragged her wherever we went. That was three days, and the fourth day we found an empty flat near the park and with some other friends rented it. However, when we made our exit from the park where we had camped the three days previous, those square- headed, brass-buttoned reptiles issued an order to kill every dog in sight because they were afraid the city would run short of water and they could not afford to give any to animals when there were so many human beings to be consid- ered, and in that event the dogs might all turn crazy for want of same; and so they shot every dog in sight, including dear little Beauty. I was not present at the time ; I meandered away some- where when that, wilful murder occurred. As it turned out they received abundant water to sup- ply twice as many people and their act resulted to nothing greater than a wholesale slaughter of innocent pets. You may rest assured I will avenge the murder of Beauty on every brass- buttoned gazaver I run across the next 20 years. You can't imagine how delightful camp life is. The first morning after the fire, I mean after we left home, we had whiskey and ginger at Panama 1x15 snaps — the only delicacies the surrounding neigh- borhood offered. Such articles are not very ap- petizing when one is accustomed to quail on toast and the things that mother used to make; but I ate anything the next day and was grate- ful for it. My boss came to the city a week after and hunted me up and took me over here and has been acting in the capacity of a guardian angel ever since. I have been living quite royally con- sidering the general condition of things. Had a turkey dinner Sunday, then to crown the events of the most delightful day since the quake we had an auto ride and I tell you we just flew and he blew his silly horn at every old cow on the road. I meant to say before that I am staying at the chief's. There are a number of other people at the house and it is more of a house party than anything else. I forgot to mention some of the sights I wit- nessed during the disaster. After the quake every one made a bee line for the street and the sights there were appalling. Some of our neigh- bors looked quite grotesque in their morning attire. I saw one man running down the street at full speed clad in a sweater and a woman's skirt, others could not boast even that. Some women squealed by the hour and carried on aw- fully. There were a lot of drunken people on the streets who had evidently had a good time the night before. After martial law was de- clared they tried to get them off the streets and used no pains in getting them off. One incident in particular, where they got an express wagon n6 Light on Dark Places and deposited a drunken man therein, there hap- pened to be a drunken woman around and they just dumped her in and in doing so every stitch of her clothes fell off except her black corsets; then an officer came up and said there was a drunken Chinaman over the way and they threw him in with the others and went off and no doubt dumped them on some empty lot out of the district. Out at the park a man had a piano, evidently the only thing he rescued, and he played by the hour and had a crowd of young folks dancing around him. They also shot people down right and left for disobedience and used no discrimination. I saw one man walking along with a glass of whiskey under his arm and a guard came up to him and told him to drop it, that it was forbidden, and the man said he got it and was taking it to a sick sister, and the guard said it mattered not for what it was that he must throw it away, that was the order, and the man refused twice again and the third time the soldier shot him dead. There was also an arbitrary female who no doubt was used to hav- ing her own way at home and not used to martial law, and she was shot down because she refused to put out her camp fire at 9 o'clock. We were compelled to witness all sorts of scenes, both tragic and comical. My mother and father are stopping at present with friends near the park and will continue to do so until things have settled some, and I will stay over here for the time being. My mother and father, I believe, feel it more than I do be- cause they are so attached to the place, but it is at Panama HJ all past and is of no use to fret about it. Quakes never seem to cease now. We have one about every 24 hours. If it was not for the many ties I have here at present I would have a good mind to go to Panama and bunk with you. It will take many a long year to restore San Francisco to its former self and I have doubts if it will ever be. People seem to be pouring out daily for other parts of the United States for they are still in deadly fear of earthquakes. There are rumors in the air that the woman who predicted this disaster has predicted that the world will end on the 15th instant. If her prediction proves true we will meet sooner than we have antici- pated, but I am not a bit superstitious and do not take stock in such nonsense and hope to see you again as mortal to mortal before we reach im- mortality. Do write soon and let me hear from you. Yours ever, Lillian J. I have several other letters from San Fran- cisco, one from my aunt states that "Stanford University lost the memorial church, museum, gymnasium — all gone to smash." About my quarters, and quarters in general — * I enclose postal card picture showing the house where I lived and those near by. It is one of the old houses built by the French Company. It is made of wood. There are two fair-sized rooms and a small room upstairs and a place for a bath room, but no bath room. The same number of rooms downstairs. When I was quartered un- n8 Light on Dark Places der the roof I used to be waked up by the storms. It sounded as though some one was throwing boulders and trying to tear the boards off of the roof. The rainy season began over a month ago and then people began to drop. They are now admit- ting 75 a day to the hospital afflicted with ma- laria. I have not had malaria and I hope to es- cape it. About a week ago I took breakfast at the Cristobal Hotel and it gave me such a fear- ful fit of indigestion that I was sick abed two days. I knew the stuff might kill me when I ate it, but I was hungry. So many have the same experience and every now and then some one comes down with ptomain poisoning. Most of my clothes have given up the struggle with the atmosphere, etc., and are falling apart and I see nothing but steady sewing ahead of me out of office hours for at least a week. I have nothing left that is whole but a few "glad duds" which are altogether too dressy for the office. I have tried three dressmakers here and ripped out their work. Hereafter I shall do my sewing without the extra labor of ripping. Information about quarters, my position, and all the other things you have asked me about will have to wait until next time. Affectionately yours. Cristobal, C. Z., July 26, 1906. Dear Club: Responding to your strenuous orders for news, at Panama 119 I beg to inform you that I will do my very best to comply. In answer to your first question as to whether I am yet receiving any more than 33 1-3 cents a day more than I was in New York, I have to inform you that I am NOT. When I first interviewed the head of this division about work- ing in his office I never doubted he would allow me to begin on the regular salary for stenograph- ers, viz., $125. Every stenographer the govern- ment sends down comes at $125 per month. I asked him if I would not start with this and he said, "Oh! no, I couldn't let you begin on that." I had a notion then and there to tell him I would not come. Imagine, when he had stated to Judge Collins that he would be glad to have three or four more stenographers if he could get them, and then he would not allow me to begin on the stenographer's salary. Then I remembered the Sunday work and the holiday work at the hos- pital and concluded that even if I must endure the bitter disappointment of not beginning on a stenographer's salary it would be better to change, especially considering that I had to do my own sewing, and come where I could have Sundays and holidays. You see it is impossible for me to avoid sewing on Sundays. I thought I would hang on until vacation time, so I said I would come on the day appointed. "But," I said, "Will it be long before my salary is raised?" He said, "Oh! no, a stenographer of your ex- perience will soon have her salary raised." So I left, stating that I would report for duty at the date mentioned. After I returned to the 120 Light on Dark Places hospital, the more I thought about it, the more angry I became, recalling all I had endured in San Francisco to wait to take the Civil Service examination, the lack of the desired number of stenographers on the Isthmus, etc. Our govern- ment is going to great expense in San Francisco to take away naturalization papers from aliens, who took them to keep their positions, but wel- coming aliens to new positions on the Isthmus and refusing applications from hundreds of American women, citizens of the United States. When I wrote to Mr. Tubby, enclosing the con- sent of the superintendent of the hospital to my transfer, I added this paragraph : "I am greatly disappointed at not being al- lowed the regular Isthmian salary for a stenog- rapher. However, my short residence here has shown me that the better salaries in my work are given to those of less experience, many of them recently transferred from other lines of labor, such as motormen, policemen, etc., and others who have never passed a United States Civil Service examination. In addition to their lack of experience, numbers of them are foreigners, and I, a native of the United States, am com- pelled to see my country favoring aliens above its own citizens. I paid my passage here also; the government did not bear that expense for me." I could not understand this man's attitude. When I was talking to him I showed him that I had passed the Civil Service examination which, tho supposed to be a necessity, was in reality an unusual accomplishment by the stenographers at Panama 121 employed on the Isthmus. "Oh!" he said, as- suming a jocular air, "they all could pass it." I would have liked to have said, "If they could why didn't they, as I did, and not come in sec- ond rate style?" A few days before I left the hospital the superintendent said to me, "We are not trying to get rid of anybody and I expect to see the director of hospitals in a few days and will tell him just what kind of a position you want." I thanked him for this kindness, but de- clined it because I had promised to report for duty at the Division of Material and Supplies. The confirmation of my transfer was so long in coming from Ancon that they wrote from Mr. Tubby's office to know when I was going to re- port for duty. When the required letter finally came I went to Cristobal, and found that tho so long expected no quarters had been re- quested for me. Also there was no machine pro- vided for me. I was placed at the desk of a man who was in the hospital, whose typewriter was broken. I had to space every line I wrote by turning the platen with my hand. In a few days I was put down in the shipping clerk's division, tho I had been told I was to be in Mr. Tubby's office. All the letters I write, and as far as I hear all the letters all the other stenographers in this room write, are in frantic search of missing goods. There is one man here who walks into the delinquents as tho the government material was literally his own. One of his stock phrases is, "Explain these glaring discrepancies," and they are glaring beyond all belief to any one who had not been down here and seen for themselves. 122 Light on Dark Places This gentleman is nicknamed all along the line, "Glaring Discrepancies" and cordially hated, but if there were hundreds more like him this canal would be built with about one-tenth of the ex- pense. He is one of the few "real things" on the Isthmus, viz., an educated citizen of the United States, and tho so energetic he is a southerner — that is, he is from Kentucky. In telling some folks here of my disappoint- ment regarding my salary, imagine my astonish- ment when I told them what I had told Mr. Tubby about aliens receiving better treatment, to have them indulge in immoderate laughter. Finally responding to my indignant inquiries, they said, "He is an alien himself and so are his friends. Neither he nor they passed an ex- amination, and he has brought at least twenty- seven of them down here and placed them in the best positions over other people's heads ; disre- garding all rules of precedence." This man holds one of the best positions here, receiving $9,000 a year, a fine house to live in and sporting a coach and span. "Well!" I gasped, "Is he a citizen of the United States, what is he any way?" They said he is a Canadian and they did not think a citizen of the United States. He was appointed by Mr. Shonts, the non-resident chairman of the Isthmian Canal Commission, who should be a resident, but who comes rushing down here once in awhile, changing the scheduled time of the steamers of the Panama Railroad Steamship Line when so disposed, to suit his personal con- venience. This Chief of the Division of Material and Supplies, until he condescended to favor the at Panama 123 United States with his services on the Isthmus, worked for the Great Northern Railroad at a salary of $4,000 a year (some say $3,000). And I thought I was going to work under a native of the State of Maine! It seems that it was Mr. Tobey, the former Chief of the Division of Ma- terial and Supplies, who came from the State of Maine. Well, I am glad I wrote what I did, if, holding one of the best positions under the government of the United States, he is not a citi- zen of the United States, for he has no right there. If he were a citizen of the United States and had a right to hold such position he would agree with me. After receiving this information I resolved to write him again about my salary and other matters. "Stand, the ground's your own" (or it ought to be, which is quite different), and wrote him as follows: Cristobal, April 9, 1906. Mr. W. G. Tubby, Chief, Division of Material and Supplies. Sir: I respectfully request the following alterations at my quarters : That the glass windows be removed. They make the room stifling all day, even when there is a fine breeze on the porch, and keep it much too warm all night. I wish this might be done at once even tho longer mosquito netting (to cover the entire window, is not put on for some time or at all. The bath room on the second floor is not fitted as a bath room. May this be done? It is ver^ 124 Light on Dark Places inconvenient to have to use the one downstairs. Mrs. Snow tells me that the only time it is pos- sible to get a bath is 5 o'clock in the morning, because there are so many people to use the one bath room. There is no light in this bath room, which makes it impossible to bathe there at night. There has been a family of Jamaicans in the room next to mine. There were three of them and a servant. In addition they kept three board- ers and used what should have been the upper bath room for a kitchen and servant's sleeping room. The amount of garbage and food about the narrow stairway kept it continually dirty and most unpleasant for the other occupants of the house. These people have moved to-day, but I mention this because the next family might do the same thing if the place is not fitted as a bath room — for which it was intended. The other occupants of the house tell me that they have complained once to the inspector, but knowing the people were going to move did not do so again. There is no closet or anything in my room to protect clothing from dust, not even a shelf over which I might hang a curtain. Am I entitled to a wardrobe? Also may I not have two corner shelves on which to stand bottles, a clock, etc.? There is no drinking water about the place but the rain water in the tank. May I not have a small ice box so that I can take ice ? I want this so much that rather than do without it I would at Panama 125 buy one, but I do not want to buy anything I could not take away were I to leave. May I have a new typewriter as soon as a new one arrives ? I am using a broken one now which is very unpleasant. I respectfully request that I may be granted a raise in salary as soon as possible. Board is ex- pensive down here and so unsatisfactory that it is necessary to buy other things tnan those pro- vided, all the time. Also, I have to furnish my own bed linen and towels. I am receiving less here than was offered me in New York City by the Remington typewriter office, after taking their experienced stenographers' examination four years ago next summer. They offered me a position then at $4.00 a day. Very respectfully. This will give you an idea about the quarters. It is impossible for you to realize the difference it makes to have glass windows shutting out the air in this climate, even tho the windows be raised as far as they can be. Nights, when cool on the porch, it would be so stifling in the room that I could hardly get to sleep. The new houses are not fitted with glass windows and they have been removed from many of the old ones and from one room in this house. Mr. Tubby 's secretary went down to the of- fice of Labor and Quarters and requested them to allow me to have a wardrobe, but they said they were not allowed to provide any one but married people with wardrobes. It is right to encourage respectable married people to come 126 Light on Dark Places here, but why it is not desirable or just to refuse single people ordinary comforts. A married man receives vastly more for the same work any way, for in addition to receiving the same salary, he has quarters provided for his family. The Superintendent of Labor and Quarters is a man who fled from South America, I think Peru, to escape being killed by the outraged in- habitants. He decamped in woman's attire and was secreted in a boiler and shipped as freight, and when the ship got to sea the cover was re- moved and the contents released. I am told that the motive of those who put him into the boiler was to prevent the dangerous precedent of allow- ing the natives to murder an American, not that they sympathized with him. He landed on the Isthmus, and having an influential backer, stays here in spite of continuous protest. To be Su- perintendent of Labor and Quarters on the Isthmus is all that one man could be expected to attend to properly, but this phenomenally ener- getic man is placed in control of all the govern- ment eating houses on the Isthmus. Further, the Panama Railroad Commissary was placed un- der the management of his close friend, Mr. Henry Burnett, who reports to him instead of to the General Manager of the Panama Railroad, as has formerly been the custom. Of course, this overworked man is entitled to great sympathy for being compelled (?) to stagger under three large burdens. Some time ago the Markel Brothers offered to take a contract to run all the govern- ment hotels on the Isthmus, take care of the quarters and supply sheets, pillow cases, towels, at Panama 127 etc. For this they wished $34.00 a month per person. They agreed to feed them well and take the best care of the quarters. I have been told by those who know of the Markel Brothers that, had this contract been awarded to them, peo- ple would have been well fed and well taken care of, tho unquestionably the profits would have been large. It was also estimated, I have been told, by those who could have granted this con- tract, that the annual profits of the Markel Brothers would have been $3,000,000 a year. The canal employes are now charged 30 cents a meal, $27.00 a month, for table board and the food served is not fit to eat. Also they supply their own sheets, towels, etc. Yet Mr. Jackson Smith says that the government messes are run at a loss. Why this "glaring discrepancy ?" Why could not people be given excellent table board for $27.00 a month, particularly when no profit whatever is permissible ? The meat served is almost always beef, and such beef! It does not taste like anything. Tho the waters abound in fish, there is never any fish served. The word Panama means filled with fish. Even on Sunday there is never any chicken, but the same tasteless beef. The vegetables are all canned and very poor quality. The soup always tasteless as hot water. There is one exception; the Washington Hotel. The food there is fairly good and every evening myself and hundreds of others go there to dinner, a distance of about a mile, instead of dining at the Cristobal Hotel, a distance of a few yards. The quality of the food at the Wash- ington Hotel is a surprise to us all and many are 128 Light on Dark Places the predictions that it will not last as it is now under the control of Jackson Smith. Those who have eaten at the hotels up the line tell me that they are worse thari^'the Cristobal Hotel. In every case I say, "That cannot be possible." They say, "It is." I have just heard that the manager of the Cristobal mess, being in a jocular mood, yester- day asked one of the unfortunates who eats there to say grace. He looked at the watery soup, the tasteless beef, etc., which formed the daily dole of food, and said, "My text is from Hebrews, 13th chapter, 8th verse — 'J esus Christ, the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever/ " Labor and Quarters also informed the secre- tary that they did not know when the desired alterations could be made. One specially hot night, when it was impossible to sleep, owing to the heat, I got up and took my umbrella handle and smashed out four panes of glass, thereby slightly increasing the circulation of air. I made up my mind they could inflict any penalty they pleased. I received no answer whatever to my letter to Mr. Tubby except the secretary trying to have my quarters made more comfortable. So I went to Mr. Tubby one day after office hours and asked him if I might have the favor of a few minutes' conversation. He consented, and I asked him if he had received my request for a raise in salary. He looked at me with the ex- pression of an old cow that has made up its mind to hook you, and informed me that he could not raise my salary now, but said he might "Later, later." at Panama 129 He then called my attention to the way the porch was being walled in to increase the size of the office and said that there were two women in Panama working for him at $75.00 per month. I said that they could not properly be compared with me, as both were beginners and one of them was not a stenographer. He then said, "Experienced stenographers used to come to my office offering to work for $35.00 a month." I answered, "Mr. Tubby, I have been in several cities of the United States and I never knew anywhere of experienced stenographers going around offering to work for $35.00 a month. What state are you from, Mr. Tubby?" He arose immediately and put on his hat and an- swered, "Saint Paul," and walked downstairs. I walked down, too, and said, "Is there anything the matter with my work?" He said, "I don't see how there could be. Perhaps I will put you up the line later in a position of more responsibil- ity," then called my attention to the way he had extended his front yard half way into the street. I retired. The idea of his telling me that I would have to be put in a position of more responsibil- ity to get more money, when people right in the main office doing ordinary clerical work, having no responsibility regarding other people's work, are getting $150.00 and some of them are notori- ous sots. If he thinks I am so lacking in self- respect that I will make another request for a raise, in salary to him, he is a poor judge of char- acter. One of the men who has asked him re- peatedly to raise his salary told me he always re- 130 Light on Dark Places fuses, and the last time he showed him a post card photograph of a new clerk and said, "See what nice-looking clerks I am getting now." This Canadian evidently thinks it is a joke for citizens of the United States to come to "a coun- try lying within 9 degrees of the equator, where the temperature at sea level seldom falls below 78 degrees at night; where in the sun, at noon, an ordinary thermometer will indicate 140 degrees or more; where it rains nearly every day for 8 months in the year." I am English enough to be unable to see the joke, but I can see that he has spoiled the symmetry of the people's highway by stretching his front yard to nearly twice the size of everybody's else. You need not expect to see me in Buffalo this summer, or if you do, it will not be for more than five minutes. I am going to my native state and to my senator, to find out if it means anything to possess the experience of years, to have made every effort to comply with the advertised Civil Service requirements (barring the impossible one of changing your sex), to be a citizen of the United States, a native of the United States and a descendant of men who fought and women who suffered to make this country a nation. And if it means nothing, I am going to find it out, and not labor longer under delusions. As I listened to his facetious remarks and looked at his Knight Templar's badge I remembered what the English- man had said about putting me under the pro- tection of a Free Mason. When the chief clerk of the Division of at Panama 131 Meteorology and River Hydraulics tried to have himself called "superintendent of office" and his adviser made chief clerk, he was only following the example of the Chief of the Division of Ma- terial and Supplies. When he assumed control of this division it was supplied with a chief clerk, but he brought a young friend of his and called him "superintendent of office." There was this difference, however, the Chief of Material and Supplies had the backing to carry out his bluffs. The former chief clerk was deprived of his au- thority, but not of his salary. Somebody re- ported the matter and the pleasing title of "super- intendent of office" was ordered into "inocuous desuetude" until the ineffective attempt to resur- rect it in the Division of Meteorology and River Hydraulics. I asked one of the men in Material and Sup- plies what the former chief clerk was doing now and he said, "He is holding the bag." Aside from other misfortunes I have broken a piece off of one of my front teeth and I am afraid it will begin to ache. Those of you who have met my cousin Alma will regret to hear of her death as well as sym- pathizing with me. You know I cared more for her than almost anybody else. She was one of the most unselfish people I have ever known. We have been friends since childhood. You remem- ber what I have told you before about her work among the Indians. They expressed their appre- ciation, did they not ? I send you her sister's letter : 132 Light on Dark Places My dear Mary. I have to tell you the sad news that Alma died here on Saturday, June 9th, of her old trouble, peritonitis. We received a telegram at home on Saturday morning, saying that she was very low. I packed and started at once, reaching the school on Tues- day evening. I found on arriving that she had died on Saturday and the funeral had taken place on Sunday. She was taken very ill on Wednesday night with severe pain. On Thursday and Friday she grew rapidly worse and by Friday evening they had given up all hope of saving her. Everything possible was done, and her friends here were most faithful and kind. When the Indians heard that she could not live they collected money among themselves so that she might be taken home for burial ; $57.00 were collected. Alma, however, during some con- scious moments expressed a wish to lie here in the Indian country, so we expect to use the money toward a stone for her grave. The little cemetery where she lies is on the brow of a slight rise just in sight of the school, right out on the great open prairie. From it there is a beautiful outlook to the west over a woody ravine and on toward the buttes rising against the sky. She loved the spot and I am sure will wish to rest there among her chosen people. You know her life so well that I am sure you will feel as I do that she has won peace and rest. During her illness she prayed God to take her and He did. at Panama 133 I found some papers belonging to you among hers, so will send them on with this letter. Most sincerely your cousin. Cristobal, C. Z., August 2, 1906. Dear Club: Circumstances have been such that I can take you on a trip to Mount Hope Storehouse, the largest on the line. Monday afternoon, June 25th, the chief clerk came to our office with the Mount Hope storekeeper and said he must have one of the stenographers in our room to go to Mount Hope for two or three days — any one of the men. Every one hates to be detailed to Mount Hope. It is a mile from Cristobal ; there are no quarters there and it takes just so much time off one's noon hour to go back and forth, and unless you take the train that leaves at 6 :45 in the morning, you have to walk. There is a lit- tle launch which the storekeeper tries to have to take the clerks up in the morning a little before 8 o'clock, but sometimes this gets out of com- mission. For these and other reasons the men hate to be detailed to Mount Hope, and when the chief clerk made the above statement they looked very blue, but I thought, "Here is a chance for me to escape from an unpleasant dic- tator.'^ I also remembered Mr. Tubby's remark in my interview about putting me up the line and raising my salary and thought I would give him a chance, so I asked to be sent to Mount Hope and was told to be at the pier the next morning where the launch left. I was pleased with the idea of the ride on the launch, but dreaded the 134 Light on Dark Places long muddy walk to it. This is the rainy season. The last man tnat dictated to me is some sort of a foreigner and insists on spelling canceled with two Is, etc. Do you know there is almost none of the ninnyism in the Spanish language that there is in ours in regard to silent letters ? There are almost no silent letters and words are spelled as they are pronounced. Think of all the time saved and misery avoided if teachers were not obliged to pound it into children's heads that sed must be spelled said; soder, solder; U, you, and all such nonsense. Why should the plural of copy be copies and poppy poppies? Men have arranged this spelling matter, I believe, yet some people insist that women are less sensible than men. I think George Eliot stated the case ex- actly when she said, "I am not denying women are foolish. God Almighty made them to match the men." There is not anywhere near enough time to learn useful things, and think of the hours and hours wasted on nonsense. In connection with the subject of folly, a ridiculous incident is recalled to my memory. A foolish woman in San Francisco was out walking in a pair of shoes with those idiotic French heels. She attempted to pass over a freshly laid tar walk and her heels sank in so far some men had to pull her out. I would have left her sticking there. One day my before-mentioned dictator dic- tated thus: "ioth, nth, 12th, 13th and 14th instant." When I wrote the letter I wrote : "ioth, nth, 12th, 13th and 14th instants." He insisted that the "s" be erased, making it instant. I at Panama [135 brought the Standard Dictionary to him, which states : "instant" 2. Now passing ; current ; present ; as, the 10th instant (that is, the 10th day of the month now passing)." If you can see anything in that definition which would make you willing to use the word instant as plural, please enlighten me. I seized the opportunity to escape from a dictator that insisted on it, tho one of the men assured me that after taking one trip to Mount Hope I would wish I had never been born. Almost all of the several typists in the Mount Hope office were negroes. They are so short of stenographers that they are forced to make the best shift they can with Jamaican negroes. The machine I had to use appeared to be very old, but had been in use less than a year. Typewriters that they are sending here now have a bronze finish as a protection against rust. Many of the operators of typewriters on the Isthmus do not take the trouble to cover them up at night. What do you think of a class of workers who do not take the pains to keep their own tools in order, especially anything as expensive as a type- writer ? During the morning an aged colored man came to the office with a note from the mechanical storekeeper at Cristobal. One of the stenograph- ers at Mount Hope left and they tried to get along with the services of this negro. It being rather impossible for a novice in typewriting to fill the place of an experienced stenographer, 136 Light on Dark Places after securing my services, he was detailed to the mechanical storekeeper. The m. s. promptly ordered him back to Mount Hope with a note declining his services. After an earnest conver- sation over the 'phone he was again sent to the mechanical storekeeper, protesting, that, as he was not wanted, it was not wise for him to go. He 'returned in the afternoon with another mes- sage that he was not wanted. The storekeeper said to me, "I do not know what to do. I would like to keep you here, but there is an inventory that must be gotten out at the Mechanical Store- house and if you will go there for a few days until I can get some one else, I will be obliged." I was glad to go where I was needed most. The launch had been run into a drifting tree on the journey up that noon and could not be used again until repaired and you would have laughed to have seen me return to Cristobal that evening with the crowd on the labor train. The platform of the storehouse was level with the cars, but as there was a space of a yard or more between them, they spanned it with a little ladder for me to walk on. Most of the men jumped it. These cars have no steps on the sides. Leaving the train at Cristobal was more difficult. There is no platform there and I had to jump to the ground, a distance of about four feet. I hesi- tated, but the chief clerk beckoned me from be- fore and the storekeeper urged me from behind, so I took courage and jumped. The gymnastic feat was not nearly as hard for me as for a poor rheumatic old man on the same train. I started to find the Mechanical Storehouse at Panama 137 next morning and got lost, but was discovered by a Jamaican clerk who was sent to show me the way. He led me up the railroad track, on both sides of which for a long way were negro labor- ers' quarters. These wretched little houses rest on stilts, and now during the rainy season the water is constantly on the level with the floors, or less than an inch below them. My guide told me that when it rains the water usually goes right into the houses. There was one long build- ing which I judge is bachelor quarters. There were what seemed to be iron frames three or four tiers high and I think three rows wide ; that is, there were three separate pieces of canvas on each tier. There were no pillows or bed clothes. Of course, at this hour, the laborers were gone, but a few of these narrow bits of canvas con- tained human beings who must have been sick to have been there at that time of the day. The mechanical storekeeper expressed himself glad that I was detailed to typewrite his inven- tory. When I left the office at 5 o'clock the negro laborers were returning to their quarters and were getting their suppers on little charcoal braziers outdoors. It was a sad sight to me as I slipped along in the deep, sticky mud, so deep in many places that I had to stop and look which way to jump and to turn. I passed the stable where the government mules are kept. They were hurrying toward it in numbers, eager for their suppers. I got lost again before I reached the commis- sary, where I was going to buy some provisions. 138 Light on Dark Places The rain came pouring down in torrents and con- tinued to do so for nearly an hour. I got stuck in the mud, and stuck, and stuck again. By this you will realize what sort of a road it is. I thought of the numerous little fires I had seen the negro laborers trying to start to cook their suppers. How could they get any suppers with rain pouring in torrents for an hour ? They are not allowed to cook in their quarters for fear of fire and no covered place is provided for them in which to cook, so these poor men exist under difficulties. Consider the brilliant criticisms some of the authors of magazine articles make on "The lazy, worthless, Jamaican laborer." They sleep all night on a strip of canvas but little wider than their bodies, they must get up in the morning and cook their breakfasts out of doors in the tropical rain or shine, as it happens. They must be at work at 7 o'clock A. M., they get their noon meal under the same weather conditions as other meals. They receive the splendid wage of 10 cents, U. S. currency, an hour. They are obliged to pay at the government commissary as high prices for food as are charged at the gro- cery stores in the City of New York, whose pro- prietors have high rents to pay and are doing business for profit. THE GRAFTER'S VERSION. My country, 'tis of thee, Sweet land of jobbery, Thou best of jokes! I love thy every cove, I love each verdant grove, at Panama •' 139 But most of all I love Thy verdant folks ! — Washington Herald. Having finally reached the commissary I made my purchases — a difficult feat. The government commissary is supposedly run without profit, for the benefit of the employes. There is hardly a day after 5 o'clock when the grocery department is not packed solid, three rows deep, with per- spiring negro laborers impatiently waiting to buy food for their suppers and breakfasts. They have sometimes two clerks, sometimes three, to wait on this crowd, which crowd, individuals changing as some leave and others enter, never decreases between the hours of 5 and 7. Mar- ried women usually do their buying during work hours, but there were always some there at this time, and, of course, all the white people em- ployed in the offices who had purchases to make. Similar conditions prevail in the dry goods de- partment. Is it not strange that a store which is not run for profit, and which sells its groceries at the prices charged at stores that are run for profit, and many of them at higher prices, can- not afford to provide a proper number of clerks to wait on customers ? Naphtha soap is 6 cents a cake, I never paid but 5 anywhere before. Pears' soap is 13 cents a cake, I never paid but 10 in New York or New Haven; scented, 17 cents a cake. Cold storage eggs, 40 cents a dozen; something that is called butter, 40 cents a pound, but calling grease butter does not make it butter. I bought this stuff five times, tried to 140 Light on Dark Places sat it and threw it away. The last time I car- ried it back and changed it for canned fruit. Sometimes the canned fruit is good, but the last three times I bought it it was so stale it had lost all flavor and was so soft I was afraid to eat it. I intended to dine at the Washington as usual, then take a Spanish lesson, but being soaking wet, returned to my room and changed my clothes. It being so late I went to the Cristobal Hotel to dine, but wished I had gone to the Washington in my wet clothes. It was the same old story — insipid soup, no fish; tough, tasteless beef, the only meat course, as always. The soups served at the Cristobal Hotel are the quintessence of nothingness. There is not enough stuff put into the water to give it any taste; it is just slightly colored — always the same. The canned beans and potatoes were fair. The coffee as bitter as gall. The dessert was two green gage plums, canned. The butter, strong enough to walk. Here is the copy of my reply to Miss Burton's letter : Cristobal, July 15, 1906. Dear Miss Burton: Your interesting letter received yesterday and I read with great interest your account of con- ditions in Japan. I am surprised that you are not more favorably impressed with it from the tourist's view. I have always supposed that the grand old temples, etc., were as interesting as European buildings, and to visit Japan has been one of the dreams of my life. I have read maga- zine articles and things of that sort. How dif- at Panama 141 ferent it often is to see things for yourself or have information from a person telling the un- varnished truth. Your letter and my own travels of the past year and a half have disillusioned me. I agree with Professor Van Dyke that "There are no islands over the sea." I like the idea of meeting you in South Africa, and unless I drop into something too good to leave, think seriously of joining you. I applied to Cecil Rhodes for a position years ago — he died almost immediately upon receipt of my applica- tion — and if he was the woman hater I heard he was, I hope it gave him a fit. His secretary replied, saying they had nothing to offer. I used to know a girl that went there as a teacher in some school. She was engaged to a divinity student and was to marry him when he gradu- ated and go to South Africa and convert the heathen. Her heart and head were full of him and his future work, but he jilted her. She wanted to die, but couldn't, and went to the dark continent alone. I tried to advise her as to luring him back, but she only sighed and said she had tried everything. Now for the Isthmian facts for which you ask. At this time, the rainy season, the hospitals are full to overflowing. Some weeks ago the num- ber of patients at Colon Hospital increased from J 50 to 350. The prevailing illness is pernicious malaria. Most of the m?.ny deaths here are the result of malaria and the accompanying fever. A great many cases develop into pneumonia. Fu- neral trains go to the cemetery daily bearing from one to nine corpses. Since Colonel Gorgas' 142 Light on Dark Places masterly handling of the unsanitary conditions on the Isthmus disease and death are less than they have been. During the rainy season people used to have double mosquito bars, then the mos- quitos got thru. Since Colonel G. had the swamps rilled in a single bar keeps out the greatly lessened army of bill punchers. The food here is execrable mostly. You can buy some good stuff at the government commis- sary, but must pay exorbitantly for it, and folks fortunate enough to belong to private messes and married folks keeping house can have eatable food. Many of them send to the States for their groceries because of the over-charging at the commissary. But, alas, for the unfortunates obliged to eat at the government messes. The Cristobal Hotel, located a few steps from my door, is where I should eat, but I and others gave it up in despair. We could not digest the wretched stuff, so we cook in our sleeping rooms what we can and walk a mile in the dirt and mud to the Washington Hotel at Colon for dinner. In the dirt, the driving rain and the muddy, mud- dy, much muddy mud. You can imagine what the food is that drives us to this expedient. Then we only get something we would hardly cross the street for in civilized places, but infinitely better than the Cristobal mess. We pay 30 cents a meal — $27.00 a month and more for this food. They say quarters are free, but you see they ex- act so much for food that you pay as much as you would in ordinary places for both and the food is such that no one would dare to serve, even if they were base enough, in civilized board- at Panama 143 ing houses. They facetiously call these wretched eating houses "hotels." This is on the order of Marie Antoinette's remark, "Why don't they eat cake?" when told the poor people of Paris had no bread. All that keeps the majority here for any length of time is the six weeks' vacation to which you are entitled if you stay a year. Many give up in despair, but others hold on grimly and hope to live to get it. The tropical short hours which we are sup- posed to receive are a supposition ONLY. Of- fice hours are as long as they are anywhere and folks work nights frequently, Sundays sometimes —NO EXTRA PAY— Saturday afternoon holi- days are unknown. We did not have Decoration Day for a holiday as Governor Magoon forgot to announce it for Cristobal and along the line. It was observed in Panama. You know how we plan to do all sorts of things holidays and can imagine our disappointment. If you are granted a day off to go to Panama for some necessary errand — shopping and so forth, it is deducted from your vacation or the day's pay cut off. This is to make employes con- tented and to provide suitable recreation for them. Washing is very expensive, not only in the price, but in the destruction of your clothes, be- cause washwomen have not civilized conveni- ences. There are no electric cars or any street cars. Your cab fare, when you can get a cab, and the 144 Light on Dark Places chances are even that you will not, is 10 cents U. S. currency. Should you come to the Isthmus go to Panama, not to Cristobal. There are rooms to rent in Panama and it is a much better and more inter- esting place than Cristobal. My room is about the width of a horse stall and I have only a single bed or I would take you in. I will be delighted to see you if you come when I am here. I am trying to get into some business house in the tropics to get the tropical salary which I ought to receive. If I do so per- haps I could also find something you would like. Should you come to Panama I do not want you to be disappointed as I was, therefore remember the following, and as a man once told me who was describing insect life in New Jersey, "I am not exaggerating none ; I don't need to." Clear your mind entirely of the idea that the majority of men in high positions here are people to respect and to admire — such are the exception, not the rule. Do not feel proud because you are a citizen of and a daughter of the United States. These facts do not command respect here. Do not expect to find that the best workers, the most conscientious and the most experienced are valued accordingly. Look for the reverse. If you were selecting chief clerks to be placed in charge of large clerical forces would you ap- point men that were only old enough to hold down subordinate positions with credit? This custom by no means applies only to chief clerk- ships. at Panama 145 Again thanking you for your interesting letter and hoping we may meet somewhere, either in the Occident or the Orient, I am, Sincerely yours. June 30, 1906. The postmaster at Cristobal has resigned in disgust. He asked for sufficient help and did not receive it. The postoffice clerks at Cristobal are martyrs. They not only work all day, every day, but nearly every night until 11 and 12 o'clock, also Sundays and holidays — the same force — month in and month out. The registry clerk is a lady, and in life's hard struggle here she is one of the faithful and the brave. She is a native of New Orleans, but lived for years in Caracas with her husband and their children. The depression of business in Venezuela on account of the as- phalt trouble caused them to go to the Isthmus, where her husband immediately succumbed to the climate and died. This left her with four chil- dren, whose education is not completed, and a greatly decreased income. She also works nights, days, Sundays and holidays and tho registry clerk receives but $100 a month because she was appointed on the Isthmus, and besides her cleri- cal service is often called upon to act as an in- terpreter because she speaks Spanish fluently. Sometimes she gets discouraged, but usually is so busy sympathizing with others she half for- gets about herself. She told me it was not half as bad for her, because separated from her children, she could not be happy any way, but she was so sorry for the other clerks because they never had 146 Light on Dark Places any time for recreation and cannot go anywhere. Strange to say, she is about the only employe in the Cristobal postoffice who has not spent some time in the hospital. She advises me to take my meals at the Astor House, as she does, for the board is $30 a month; as a matter of health it is worth it, for the food is fresh, good and nicely cooked. Excellent soup and fresh fish every night, good meat and fresh vegetables. This, if nothing else, proves there is no need whatever of such poor stuff being served in the government hotels. I am thinking of it, but it would cost me a dollar gold a day, even tho I only took two meals — it would be the same for three. My first meal consists of a cup of tea, an egg and two oranges, and I find it more convenient to get it myself than to go any distance for it. Of course, if I could get good board anywhere near I would prefer to do so than to be mussing around in my one room. My den is a curiosity shop and I am going to have a picture of it taken and send it to you. The overworking in the Cristobal post- office is the regular order of things, no exception, and, of course, means a good deal of sick time in the hospital. There was a little hunched-back man quartered in the house next to where I am. The climate and his health proved too much for him and some days ago he went out of his mind. Com- ing to his quarters, instead of going up the steps, he leaped over the piazza rail and threw his umbrella and book at the men sitting on the porch, all the while shrieking horribly. His tar- gets were frightened and ran as hard a& they at Panama 147 could. He was captured and taken to Mira Flo res (Many Flowers), where lunatics and lepers are confined. Before the United States took possession here they roamed the Isthmus without restraint. On June 29th I heard something which pleased me greatly for I had decided the men down here were craven slaves. They had been making em- phatic complaints of the wretched food served at the Cristobal Hotel for weeks. Yesterday they circulated a petition at lunch time to be sent to the chief engineer requesting proper food. In a few minutes three hundred men had signed it. Twelve of the leaders came to breakfast this morning and by Lieutenant Wood's orders were told to get their breakfast elsewhere. He is the head of the office of Labor, Quarters and Sub- sistence in Cristobal. Another man went to breakfast at 6:40 this morning and did not re- ceive it until 7:30. Demanding the reason for the delay, the waiter informed him that he had to wait on Lieutenant Wood and could not leave him for any one else. I heard this news this evening at the commissary while waiting my turn in the dense crowd at the counter. Lieutenant Wood takes the stand that they should make no comments, but meekly accept any rubbish set be- fore them in way of food; get sick and go to the hospital, die or get well— as it happens. Possibly you have heard reports of the graciousness of the authorities providing "Wholesome and nourish- ing meals for the laborers at the cost of 10 cents each," and that "It is a deplorable fact and diffi- cult to account for from the American point of 148 Light on Dark Places view that these laborers do not avail themselves of this privilege except in small numbers." Is the American point of view so densely idiotic as to believe laborers would refuse a good meal for 10 cents ? I am told that they consist of the leav- ings from the hotels. The leavings from the hotels are not fit to eat before they are leavings. I stayed at the Mechanical Storehouse until the inventory was completed. It was a long walk and I had great times getting there thru the violent tropical showers. After the inventory was finished I retiKned to Mr. Benham's office. The Panamanian presidential election occurred July 1st. There were two United States battle- ships at anchor for some time before for fear there might be a revolution, one off Panama and one off Cristobal. A gentleman told me at dinner the other night that, "Out of the thousands of corpses to whom Dr. gave post-mortem examinations, he only found one with a healthy liver." "What," I gasped, "of the thousands of corpses!" How does that strike you? This climate is hard on liver. I had an unexpected caller the other night. I was busy thinking about my vacation when I heard a funny little thud on my pillow and there was a pink lizard with brown eyes staring at me. He looked as scared as I felt. I am not expert at killing things, but I thought I couldn't have that horrible little creature running over my face at night, so I started for him with the hammer, but he was quicker than I was and at Panama 149 vanished behind the bed. I think he fell off my electric light wire on to the pillow. It reminded me of the time I met a deer in the forest in Minnesota. We were both motionless with ter- ror for a moment. It seemed to me my heart stopped beating. Then he suddenly turned and fled, and after trembling awhile I followed his example (not him). There are hundreds of people sick here and have been for months. There is not enough room in the hospitals for them and as soon as a man gets up another is waiting to take the bed he gets out of. There are over 400 patients in Colon Hospital all the time ; then there is a big hospital at Ancon and smaller ones all along the line. July 24, 1906 Another one of the big engines of the Panama Railroad jumped the track to-day killing two men and wounding nine; it turned over and landed upside down. The corpse of the engineer was fastened beneath the 90 tons of iron and steel. There seems to be an average of a wreck every other day. I think it is because the roadbed is not good, as the soil is so muddy and the en- gines jump the track easily. The lack of firm- ness in this muddy soil causes the tracks to sink, especially if any speed is attempted, and off goes the engine. The heavy engines which the Ameri- cans have brought here are not as suitable for this road as the engines used by the French, which are not so heavy and better adapted for work on this insecure ground. When I was 150 Light on Dark Places working at the mechanical storehouse I walked up the track on the ties because of the dense mud. Occasionally I was obliged to step off and give the right of way to a train and always no- ticed the tracks rising up and down and work- ing against the heads of the spikes. There is much talk about the anticipated visit of the president. All agree that if he wants to find out how things are he will have to come in disguise. When returning from dinner last night all the electric lights in Cristobal went out. We first attributed the greater darkness to heavier clouds, as the rain began to pour with increased violence at the same time, but finally saw that there was not an electric light in Cristobal. I went to the Cristobal Dispensary this morn- ing to get some tonic. It was a pitiful sight to see the sick colored laborers. Many of them were so weak they could not sit up while their medicine was being prepared, but lay on the benches and the floor. The director of hospitals was there himself. He was very courteous. What a pleasure it is to meet a gentleman or a lady, if only for a few minutes. One of the bachelors quartered in the house where I am has a long tale of woe like many other folks. He said he and his room mate have been here five months and they promised them quarters in the Cristobal Hotel just as soon as it was finished, but they put people in there who came down on the last boat in preference. He said he asked the steward at the Cristobal Hotel at Panama 5*5 r why tie did not do at least as well as they did at the Washington Hotel and that the steward frankly informed him that they were in it for money, not for glory. They have changed his room five times, he says. I consoled him by tell- ing him that they would soon change it again, I thought, for the married couple who occupied that room before were expected back the first of August. Mr. Maltby's stenographer has had malaria for three days. She just crawled out this noon, a most changed person from when I saw her about a week ago, when she looked so well and happy. She gained ten pounds since coming; that is be- fore she got this drawback. She eats at the Maltby's mess as do several of his employes. These are the days when the corpses go to the cemetery at Monkey Hill, which the Ameri- cans have rechristened Mount Hope. Those whose friends and relatives do not have their bodies sent back to the States are buried at this cemetery, that is, those who die at this end of the line. Many of the people who die here have been living under assumed names and no one knows who they belong to. I expect to sail for New York on the 9th of August. In looking thru my trunks, preparatory to packing, I have found many things covered with mold and rust. Send me a gold button hook the next time you write and any other luxurious necessaries you can spare in that non-rusting metal. I enclose the program of the 152 Light on Dark Places FOURTH OF JULY CELEBRATION AT CRISTOBAL. ALL AMERICANS INVITED. PROGRAM. 10:30 A.M. — Address from west verandah of Building No. 1, Cristobal. 1 1 :oo A. M. — Athletic program begins, to be continued until completed. 100- Yard dash, free-for-all. First prize, $25; second, $10. 1 00- Yard dash, for men weighing 200 pounds and over. First prize, $20 ; second, $8. 75-Yard dash, free-for-all. First prize, $20; second, $10. 120- Yard hurdle race, with ten hurdles, 3^ feet high. First prize, $25 ; second, $10. 50- Yard three-legged race, free- for-all. Prize, $25. 50- Yard sack race, free-for-alL First prize, $15 ; second, $5. Obstacle race, about 200 yards, free-for-all. First prize, $20; second, $8. 40- Yard backward race, free-for- all. First prize, $10 ; second, $4. Running broad jump, free-for-all. First prize, $10; second, $4. Running high jump, free-for-all. First prize, $10; second, $4. Running hop, step and jump, free- for-all. First prize, $10; sec- ond, $4. at Panama 153 Pole vaulting, free-for-all. First prize, $15; second, $6. Putting 16-pound shot, free-for- all. First prize, $20 ; second, $7. .Tug of war, one team from each department. Prize, $100. Boat racing by crew of U. S. S. . "Columbia." First prize, $50; second, $50 (cups). 400- Yard race for horses, 15 hands and under. First prize, $50; second, $20. 400- Yard race for horses, 15 hands and over. First prize, $50; second, $20. 400- Yard race for mules, free-for- all. Prize, $25. 400- Yard hurdle race, three hurdles, free - for - all. First prize, $50; second, $20. Native horse race, under 14 hands. First prize, $30; second, $10. A calk walk and prize waltz will be had in the dancing pavilion. NOTE — Above program subject to change. All prizes are in United States currency. 12:00 M. to 2:00 P. M. — Luncheon served at Pier 11. 2:00 P. M. to 5:00 P. M. — Dancing at Pier 11. 5 :oo P. M. to 7 :oo P. M. — Dinner served at Pier 11. 7 :oo P. M. — Fireworks from barges near Cris- tobal Point. 154 Light on Dark Places 8:00 P. M. — Reception at Pier 11. 8:30 P.M.— Ball at Pier 11. MUSIC. The Division of Building Construction Band will play during the morning. The I. C. C. Band will play during the after- noon. The Band from the U. S. S. "Columbia" will play for the dancing in the evening. SPECIAL NOTICES. The tug for the U. S. S. "Columbia" will leave Pier 11 every hour, the weather permitting, from 10 :oo A. M. to 5 :oo P. M. A station for first aid to the sick and injured will be established near Pier 11. A ladies' dressing-room will be found in Building No. 2. TRAINS. From La Boca, 7 130 A. M., arrive at Cristobal 10:30 A. M. From Camache, 8:00 A. M,. arrive at Cristo- bal 10:05. From Cristobal, 8:30 P M., July 4, and 12:30 A. M., July 5. If weather prevents exercises being held out- doors they will be continued in large Freight Shed on Pier 11. I cut the American eagle from the cover of the July "Strand" and mounted it on a piece of at Panama 155 light blue pasteboard, slanted a flag across it and tacked them beside my door and added the finish- ing touch of a bunch of real nutmegs. This was Connecticut represented in one corner of Cristo- bal. The pier was tastefully decorated with banners, Japanese lanterns and palm branches and the waterscape appeared in its usual beauty. There was a bad wreck on the road which de- layed the train bringing the celebrities from Pan- ama and along the line, so everything was a little later than scheduled. No one was killed, but some were hurt. The Cristobal postoflice clerks worked about all day as usual on holidays. I did not go down to the Washington to dine as the celebrities were to be entertained at the Cristobal Hotel and I thought that we would be sure to have something eatable. To the fury of everybody dinner was worse than usual, which was only just possible. The ladies and the men who dine in the small dining room were turned out, altho there was plenty of room and no need of it, and the whole room reserved for the celeb- rities, who were served with a nice dinner. I left mine uneaten and went up to the pier, hoping to get a bite of something decent there, but tho I arrived before 7 o'clock there was not a crumb left. I went again to see the fireworks later with some other folks. A few colored people tried to watch the games at Cristobal and were chased off by mounted policemen. A very unpleasant sight. We had a smallpox scare in the early part of July. The patients were taken to the quarantine 156 Light on Dark Places hospital. I heard that some of them escaped and were running loose. I also heard that we would be quarantined six days at New York on account of the smallpox here. A bright man asked me this question to-day and I will pass it on to you, "Do you know what nothing from nothing leaves ?" July 19, 1906. There is a young Panamanian working in the office that I am. He told me they kept him type- writing until 11:30 night before last and last night he was awakened at 3 o'clock in the morn- ing by his drunken room mates asking him to drink and he is going to murder them if they do it again. Then he groaned about the heat. I asked him why he did not wear elbow sleeves. He said he was ashamed of his hairy arms, that he looked too much like a monkey. "A monkey," he says, "will drink like a man and chew tobacco like a man. A man is all the same as a monkey." Just then we came to a palm tree with a sign nailed upon it which stated that the government would soon open a bakery in connection with the commissary and sell bread at 5 cents a loaf. I read it aloud and he said : "Five cents a loaf is not cheap. We sell bread at 5 cents a loaf and make a good profit." His father is the proprie- tor of a bakery in Panama. I have had to stop my Spanish lessons again because my teacher is sick with fever. I have been very well considering the sick time here, but I was invited out to dinner two weeks ago Sunday and was caught in a hard rain and have at Panama 157 had a cold ever since. I took ten grains of quinine and next day I was deathly sick, but went to the office in the morning, but had to leave be- fore lunch and was in bed two days. I heard one ot the married ladies upstairs on the front porch and crawled out and asked her if she would tele- phone to the head nurse and inquire if I might go to the hospital for a day or so. She said she was not going out and told me I ought to go home that this was not a good place to be sick in. 1 told her that would be a good idea if one had a home, but as I had not I did not see how I could very well. She said, "I have, and a father and a mother, a brother and five sisters, and when I get tired of it here I go home. I cannot do anything for anybody that is sick. I got tired waiting on a sick woman last year. They would not take you at the hospital anyway, you are not sick enough." Then she vanished. Is that not about as much sense as some people have? She is one of the brides who left their homes to come here and get married. t ^ J u ty 2 9> !9o6. I went over to Coolie Town, which is a section 01 Colon to-day to see if my washerwoman could not possibly get my clothes dry before I left on my vacation. Laundresses have a hard time dry- ing clothes here during the wet season. Their houses are so small they cannot dry them in- doors. Coolie Town must have been originally inhabited by Chinese, but now there seems to be nothing but negroes living there. As I passed one of the miserable hovels I stopped, astonished 158 Light on Dark Places and stared, for leaning against one of the houses was a little girl so beautiful I immediately thought of the pictures of angels on Easter cards. She was apparently a quadroon. I have read of beautiful quadroons, but never saw one before — that is, a beautiful one. I wished I could take her away with me and put her in a more suitable atmosphere, but what could I do? So I walked on. I woke up desperately hungry last night at 12 :3c Why, I am sure I do not know. I got up and made three slices of toast on my oil stove, then ate two bananas and went back to bed. As 1 dropped off to sleep I wondered what would be the effect of those bananas. They are, or are supposed to be, very bad food after 2 P. M. in this climate. The only other time in my life I ever performed a similar feat was when I was staying at one of my uncles. My cousin Grace and I slept together and we both woke up about 2 A. M. and decided we were perishing with hunger, so we stole downstairs and feasted on custard pie. Her mother makes elegant custard pie. They have just raised the price of ice 140 per cent. I have been paying 5 cents a day for 5 or 6 pounds of ice, miscalled 10 pounds. Now they say they will deliver actual weight and I must pay 12 cents a day for 10 pounds of ice. They will not sell me less than 10 pounds, tho they de- liver ice to four other parties at this house. I pay my janitor 25 cents gold a week to put it in the ice box for me, because I am at the office when it comes. at Panama 259 The ice wagon got stuck in a deep mud hole this morning near the house as I was starting to the office. The driver lashed the mules, who tried their best to get it out, but could not. One of the ladies was watching from her balcony and she ordered them to stop lashing the mules for their own stupidity in driving into the hole Al- most any day, any time of the day, you may hear and see her going to the rescue of some abused horse or mule and, if she cannot stop it herself chasing around in the tropical sun to find a police- man I carried on the good work by persuad- ing the Zone policeman, who was watching some men cut down cocoanuts, to go and stop their lashing the mules. He declined at first, saying that it was no use, they did not know any better than to drive right into a mud hole, he could not do anything. I said, "You are just the person that can do something." He told me at noon that they had to take some of the ice out before they could start the wagon and that he warned them that if they drove into that mud hole a^ain he would arrest them. It was awful for the mules, but the roads are so full of deep mud holes that it must be hard for the drivers. // any of you ever see a chance to start the Humane So- ciety down this way, do not fail to do so We are so sorry for the cab horses, they are worked so hard and the drivers are always whipping them along when they are going as fast as they can. I have asked drivers why they whip the horses so and they said they have got to make them go as fast as they can to get more fares that they have to pay $5 gold a day to the man 160 Light on Dark Places that owns the cabs before they can clear a cent for themselves. I wish the government would build a street-car line here for the convenience of the people. It is providing landaus drawn by- spans of horses for the pleasure riding of sev- eral of the officials' families, each at a monthly- cost of $50 gold or more, and these imposing metropolitan equipages look absurd on the nar- row streets of Panama and Colon. When I was in Panama I racked my brain to think of what I could do to help the poor horses and finally wrote to Ella Wheeler Wilcox and laid the burden on her shoulders. She responded warmly and said she would immediately write a piece and have it published in some newspaper calling attention to the cruelty to animals in the tropics, and that she would always be ready at any time to do any- thing she could. You will be interested to hear about the gath- ering of cocoanuts. They grow in clusters in the tops of the cocoanut palm trees and vary in size from a child's head to that of a man's — I judge by looking at them. I have never measured any of them. When they fall from their height they come down hard and I do not dare walk under the cocoanut palms for fear my head will be telescoped. There was a circus parade here the other day and the elephant picked up a cocoanut and carried it with him in his trunk. I counted fifteen big ones in one cluster yesterday as they lay on the ground. There must be hundreds and hundreds of them on these few trees at Cristobal, but I had no idea there were so many until they began to gather them and carry them away in at Panama n6r wagon loads. One man climbs the tree to cut off the clusters and another always stands down on the ground, holding a rope, one end of which is tied to the cluster being cut by the man in the tree, the rope passing over a branch of the tree. When the cluster is cut loose it swings by the rope and is lowered slowly in order to prevent the bursting of the nuts, which is almost always the result when they fall from the tree. I presume that you girls, heretofore lacking the knowledge of the matter which I have just given you, have been misled by the pictures on the tin cocoanut boxes and thought monkeys picked the cocoanuts. The palm branches are always at the top of the tree. They are very appropriately called plumes, and when a dying plume falls you hear a swish and a swirl that sounds like a liquid rustle. When I first came to live on this palm-lined street I always thought it was raining when the wind blew through the palm branches. The natives take the fiber which is found on the inside of the shell and make queer little Brownie caps. These are pointed like dunce caps and are large enough for a person to wear. I mail you one and whomever it fits best may keep Last week while I was at lunch at the Cristobal Hotel one of these poor miserable little horses with a wagon full of cocoanuts got stuck in a big mud hole, from which he could not possibly pull the wagon. The driver lashed it, and lashed it, and lashed it, to the distress of most of the people at lunch, but none of the men got up to do anything. The sister of the director of posts was i62 > Light on Dark Places as much worried over it as I was and, tho seated at quite a distance from each other, our endur- ance of this distressing scene reached its limit at the same instant and we arose simultaneously, I starting to her to ask her to try and get her husband to do something and she for a police officer in the other room. The policeman went out and ordered the load lightened until the horse was able to draw it out. These things are constantly occurring. A short time ago I was walking down Front Street on my way to dinner and there was another poor miserable horse struggling under the lash to draw an unusually heavy wagon containing a rilled cask. To increase the difficulty there was a young man standing in the wagon. The road was very muddy and I inferred that he did not want to soil his white shoes. The colored driver had gotten out and was lashing the horse and a large crowd was watching the performance. I looked around for some U. S. man to send to the rescue, but not one was in sight, they were all natives. So finally I got up courage enough myself and walked into the native police station and got a native policeman sent out to stop the perfor- mance. The young man with the white shoes got out of the wagon. I did not know but that he would come over and tell me to mind my busi- ness, but I was bound to see the thing thru, tho I felt weak in the knees, and stood there until a wagon drawn by a big white mule was brought and the cask transferred. I think if an American had come along just then I would have been so relieved that I would have dissolved in tears. I at Panama 163 never saw such a little horse harnessed to a work wagon and every time they lashed it it shuddered and quivered from the tips of its ears to the tip of its tail. Finally it just dropped its head be- tween its forelegs and I rushed into the police station. August 13, 1906. Dear Club: I sailed August 10th for New York. There are not many passengers. The ladies are the wife of one of the division engineers, her mother and myself (we three sit in a row at the captain's table), a nurse from Ancon Hospital, who has malaria very badly, and two married ladies with their husbands. There is also the proprietoress of the most "high-toned" of the low houses at Panama. She was not seated at the table with any other women. I presume this is the same woman who came down about three months ago with five of her followers on the ship one of the nurses did, for she answers to her description. I am informed that she travels up often for re- cruits. To-day at 9:30 we reached Fortune Island. This was the destination of about a half dozen negro laborers returning from Colon. The ship anchored and a boat came out to take them and their luggage ashore. Some had their posses- sions in dilapidated-looking trunks, some in chests and some in tin tubs and pails. The ocean around the ship was a dark sapphire blue, along the shore of some parts of the island a brilliant turquoise and elsewhere an equally brilliant em- 1 64 Light on Dark Places erald green. The negro who commanded the boat that came for the laborers was an ideal African king. Black as a black cat with a superb and powerful figure. I wish I could have gotten pictures of this scene for you and for myself — the water colored like beautiful gems, the green island, the striking figure of the great negro and a small boat with white sails set, flying an Ameri- can flag which shimmered and floated in the wind, harmonizing splendidly with the other daz- zling colors. It would have made a magnificent oil painting. One of the passengers is a survivor of the San Francisco earthquake and fire. An- other is the owner of a marmoset which he is taking to his children. This is the smallest kind of a monkey and considered by a good many the prettiest monkey. It has a bushy tail, something on the order of a squirrel's. I do not think it compares with the white- faced monkeys, who are larger than the marmosets and have not the fluffy hair. The white- faced monkeys are intelli- gent, but so mischievous they are perfect nui- sances. The one at the hospital was playing tricks all the time. After we lengthened his chain he did not rest until he opened the screen door to my room. I often found him trying to, but did not think he would succeed, but one day I came back from the office and found he had gone in and thrown the ink bottle on the floor and my bottle of photograph paste out on the porch. He had soaped his paws with the paste and washed them in the ink and then made prints of them all over my books and papers. He climbed to the upper porch one day and tore one of the at Panama 165 nurse's skirts all to pieces. We used to keep goodies in the ice box on the back porch, which he soon discovered. Whenever we opened the ice box he rushed to it, fastened his eyes on the dainties, crossed his arms over his chest, then looked at us in the most appealing manner. Of course, he always got some. Monkeys go to bed at sunset and it makes them very cross to be dis- turbed. Before Jack Sprat knew me very well if I patted him on the head as I passed his box after bed time he would bite me instantly. After he got to know me when I patted him on the head he would give me a friendly nibble, but he al- ways bit me if I tried to take him up after bed time. I held my hand glass before him one day and he made desperate efforts to grab the other monkey. I amused myself laughing at him and the exasperated little beast suddenly made a spring and grabbed the glass and only an equally rapid grab on my part saved this treasured article from being thrown violently to the floor. We had great discussions on the boat about Isthmian and other matters. I asked the captain one day if what I had heard was true that the majority of women in Costa Rica are beautiful. He said he did not know as he had never been there and referred me to a gentleman who had been. He answered with brutal frankness, say- ing "No, the majority of women anywhere are not beautiful." I did not think to say so, but we know the majority of women look like their fathers. I heard on the Isthmus that the service on this line was getting worse and worse, but I was not i66 Light on Dark Places annoyed until to-day. The tea served is poor and I wanted to have some of my own made for myself and the lady who sits beside me. The steward refused to allow us to have a teapot to have it made in. The captain was not at the table, so I went over and asked the purser, who was obliged to leave his dinner and go upstairs and get an order from the captain before the steward would send in the teapot. I have paid my fare twice. The next day after I landed in Panama, as I had secured a position, I went to the office of the Pacific Mail S. S. Com- pany and requested the refund of the unused portion of my ticket and amount I paid for ex- cess baggage. The clerk smilingly informed me I would have to wait until he wrote to San Fran- cisco about it and it would probably be years be- fore I got it. Like other insolent people in au- thority here, he seemed to think the depriving of poor people of their rights an excellent joke. I left my address and requested him to write me as soon as he heard from San Francisco. I waited until long past time that I should have been noti- fied, then went to Panama and found that they had heard but had not notified me. The Pacific Mail wrote as follows : "Under terms of a contract between this com- pany and the Panama Railroad Company we have to pay the P. R. R. their proportion of the amounts collected whether passengers go beyond Panama or not, therefore we are unable to make any refund to the lady. Would suggest, how- ever, that as no service was performed by the P. R. R. Company, she be referred to that com- at Panama 167 pany for any refund which she thinks is due her." I immediately wrote to the P. R. R. Company, but tho I have their written acknowledgment that they have received $46 from the Pacific Mail for my passage, besides the amount for excess bag- gage, they have refused to refund it. I wrote a lawyer in the States about it and he replied that there was no question about it ; they were obliged to extend the time on the ticket or return the money they received for it. They wrote me that I had consented to the time limit printed on the ticket. I immediately replied that I had not con- sented any more than any one ever consented to any form of highway robbery. I would have had the lawyer collect it months ago, but believe that had I done so they would have had me dis- charged. This statement may seem beyond prob- ability to you, but it would not if you had been on the Isthmus. I had a personal interview with the general manager about it and he and his chief clerk, especially the chief clerk, seemed to think the matter quite a joke. I presented the ticket the day I sailed, but it was refused. I was also obliged to pay excess baggage again. I shall, of course, after I resign, put the matter in a lawyer's hands, but it is so hard, and takes so much strength one needs for the day's work to fight brazen, organized robbery! I could have sold the ticket to a man going to New York on the next steamer that left after I arrived in Panama, but they would not allow the transfer. This rule regarding stop-overs on the Isthmus is, that if the connecting steamer is there you 168 Light on Dark Places must leave at once; if it is not there you must stay ashore at your own expense. They say that the Isthmian Canal Commission is going to raise the employes' fare from $20 to $45 between Colon and New York. As $46 is the amount received for a regular passenger on a thru ticket from 'Frisco, they are planning to make a profit for carrying employes. The price of kerosene was raised from 11 cents per gallon to 23 cents per gallon at the commis- sary and I told you about the raise in the price of ice. You see these extortions are constantly occurring. \ For a change I will tell you one of the funniest things that ever happened. As I stepped out of my room one morning I banged the screen door, then remembering I had forgotten my knife, I turned back to get it, but could not open the door. I shook it repeatedly, but to no purpose. There is an ordinary iron hook and catch on the inside and the hook had fallen down and fastened itself (unless it was spirits), shutting me out of my own room. I called for the janitor to climb into the window, but he was nowhere within hearing and a gentleman who roomed in the next house came to the rescue. I have been in and out of this door hundreds of times, banging it or not, as it happened, and that hook never acted mis- chievously before. On my way to dinner the Sunday before I left I met a cab drawn by a poor old horse which ought to have been at rest. Both of his sides showed several whip marks where he had been at Panama 169 whipped until he was literally raw, the hair and skin were all off. We are now very near New York and I am getting quite excited at the prospect of seeing so many of my relatives and friends. New Haven, September 1, 1906. I have met a gentleman in New Haven who has been in Panama. He was quartered at Coro- zal and said he could not eat the food served at the government mess and he and others used to cook for themselves. He left Panama because he could not get quarters for his family. I must tell you the closing incident of the voy- age. The much-discussed subject of feeing ser- vants is one that I do not consider as I have next to nothing to fee them with beyond an occasional quarter and on Christmas a half dollar. I know lots of girls who thru fear fee servants when they owe big bills to their dressmakers, dentists, etc. I pay my bills and that is about all I can do. When I came up on the boat it was my intention to give my waiter 50 cents, but during the week I gave him a quarter and when ready to leave I found that unless I broke a $5 bill it would take all my change if I gave him any more. I would not have cared so much about this, but we landed at New York late at night and I wanted to have nickels handy for car fare. I was worried at having to land so late. It was about 9:30. The other three ladies who were traveling alone went to one of the most expensive hotels in New York, so I could not afford to go with them. I also reflected that I had paid $1.00 for a rickety old i^o Light on Dark Places steamer chair, which dollar went to the employes and 40 cents for lemonade during the trip, which, I suppose, went to the waiter; this, with the quarter, I thought was enough for me to bother over. When we landed at the pier we were not allowed to leave for about an hour, until some one came to inspect our hand bags. The boat had not been expected to land until the following morning; hence no inspectors to receive us. We were forbidden to take our trunks from the dock before next day, which compelled passengers who had been planning to go right on to stay over night in New York. I do not know what kind of lights they use on this dock, but they cast the most disfiguring reflections imaginable. Our faces look green and yellow, and you would have thought we were afflicted with some awful dis- ease. As we sat there, sleepy and impatient, wait- ing for the custom house officer, the waiter that waited on me appeared and said, "Aren't you go- ing to pay me for waiting on you?" I was so surprised I answered him and said, "Are you expecting me to pay your salary?" He said, "How do you expect me to live on my salary? Aren't you going to give me any more than 25 cents?" I said, "No." He said, "I hope you will live to starve to death." Then he went off. Presently he returned and said, "Here, take your 25 cents back." I walked away. I wished after- ward that I had taken it. I told one of the other ladies about it and she said, "You ought to have given him a dollar, some people give them five." I said, "I did not and I am not going to either." I was so angry that I intended to report him, but at Panama 171 next day I thought likely the miserable creature does get a very poor salary and, tho that is not my fault, I never want to make a poor person any trouble. As our handbags were inspected we bade one another good bye and I started to find a cab to take me to the Christian Association, for, tho I felt sure they would be too full to accom- modate me, knew they could tell me what hotel to go to. I did not want to receive the rebuff which I understand so many ladies traveling alone in New York receive when going to a hotel, viz., that they are full. The driver of the nearest cab asked me $2.00. I knew that was an outrageous fare and decided to take a car. As I left the cab one of the passengers came to me and said, "Let me put you on a car," which he did, going way out of his way to do so. The next morning I found the legal rate of fare from the pier to the Christian Association in the Trav- elers' Guide to be 50 cents, possibly 75 cents. I had no special desire to return to that pier after the previous night's unpleasant experiences, but had to have my trunks inspected. The people I found were as different as day and night. As soon as I reached the pier a man came forward and asked if he could do anything for me and showed me where to find my trunks. I showed the inspector my old thru ticket from San Fran- cisco, also my baggage receipts and asked him if, seeing these, he could not believe that I had no dutiable goods in the big trunk which I had had roped with much difficulty, but that I had brought my things from San Francisco. He was very courteous, but said he could not let my trunk 172 Light on Dark Places pass without opening it, because if he did he would be fined a month's salary. So he looked thru them all and pronounced them all right. I paid the baggage man 25 cents to put the rope back on my trunk, for which he gave me many thanks. I did not know but he would return it. During the inspection the officer and I had some conversation about Panama and he advised me not to go so far from home and told me what a hard time he had had when a young man when he first went away from home. When I bade him good bye he said, "Good luck to you, my child," and I left marveling at the difference in the same place at different times. Sometimes it is well people cannot read one another's thoughts, is it not? The wife and mother-in-law of one of Jackson Smith's pro- teges came to New York on the same boat I did and I enjoyed their society. Awhile ago I met a member of the family of the man whom this protege unjustly supplanted. The man who was ousted was a graduate of Columbia University School of Engineering and an experienced engi- neer. He had been appointed to the position of superintendent of mines on the Isthmus and re- duced expenses in connection with his work one- half, and at the same time increased the output 100 per cent. He often worked from 5 o'clock in the morning until 10 at night. In fact, he had so overworked that, in connection with the try- ing climate, his weight fell from 185 to 145 pounds. He had requested married quarters, which were granted to him, and had sent for his wife to join him. This at considerable ex- at Panama 173 pense, as she was in Mexico with her parents. On the same ship which brought her came the friend of Jackson Smith and the superintendent of mines was discharged and the friend given his position. Not the slightest intimation had been given him of such a proceeding, his work had been commended and married quarters granted. He states also that all the superintendents who had worked with him were discharged and re- placed by friends of Jackson Smith, with but one exception; and this man was transferred from trucks to dumps, which is a very inferior position. Also that his successor had never pre- viously held any better position than that of track man. I think this means a man who attends to the laying of tracks, and he was rapidly advanced to the position of division engineer. The dis- charged engineer did everything in his power to have an investigation made, but one never was made, even tho Chief Engineer Stevens prom- ised him that there should be. Cristobal, March 15, 1906. Dear Club : I am back at Cristobal and express the sincer- est regret that I did not have time to go to Buf- falo, at least I thought I could not. I notified the proper people in Washington nearly a week be- fore I intended to sail to provide me with trans- portation at the I. C. C. rate and they replied that I would have to wait until the next ship, owing to insufficient accommodation. I was then in Philadelphia and had to pay my board while 174 Light on Dark Places waiting. Had I known this in time I would have gone to Buffalo. I did not see the senator, but the congressman of my district. The congressman of one's dis- trict is a proper person to apply to, therefore as he was so much nearer than a senator I went to him. This gentleman has been congressman for more years than I remember and many people thought he would not be a candidate for re-elec- tion, tho popular, on account of his extreme age and resulting infirmities. Others assured me that while he lived no other man would be congress- man of that district. I finally decided to ask for an interview with him. I carried a letter from one relative and he had received a telephone mes- sage from another. He told me to tell him all I wished to and his wife graciously placed a chair beside him for me and said I must talk loud be- cause he was quite deaf, and to ask her to help. Imagine me, then, sitting beside this deaf old gentleman, yelling at the top of my voice, trying to tell him all my woes of the past year. If you have ever tried to talk to a very deaf person you will realize why I concluded that if I had not earned all I asked before that I was working hard for it then, and decided as others have done regarding Isthmian positions that you have to work so hard to get what you are entitled to without these superlative exertions that it is not worth the trouble. My instructions at the close of the interview were to send him a writ- ten request the next day, stating just what I wanted. I had already brought him one, but he at Panama 175 told me I must omit the following paragraph as it was "not politic" : "Every one who has worked on the Isthmus knows that, as a rule, it is useless to expect fair treatment unless some influential person interests himself in the matter — so many of the heads of departments being only interested that they and their friends get rich out of it." I cut that out and next day mailed him the following : New Haven, Connecticut, September 19, 1906. Hon. N. D. Sperry, Congressman, State of Connecticut, New Haven, Connecticut. Sir: I have been a stenographer in the government service in the Canal Zone since December 1, 1905. I took the Civil Service examination last Oc- tober in San Francisco because I happened to have been visiting and working there for six months previous to the examination. I am a native of the State of Connecticut and a member of a family which has been resident in Connecti- cut for 267 years. • After taking my examination, without waiting for my rating, I sailed for Panama, arriving No- vember 30th, and was appointed stenographer to the Division Engineer, Division of Meteorology and River Hydraulics. As I had not then heard from the Civil Service Commission regarding the examination, I agreed to commence at a salary of $100, with the promise of a prompt advance, 176 Light on Dark Places being informed this was the rule for persons who had not been sent down by the Civil Service Com- mission. In two months all the office force, with the exception of the chief clerk and office boy in this division was transferred. I am now at Cristobal. I have passed the Civil Service examination for a stenographer and typewriter required by our government. I am a stenographer of fourteen years' experience. Before going to California I worked for the engineers in Columbia University for about two and a half years at a salary of $18 a week. I substituted in New York City six months at salaries of $3 and $4 a day. I ob- tained my positions through typewriter agencies after passing their examinations for experienced stenographers, not with the aid of friends. But tho an advance in salary has been promised I have never received it and am paid less than numbers of employes on the Isthmus who have never passed a Civil Service examination, who have had comparatively little experience, many of whom are doing ordinary clerical work (not stenographers) and some who are not even American citizens. Also, being "appointed on the Isthmus," I am allowed but two weeks' sick leave, when if my appointment were confirmed by the Civil Service Commission I would be allowed one month. My relatives and friends have advised me to bring this matter to your kind attention, and I respectfully request : I. That my appointment, dating from Decern- at Panama 177 ber 1, 1905, be confirmed by the Civil Service Commission at Washington. 2. That I be allowed one month's sick leave. 3. That such sum as the government pays for the transportation of stenographers from San Francisco to Panama be returned to me. 4. That my salary be raised to the amount to which a stenographer is justly entitled who has passed a regular Civil Service examination held in a state of the United States (not on the Isth- mus) who has worked on the Isthmus the length of time that I have done. 5. That all the rights to which an American who has passed the Civil Service examination required by the government of the United States is entitled be granted to me. I am, Very respectfully, Mary A. Chatfield, Stenographer, Division Materials and Supplies, Canal Zone. I then went to Philadelphia, confident the Canal Commission would be glad to grant me my rights, being assured of their validity by a congressman. Indeed, until now I would not have believed that any official of any government in the universe, even the meanest in existence, would have made an official statement that a citi- zen of his country was the same as "people from all parts of the globe." The Scandinavian Consul in San Francisco during the investigation of naturalization papers tried to help Scandinavian sailors who had foresworn their allegiance to Sweden and Norway. 178 Light on Dark Places The Canal Commission promptly granted the following unreasonable request: A very elderly gentleman from one of the Southern -States was appointed at a salary of $3,000. When he ar- rived at the Isthmus the chief of the division to which he was assigned saw that he was unable to fill a position commanding that salary and placed him where his work consisted of tying up bundles, told him he was not worth $3,000 and that he would pay him $1,200. His friends ad- vised him to ask for leave without pay and go up and tell his representative about it, which he did, and his representative wrote the Isthmian Canal Commission as follows: "If the Isthmus is not big enough for Tobey and Cotter, you had better discharge Tobey," etc. The complainant was immediately returned to the Isthmus and his chief instructed to retain him at a salary of $3,000 a year. This in face of the fact that every one who has mentioned this in- stance, even the man's friends, state that $100 a month was a large salary for a person of his abil- ity. The commission also sent the representa- tive's letter to the chief and it was seen and read bv many people after being placed in the office file. Following is the commission's reply to my con- gressman's letter. He remailed it to me, saying he was ready to act on any suggestion I or my relatives thought proper, but I did not write him again as I was informed his health was too poor for him to attend to any business whatever. xt Panama^ Hjq COPY. ISTHMIAN CANAL AFFAIRS, OFFICE OF ADMINISTRATION, PANAMA CANAL BUILDING. Washington, D. C, September 26, 1906. Sir : I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication under date of the 21st in- stant, inclosing a statement from Miss Mary A. Chatfield, employed as stenographer in the Isthmian service, urging certain changes in her status, her requests being summarized by her as follows : "I. That my appointment, dating from De- cember 1, 1905, be confirmed by the Civil Service Commission at Washington. "2. That I be allowed one month's sick leave. "3. That such sum as the government pays for the transportation of stenographers from San Francisco to Panama be returned to me. "4. That my salary be raised to the amount to which a stenographer is justly entitled who has a regular Civil Service examination, held in a state of the United States (not on the Isthmus) who has worked on the Isthmus the length of time that I have. "5. That all the rights to which an American who has passed the Civil Service examination re- quired by the government of the United States is entitled, be granted to me." Replying to paragraphs 1, 2 and 5, I have the honor to make the following statements : It is not necessary to have Miss Chatfield's appoint- 180 Light on Dark Places ment specially confirmed by the Civil Service Commission, as this would be of no advantage to her or the commission. Her appointment has been regularly reported to the Civil Service Com- mission as is done in all similar cases. I might state, however, that she has been received and is retained in the Isthmian service thro the special favor of the authorities on the Isthmus, for the reason that she could not have received such ap- pointment thru Civil Service channels, as women are not admitted to stenographic exam- inations for the Panama service. The Civil Service examination which she claims to have passed must have been for the Federal service for duty in the departments in the United States. At the time she received her appointment direct from the authorities on the Isthmus the Presi- dent's order of January 12, 1906, placing all clerical positions in the Isthmian service strictly subject to Civil Service regulations had not been issued, and for this reason such appointment, now irregular, was permitted, and similar appoint- ments were made in other emergency cases. Furthermore, the Civil Service regulations do not attempt to and cannot govern the conditions of employment. The conditions of employment have been regulated at the sessions of the Isth- mian Canal Commission, and one of the condi- tions is that persons employed directly on the Isthmus shall receive fifteen days' sick leave. Miss Chatfield's status is exactly the same as that of all other persons who have received ap- pointments while resident on the Isthmus, the at Panama i8i manner of selection, whether thru Civil Service examinations held on the Isthmus or without such examinations, having no bearing on the question whatever. Replying to paragraph No. 3, there is no au- thority for the payment to her of the cost of gov- ernment transportation from San Francisco to Panama and therefore the same cannot be al- lowed. Persons appointed while in the United States and instructed by this office to proceed to the Isthmus receive free transportation from the port of embarkation to the Isthmus ; but those persons who arrive on the Isthmus independently and thereafter arrange for and secure employ- ment, cannot expect reimbursement of their trav- eling expenses as such expenses were incurred upon their own volition. A large number of this class of persons have been employed directly on the Isthmus, having arrived there from all parts of the globe, and they have no right to make an appointment, received after arrival, the means of securing a refund of traveling expenses incurred at their own pleasure. Replying to paragraph No. 4, you are informed that changes in pay status come directly under the jurisdiction of the heads of the department on the Isthmus, in Miss Chatfield's case the Chief of the Division of Material and Supplies. This office exercises no control in such matters as it is not in a position to observe and know the value, quality, quantity and faithfulness of the services performed by the employes on the Isthmus in subordinate capacities, nor their adaptability to 1 82 Light on Dark Places the work of the department in which employed. The Isthmian Canal Commission. Very respectfully, W. Leon Pepperman, Chief of Office. After awhile I sent the reply of the commission to a friend who had asked me to do so and ex- plained the absurdity of it as follows: 1. When a citizen's appointment is received from the Civil Service Commission they cannot be dismissed without a trial and charges against them must be proved. Is not this an advantage? As it now stands, I could be discharged at any time for absolutely nothing. 2. "She has been received and is retained in the Isthmian service thru the special favor of the authorities on the Isthmus." This statement is more than ridiculous; it is insulting. They are unable to get or to keep enough employes to do the work here, even tho they hire citizens of other countries — in numer- ous instances, Jamaican and other negroes as typewriters, clerks, telegraph operators^ and stenographers. The services of inexperienced married women, who came here only to be with their husbands, are gladly accepted; so inade- quate is the clerical force on the Isthmus. It is no favor to any citizen of the United States to hire such citizen to do work that the United States is paying millions of dollars for, but it is a favor to subjects of other countries to hire them when they hold positions citizens of the United States would like. at Panama 183 It is an uncalled-for insult to speak of a citizen of the United States in this connection: "A large number of this class of persons have been employed directly on the Isthmus, having arrived there from all parts of the globe." t The United States is paying for this canal, not "all parts of the globe," and there is no proper comparison between the citizens of the United States and those of "all parts of the globe." That women are debarred from taking the ex- aminations for the positions in offices on the Isthmus is most unjust and senseless. The Isthmian Canal Commission sends plenty of trained nurses here, whose chief duty is to take care of colored men when they are sick — inas- much as the majority of patients are colored laborers — and they send school teachers, but the many applications from American women, ex- perienced in office work, are refused and the po- sitions which they seek given to citizens of for- eign countries. If competent business women who had passed the United States Civil Service examinations were permitted to fill positions in theoffices on the Isthmus it would make the great majority of government employes here, instead of the minority, respectable, intelligent, patriotic and honorable citizens of the United States, in- terested in seeing and knowing that this work is done honestly and skilfully, and eliminate the necessity of filling these positions with persons who have had no experience in office work grafters, sots, criminals, wanted by the police, and people from "all parts of the globe." What is 1 84 Light on Dark Places the logical conclusion that the latter should be preferred to the former? 3. "The Civil Service examination which she claims to have passed must have been for the Federal service for duty in the United States." When this examination which I claim to have passed and did pass was held, the official giving it requested the male stenographers to write on their papers that they would be willing to go to the Isthmus. I told him I wished to go and he said to write on my examination paper that I would be willing to, tho he did not think they would send me. People who have recently come from California and other Western States tell me that in all the postoffices there are notices re- questing men to take the examinations for the Isthmian service and stating that the entrance salary for stenographers is $125 a month. The writer of the letter to the congressman must know all these facts perfectly, yet he assumes that the examination was for a different purpose. Just before my appointment last December they had sent to Washington for a stenographer of "wide experience" to fill the self -same posi- tion. Therefore it is only right that my fare to the Isthmus should be refunded, as the request for that experienced stenographer was canceled. 4. "Traveling expenses incurred at their own pleasure." No one that I know came to the Isthmus for pleasure. I most certainly did not. The power- ful incentive of extreme poverty brought me and others here because we believed we would re- at Panama , 185 ceive the larger salaries, which are our just due, than those paid in more desirable places. When I arrived on the Isthmus I possessed nothing but my ticket to New York, my ward- robe and about $35. Living is so expensive everywhere it is impossible for homeless women to save much even tho they receive fair salaries and it is so inconvenient to be so poor I thought I would risk all the horrors of the Isthmus to get the extra money I ought to have received by so doing, and which I never for an instant doubted I would receive. My financial condition is affluence in comparison with many. Some peo- ple have not decent clothes and are heavily in debt. The conditions in the City of Panama were the following: Lodging accommodations to an American were most uncomfortable, the food poor, the streets narrow, DIRTY and perfumed at frequent in- tervals with the odors of foul-smelling sewers (excuse truthful language, but I want you to realize the senseless insult given when it is stated a person comes to the Isthmus for pleas- ure), the heat intense. A very short time be- fore my arrival yellow fever had been so preva- lent that there were not enough ships to carry the panic-stricken people away that tried to go. Do you think that people come to the Isthmus for pleasure? I said to myself, "I am perfectly well, I never take contagious diseases, there is more work here than people can do, I shall receive $125 a month; if I return to the States at this time of the year (December 1st) I may not get a posi- 186 Light on Dark Places tion until summer, so I will stay," which I did, never for an instant imagining the injustice which people are apt to have to endure who have not friends to see that they are not imposed upon. My experience is a very common one, the heads of departments being so anxious to overpay their personal friends that they cut every one else all they possibly can to balance things up, and the Civil Service rules are nothing but a farce. It is the commonest kind of an occurrence to hear of some furious American leaving for home because they cannot get what they ought to have. When I returned this fall I found, when put- ting in my application for quarters, that the title stenographer has been abolished and every one is called a clerk. "A new ruling." I am rated as a 2d-grade clerk. This, doubtless, is done to make it appear less unjust and unbusinesslike to pay ordinary clerks who have never spent the money or the time to pay for or to learn a spe- cial accomplishment, or who do not possess the ability to learn one, better salaries than those who have. In regard to the 30 days' sick leave, the time- keeper himself told me when he said he would be obliged to allow me but 15 days, as I was appointed on the Isthmus, that a nurse, Miss Ruth Pentland, who was appointed on the Isthmus had been granted the 30 days' sick leave by the Isthmian Canal Commission. So it is nothing unprecedented, but if it were should be granted to a citizen of the United States. I enclose a copy of a letter I sent to the chief at Panama 187 of this division regarding the enforced delay in returning after my vacation, which explains itself. Do you think that is a decent way to treat any one? COPY Cristobal, November 7, 1906. Mr. W. G. Tubby, Chief, Division Material and Supplies. Sir: It was my intention to sail from New York to Colon on September 26, 1906. To secure pas- sage on the steamer sailing on that date I wrote to the official at Washington, to whom I was in- structed to apply in your letter, six days before I expected to sail, requesting transportation. Having never been instructed, nor ever having received any intimation to the contrary, I be- lieved I was allowing ample time. I received an immediate answer stating that, owing to lack of accommodation, I must wait until the next steam- er sailed. In confirmation of this I refer you to Mr. W. A. Benham, to whom I was then directly ac- countable, and to whom I immediately wrote informing him of my enforced and unexpected delay. My salary for the time so lost has been de- ducted from my October pay check. I request that it be refunded as I am entirely blameless for my delayed return. Very respectfully, Mary A. Chatfield. Stenographer, 1 88 Light on Dark Places The refunding of this money was refused. I shall have been here a year on the 1st of December, 1906, and I ought to receive $150 a month from that date. I do not know the reason the Isthmian Canal Commission rules that people appointed on the Isthmus shall begin on smaller salaries for doing the same work and have half the sick leave, un- less it considers they should be punished because the government did not pay their fares here. Many others were surprised, as I was by be- ing informed that they must wait until the next steamer sailed. I was told on the boat that it was the usual thing to be overcrowded. I have not observed any consideration of this fact when the all important heads of departments on the Isthmus choose to make vacancies in the working force by forbidding men whom they have dis- charged to be hired by any one else on the Isthmus, nor does it hinder them from treating people so unjustly they drive them to resigning. The "Advance" was crammed, every berth en- gaged, and one man slept on the cushions in the social hall. Three passengers were obliged to the preceding trip. There were two sittings at meals and the dining room was filled at each sitting. It must have been hard for the em- ployes and it was most uncomfortable for the passengers. The sea was very rough and almost every soul on the boat except myself was sea- sick for nearly three days, and some longer. I had a very pleasant room mate, but our stateroom was so small we were very uncomfortable. The lower berth was so low my steamer trunk would at Panama 189 not slip under it, so we had to stumble over it. Fortunately she had only a suit case. The en- gine broke down Sunday afternoon and delayed our arrival at Colon for a day. There was a very mixed crowd on the boat, only fourteen of whom were women. Two nurses, the sister of one of the clerks here, who is hoping to get a position, and myself were the only single women. The rest were going to join their husbands. All seemed nice women but one and she conducted herself very differently than a married woman should. I heard a comical story on the boat. A cer- tain lady residing on the Isthmus possesses a husband holding an exceptionally good position, having numbers of men working under him. This lady is one to whom nature has been very unkind, being so extremely stout that you would turn and stare at her. Several other women who traveled down on the same boat with her treated her with open scorn. The ostracized one was not crushed, but carried herself with disdain and continued to breakfast in the dining room in sloppy wrappers. When the others arrived on the Isthmus they all found that their husbands were working under the husband of the scorned. Such is life on the Canal Zone. As to Poultney Bigelow's articles, I have heard all those things and many more since I have been on the Isthmus, they are all chestnuts here. As one of the passengers said, "He could not find out much. People were afraid to tell him." I heard so many things on the voyage I cannot begin to remember them. Negro laborers are 190 Light on Dark Places brought to Fortune Island from other islands and taken off by passing steamers as the government wants them. A policeman told us that on one trip the captain brought the man who has charge of them $2,500 to be expended for food for the laborers. Upon receiving it he said, "$500 for the negroes and $2,000 for me." This was not a joke. The appearance of the unfed laborers con- firmed the statement. He said one of the ne- groes told him he had had nothing to eat since Monday and it was then Friday, and this man's condition and appearance and those of other laborers proved the truth of his statement. I have heard many pitiful stories about the hunger suffered by the negroes. You remember my writing you how negro laborers are hounded if they try to work for one department when they are wanted in another. White men are hounded the same way by the heads of some departments. Three white stow- aways were found on an outgoing ship at one time. The captain put back and returned them to the Isthmus. They had been discharged, I think in every case, for getting drunk. They all tried to get work in other departments, but the head of the one from which they had been dis- charged immediately wrote to the head of every department where they applied that he objected to their being hired. This, of course, seems strange to you, but it is an every-day occurrence down here. None of these men had anywhere near money enough to carry him off the Isthmus, so after being hounded from every place where at Panama 191 they tried to get work they stowed away and the banner of the free floats over the Canal Zone! Another man was dismissed for drunkenness and, not having a cent, and knowing his fate if he tried to get another position on the Isthmus, went out and tried to drown himself, but was rescued. Then they hired him again and I be- lieve he is still with us. They say he drinks so much that he is not of much account. I will write you about the president's visit next time. Cristobal, December 2, 1906. Dear Club: I not in your last letter just received your de- sire to publish my letters. I will think about this before I give you an answer, and if I decide to let you I want to read them all over. Some things I have written you about some people should not be published and everybody should be given a fictitious name, except those so well known by the general public that a fictitious name would be no disguise. If I do think I will dedicate the collection to President Roosevelt. An Englishman wrote him about the robbery in the commissary and directed the letter to Washington, from whence it was sent to Chief Engineer John F. Stevens, who gave it to Jackson Smith, who discharged the man. I will discharge myself first and save Jack- son Smith the trouble. I wrote him once when he was Governor of New York State. Whether he received the let- ter I do not know, but he answered it exactly as 192 Light on Dark Places I desired. Do you remember that Mrs. Place in Brooklyn who murdered her stepdaughter when she was asleep by pouring some dreadful acid in her eyes? If it had not killed her she would have been blind all her life. Because this vicious devil happened to be a woman a lot of people peti- tioned Mr. Roosevelt to refuse to allow her to be electrocuted. How any one with any regard for mercy and justice can desire favor shown a woman who abuses children I cannot understand ; in my opinion they are even worse than men who abuse women. After having an investigation which assured him Mrs. Place was sane he re- fused to interfere with the sentence and replied to this effect : "My sympathies are' with the wronged, not with those who do the wrong. When a woman is just as bad as a man I would punish her just as much as a man. I do not believe in mawkish sentiment." If a woman is as devilish as a man why shouldn't she be punished just as much as a man? I think they seldom are, but some of them are. The longer I live the more I respect and sympa- thize with women, and I think generally they are better than men. One of our prominent maga- zines once published a piece which discussed this subject and affirmed that women were not bet- ter than men, for, it argued, if they were men would have to come up to their standard. This is not so, because men have arranged the affairs of the world in a way to give them such an advan- tage that women cannot compel them to come up to their standard. It seems to me that the most at Panama 193 foolish thing women do, so senseless I cannot understand why the practice is so universal, is to treat their domestic help as tho they were such inferior beings, thereby driving the better class of working women out of the home and forcing themselves to choose their helpers from the most ignorant and inefficient women in the world. One of the most ridiculous features of this fact is that housekeepers are so conscious of it. You cannot see a woman who keeps servants but almost invariably you receive a recital of her troubles in this line. I seldom say anything, but my mental comments are, "Serves you right for your stupidity and your unchristian meanness. If you were a maid would you want to wear a handkerchief on your head? Would you want to be forbidden to take a bath? Would you want it to be considered a crime if your company rang the front door bell ?'' I became very discouraged once when in San Francisco because I did not succeed at first in finding a position at $75 a month and thought that rather than realize less than a house servant I would try being one for a time and applied at an agency. The manager eyed me disapprov- ingly and said, "Are you accustomed to being a servant?" I replied that I was not, only as a stenographer is a servant. She immediately re- fused to do anything for me, and I could not in- duce her to even send me to the country, nor would she give her reason. Up to this time I sup- posed that if all else failed women could be sure of getting housework to do. As lack of experi- ence is the rule and not the exception, I suppose 194 Light on Dark Places her attitude is to be attributed to the fact so many women demand that servants shall be of a menial and inferior appearance. I have fre- quently heard women talking in this tenor, often expressing themselves so ungrammatically I could scarcely keep from laughing at them. The head of our department recently raised the salary of one of the greatest drunkards on the Isthmus from $125 to $150 a month. The happy man celebrated by a three days' spree. Perfectly consistent. Perfectly logical. Don't you think so? The only possible way to insure justice in the raising of salaries of government employes would be to have a rule that they should be advanced periodically, as the employe remained in service, until they reached the maximum allowed, which should be positively stated. The clerks in the Cristobal postoffice, working nights, days, Sun- days and holidays for $100 a month, got theirs raised to $125 by going in a body to the director Di posts and stating they would leave at once if this raise was not granted. The registry clerk was on her vacation at the time. When she re- turned she hoped until her heart was sick that her salary would be advanced. But it was not, so she asked an influential friend who was a friend of one of the great ones of the earth to inter- cede for her and at his intercession her salary was immediately raised to $125 a month. I will now give you my version of the flying visit of the greatest ruler on earth. As there are none of the sons of Saint George here to dis- at Panama 195 pute about the title I will not have to stop and have a fight. The "Louisiana" arrived November 15th, very late. Everybody that could had planned to meet the president when he landed. Mr. Maltby gave his clerks permission to go to the dock before coming to the office next morning, but Mr. Tubby said we must work until 9 o'clock, then we might go and meet the president, but he landed before schedule time and left Cristobal before we were allowed to leave the office. I heard reports of his doings as he tore around the Isthmus and as I did not attempt to follow him, most of what I write you is hearsay. He eluded his escort and saw some things they did not want him to see. He found the workmen's quarters at one place in very bad condition and commanded them put in order "Inside of ten days," saying, "That doesn't mean ten days, it means inside of ten days — nine days." He went into the commissary and found fault with the high prices and asked the manager who was getting the profit. The manager said, "I do not know, I am not." (???) He declined the elaborate meal prepared for him at the Tivoli Hotel and went to one of the government messes. I wonder if he labors under the delu- sion that they would dare serve him with the same sort of food that they serve to the em- ployes ? I did not cross the Isthmus to go to the reception they gave him at Panama, but went to the one on the pier at Cristobal. With the help of an amiable lady in Colon I managed to get a new white dress made to wear on this great occa- 1$6 Light on Dark Places sion. Mrs. Roosevelt was with the president and looked very brilliant and pleasant through the whole performance. His voice gave out several times during his speech. He was often inter- rupted by a very tall man who, I presume, was hired to do so. One question he bellowed out was, "How about Toultney Bigelow?'" Mr. Roosevelt responded, "Are you referring to the boat?" They have named a little boat they use on the reservoir at Colon "Poultney Bigelow." He made very complimentary remarks about American citizens and their wives. I wish American citizens were always so addressed. It reminded me of the following newspaper com-' ments: "Now that the elections are over the Sovereign People will once more sink back to their usual title — the working classes." He said that he wished his boys were old enough to come down here and join in the work. I wish when he gets thru at Washington he would come here and join in the work. We were told that he would visit our office in the afternoon and were instructed to rise when he entered. I told the man that sat opposite me that I would not rise for any "mere man" that afternoon. I felt sure that he would not waste his time coming up there and he did not. United States Bilson, the bulldog, whose owner works in this department, was appropriately decorated with a liberty rib- bon in honor of the expected visit. As soon as the president finished his speech he left the pier and boarded the "Louisiana." Then dancing began and I stayed long enough to have the pleasure of meeting a good many at Panama 197 friends I had not seen for some time, take in the costumes and admire the beautiful decorations of United States flags, bunting and palms artistic- ally arranged about the dock. I will not write the paper for you telling of the Indians, among whom I used to teach, for reading on the evening you wish to devote to Indian study, for you can get what will be vastly better, viz., "The Ojibway," by Mr. Gilfillan. The author lived and worked among the Minne- sota Indians for about twenty years. The book contains valuable, reliable information, not fairy stories. The Indians on the Isthmus that I have seen, both real and pictured, are very inferior in ap- pearance to the North American Indians I saw. There were some very fine-looking people among the latter. Were there not pictures of Isthmian Indians on some of the post cards I sent you? There are not many here because the Spaniards killed so many when they came here. I do not know whether Bishop Baldwin is liv- ing now or not, but if he is and Elinor has an opportunity of hearing him when she is in Can- ada she must not fail to take it. I have never heard any preaching that I admire as much. I presume I had heard the following verse a hun- dred times, more or less, but I never understood it until I heard him read it : 'That which is born of the spirit is spirit and that which is born of the flesh is flesh." Then for the first time I realized what it meant. On my return to the States I remember telling a minister about my trip to Canada and saying in all seriousness, "I 198 Light on Dark Places do not know whether many people would agree with me, but I think Bishop Baldwin one of the finest preachers there is." He replied, "A great many people agree with you. He is considered the finest in Canada." Dr. van Dyke is well worth hearing, but as I remember Bishop Bald- win, there is no comparison between the two. The next day, Sunday, I went to Gorgona to dine with one of the ladies who came down on the same boat I did. I met the engineer from New York who worked in the Division of M. & R. H. when I did. When on his vacation he re- ceived a letter telling him not to return to that division and afterward a telegram telling him to return and report for duty in another division. He discovered later that our old friend the chief clerk had given the head of the division the choice of discharging the engineer or else suf- fering the loss of his valuable clerical services. He disliked the engineer for the reason that he understood his business, I suppose. I had a very pleasant day at Gorgona. When returning we ran over a colored man, cutting off one leg far above his knee, and I think, killing him — I hope so — he was so mutilated. A fearful sight. The school teacher at Cristobal and a nurse from Ancon were in the car with me. The nurse went right out to see what she could do, but I sat still and shuddered. Two weeks ago the water at Cristobal smelled so horribly an expert was sent for to analyze it and he found some drowned negroes in the res- ervoir. I had a nice time Thanksgiving, was invited to at Panama 199 dine at Colon and had a very fine dinner. I wish I could show you a picture of my hostess. She looks as though she had stepped from some old painting. I have been tormented with roaches and mice ever since, my return. When I first saw one of these big roaches traveling toward me over the floor I thought it was a small mouse. A lady who has lived in the tropics manv years tells me that there is no getting rid of them until the dry season comes. I have fixed rough on rats with sugar and laid poisonous powders about, but all to no purpose. I watch them play tag by the dozens every night and my bureau is a regular hotel for their housing. Every time I open a drawer out run the roaches. It reminds me of some of the bug pictures in "Life." A friend of mine has just gone home and I have charged him in the name of mercy to inquire what is sure death for roaches and send it to me. What these pests want to hang around in my room for I do not know. Everything eatable that I have is kept in sealed glass jars or tin boxes, but they eat the covers of my books, especially a red cover. I had a souvenir post card sent me from Jamaica and something- about that tasted good to them, for they nearly ate off one corner of it. I chase them with the hammer or anything I can grab hold of and am getting as dirty as a small boy, for when nothing else is convenient I catch the small ones in my fingers rather than let them escape! I saw a big one last night standing on his hind legs chewing the red cover of my Span- ish dictionary, which I had placed on the top of 200 Light on Dark Places a pile of books. I went for him with the ham- mer, but he got away. One evening when our literary club met in my room I looked up and saw a big roach on the top of my bureau ; point- ing at it, I said, "There is one of those miserable things," and he flew straight for me. Every- body laughed and Mrs. Snow said, "You should not point." This reminded me of what a man told me about roaches in New Jersey. He said when they ran over the table he tried to chase them off, but instead of running from him they always turned and faced him ready for battle. I saw a new novel about the Isthmus to-night ; a love story, and the author refers to the Isthmus as the "Waist of the World." The newsdealer called my attention to it when I was buying magazines. I glanced thru it and saw something about the "Pinions of passion." I wonder if they would look well on a hat. If there are any on sale in Buffalo and you think they will harmon- ize with my style of beauty send me a pair. If I write anything for publication there will be no "pinions" or no "passions;" just facts. December 3, 1906. Last night we had the heaviest rainfall this year. It washed out a mile and a half of rail- road track and stopped traffic between here and Panama. It is reported that Assistant Chief Engineer John G. Sullivan is going to leave the Isthmus on Thursday, that he is mad, and has been for a long time. Ditto, for me, but I do not think I will get away next Thursday. at Panama 201 You know how much plainer foreigners talk than American men do. A Frenchman some- times dines at the same table I do at the Astor House. He had just returned from Panama and we asked him what the latest news was. He said that the news that was all over Panama was that the wife of a prominent official had worn such an extremely decollete dress at the recep- tion to the president that "the gentlemen were all grateful, the ladies scandalized." One of the other ladies reproved him for speaking so plainly. He said he could not see that he had said any- thing, and he had told the truth. This calls to mind the amusing plain-speaking of another foreigner in a Massachusetts village. Being an accomplished musician, he became popular in society. Several of the single ladies gave a party to the single men. Some of them were not as young as they had been and he said it was their last desperate attempt to get them- selves husbands. . This reached the ladies' ears and aroused their wrath, so he said he would take it all back — it was not their last attempt to get themselves husbands. Following is a letter written by one of our disappointed fellow-citizens. He asked me to typewrite four copies for him. It is addressed to the chief of our division: COPY. Dear Sir: I have the honor to hereby tender my resigna- tion as clerk in your department. It is with reluctance that I am taking this step, 202 Light on Dark Places thereby severing my connection with the greatest work ever undertaken by men, and in whose serv- ice I intended to spend my future life, but the mistreatment received from the Department of Labor and Quarters since my arrival on the Isthmus, well known to you, and your refusal to retransfer me to the main office at Cristobal makes my determination irrevocable. I trust that you look at this matter in the right light, not as a personal affair, and that your de- cision in the case may be guided by fairness. Very respectfully yours. They let him go, for he was nothing but an earnest, honest citizen of the United States. In the July number of the "Ladies' Home Journal," in an article entitled "New Things to Eat," is a picture of a nut they call "leitchees." I wish I could get as good pictures of other tropical fruits to send you. This nut grows in Panama and the day I visited the gaging station and was so hungry I picked some up and ate them. It tastes almost exactly like a raisin, but sickishly sweet, and after I had eaten three or four I could not eat any more. I can easily eat two dozen raisins. I do not like any tropical fruits beside those usually sold north. Some peo- ple like mangoes. These look like very large, coarse plums and taste like a horrible combina- tion of a pumpkin and a plum. The pit is three inches long and is covered with a thick fiber which extends into the fruit. I have dried a pit to send to you and you would never guess what it is, covered with this dried fiber, The alii* at Panama 203 gator pear is a large pear-shaped fruit, the skin of which somewhat resembles a quince. The meat is nothing like that of a pear. It is more of a vegetable than a fruit, and many people eat it as a salad with pepper, salt, vinegar and oil. I ate them twice to try and discover why some people like them so much, but failed to. One lady told me she and a friend acquired such a taste for them in the tropics that when in New York they paid 40 cents for one and divided it between them. Then there are rose apples. The first two bites taste like tea rose petals, the next two sickish to swallow. This apple is pinkish green and about an inch in diameter. The in- side resembles that of the little seed ball in a rose. Cachu apples are much the shape of large peppers, but are bright red and yellow, the skin having the appearance of that of our apples. They are finished on one end with a hard green substance the shape of a lima bean, with the ex- ception that it widens at the end which is fastened to the apple. I ate one to tell you how it tasted and it was the most astringent dose I ever swal- lowed. I learned afterward the natives regard them as a heaven-sent remedy for dysentery, which is often epidemic when the rainy season begins. I arranged several of these fruits that you have never seen and had them photographed for you, but the negative spoiled. Have you read my friend "The Country Con- tributer's" effusion in the November "Home Journal," thus?: "A woman wrote me the other day asking me if I thought that getting through with a 'big 204 Light on Dark Places day,' such as I described on this page in a former issue, should be held up as a clever thing to do. It had never occurred to me that there was any question of cleverness about it. It was merely the history of a day's work and play in the life of a young woman who was only beginning to learn what life requires of her. "Women are always on the lookout for clever achievements by members of their sex. They demand of their sisters that they do something remarkable, something to be 'held up' as clever. The truth is, women are not very clever. Sweet bunglers they are when they try at art or aspire to business. My object in writing of common little daily experiences and mistakes is to create among us the feeling to bring if I may, to a few at least who understand, a realization that daily life is very much alike for us all, and that the glamor which hangs about the 'clever' woman is all a fancy — she lives and moves and has her be- ing exactly as the rest of us do ; she has her vex- ations, her limitations, her weaknesses of heart and flesh just as we, who never think of be- ing 'clever/ do." If she knew what she is writing about she would know that women who are battling with the world have no time to spend trying to be "clever." It is all we can do to manage to keep our heads above water. "Sweet bunglers they are when they try at art or aspire to business." If she had ever been in a stenographer's shoes when she made a mistake in some man's work she would realize he considered her a "bungler," but would have no intimation that he considered her at Panama 205 "sweet." When we are so lacking in brains that we are habitual "bunglers" it is apt to be because our fathers were. I wish that the majority, in- stead of the minority, of women who keep board- ers would be "clever" enough to learn how to cook well and have something fit to eat for the "Sweet bunglers" when they crawl home at night. If more of the women whose duties are in the home would spend the care on their work that is demanded of those in business there would be less medicine taken for indigestion. I wonder if she thinks the woman who painted "Scotland Forever" was a "bungler," or Rosa Bonheur or Hetty Green? If you have never seen a copy of that magnificent piece of perspective "Scotland Forever" make it your business to do so. I had no mice before I left, but now they are worse than the roaches. The man who was quar- tered in my room when I was on my vacation kept sugar cane lying around, the janitor says. Every time a boat comes in I go up to the com- missary to see if any mousetraps have come. Always the same answer, "No mousetraps on this steamer," yet the Zone is alive with mice — good management at the commissary. A friend of mine finally found one for me in a Chinese shop, which catches the mice alive. The married lady in the next room told me that she stopped the janitor just as he was going to cut a mouse's head off with the scissors and made him drown it. U. S., the bulldog, has killed nearly every cat in Cristobal and several distracted people who are trying to keep cats to exterminate the mice sent word that if he did not stop killing their 2o6 Light on Dark Places cats they would kill him. So U. S. has been sitting mournfully at one end of a rope for sev- eral days. They are selling oranges shipped from New York at the commissary for 75 cents gold per dozen ; 50 cents would be a good price for them. The Isthmian Canal Commission formerly al- lowed the native merchants to accept coupons in payment for their goods, but just before I came to Panama this was stopped. These coupon books are issued by the commission to employes and payment for them kept back from their sal- aries. It was a great convenience to the em- ployes to be able to use these books at the most convenient shop, and it gave the native merchants a great deal of trade they are now obliged to re- fuse because there are so many people here who cannot be trusted. The wholesale nouses in the States can sell as well to the Isthmian merchants as to the purchasing agents of the commissary and would not be liable to a demand for a rake off from a grafter. I have been told that it in- creased the business of the commissary 75 per cent, after the merchants were not allowed to accept coupons. Therefore the expense to the United States Government for the transporta- tion of necessary goods to the Isthmus must be vastly increased. If the commissary is run solely for the bene- fit of employes why should they be hounded into buying there? Merry Christmas. This is a little previous, but I mean well. Yours, etc. P. S. — Please send me a sure death mousetrap. at Panama 207 Cristobal, January 15, 1907. A terrific storm began December 23 which was so violent that incoming ships could not come to the dock and those that were docked had to move out to prevent being banged to pieces. They lay tossing at Porto Bello (Beautiful Port) un- til the following Friday. The Christmas mail could not be delivered and members of several families who had come down to spend Christmas with the others were unable to land until after Christmas. One of the many brides who have come down here to be married was cruelly parted from her waiting groom, who paced the shore and watched the vessel that contained the beloved one tossing on the waves. The road along the water front was a series of enormous mud pud- dles, loaded with dead trees, rocks, reefs of coral, etc., washed ashore by the violent storm. It was all cleaned off once and the next day it was as impassable as before. I enclose photo taken be- tween showers. You can see the wind is blow- ing the palm trees, but this gives only a sugges- tion of its force and the spray caused by the vio- lent agitation of the surf. Notice the barrels, sticks, stones, etc., and the enormous puddle of water. Before the storm that was a smooth road without a stick, stone, plank, or barrel in sight. Many thanks for your presents. I also had some nice books and a beautiful Chinese fan given to me. The good people at Cristobal cele- brated Christmas by giving an entertainment in the evening in the dining room of the Cristobal 208 Light on Dark Places Hotel and the Sunday school children received their presents. The dolls were all Japanese. One of the gentlemen belonging to our liter- ary club has started a private mess and I am now taking my lunches there instead of the Astor House. This reduces the expense of my daily rations from $1.35 to about $1.15 a day, as the distance is short enough for me to brave the noon sun and walk back and forth. What a convenience it would be if the meals served at the Cristobal Hotel were wholesome enough so that it would be safe to eat them. I hear there was a little improvement last month. They had a white cook who wandered down from the States, but he left the 1st of January. He told a lady I knew well that he found the kettles covered with verdigris and horribly dirty. He had them cleaned and threw away a lot of bad meat, for which the manager censured him em- phatically and told him he should have spiced it and put vinegar on it and served it. That when the amount of money legally allowed was spent letters came from Culebra expressing great dis- pleasure, but great praise when less was spent, etc., etc. No wonder we constantly hear of peo- ple eating at the Cristobal Hotel having ptomain poisoning. I am informed that the Manager of Labor Quarters and Subsistence will not allow any cook paid more than $17.50 a month and not enough are allowed even at that price. Assistant Chief Engineer John G. Sullivan left the Isthmus December 5th. He quarreled with Mr. Stevens' special favorite, the General Man- ager of the Panama Railroad. It is said Mr. at Panama ,209 Stevens and Mr. Sullivan are each trying to get to Washington first to tell his story. The flood washed away the railroad tracks and delayed their reaching Colon, where they finally arrived at the same time and went off on the same steamer. I have read the article in the "Harper's" you sent describing the president's visit to the Isth- mus. It is as absurd as many other pieces written about the Isthmus and the laborers. The Ja- maican negroes talk like the white subjects of King Edward in Jamaica, which you may know without being told, is nothing at all after the manner of the negroes of the United States. The "sobbing black giant" had he been a Jamaican would have said, "Oh, sir, I just dropped a ten- pound sledge hammer on my toe. Do you think I am going to die, sir?" I listened to the con- versation of the Jamaican negroes with surprise until I became accustomed to it. I have spent considerable time talking to my washwomen and other negroes and have found they speak better English than many of the white people who come down here. I passed an old Jamaican woman selling oranges yesterday and said, "I want some oranges, but am going to lunch and do not want to carry them. Will you be here when I get back?" She replied, "I will be here, dearie, when you return." Had she been an American negress she would doubtless have said, "Yes, honey, I sho will." I asked the nine-year-old boy of my laundress, when he brought my clothes, if his little brother was sick, because he did not 2io" Light on Dark Places come with him, and he replied, "He is quite well, thank you." The remarks about the meals are easily under- stood. They would not have dared to set the food before the president that they give the em- ployes. This sentence, "The breakfast came on briskly" is greatly appreciated by those who eat at the government messes. When the president was at Cristobal they were in a panic at the Cristobal Hotel, hurrying off the filthy table cloths and napkins and replacing them with clean ones, fearing he might come bounding in. When I ate at the Cristobal Hotel the table cloths were often so dirty I could hardly bring myself to sit at the table. The writer speaks with such scorn of the negro laborer who said that he did not take the rotten yams back to the commissary to be exchanged. If he had stood from one to two hours after a day's work among solidly packed rows of per- spiring, smelling negroes waiting to buy some- thing for his supper, I think he would hardly go back to have it changed. I have thrown away rotten eggs more than once rather than go thru the ordeal of having them exchanged; and I was always treated with consideration by the negro clerks and waited on long before my turn. This was not fair, but I always accepted the favor. I am not as good as Mr. Reed, the executive secretary. One of the clerks in the postomce, knowing who he was, attempted to wait on him before it was his turn, but he stepped back and said, "This man was here before me." Ever since at Panama 211 I have been on the Isthmus I have heard similar stories of him. The article states that when they galloped about Colon "There was a cheering absence of the typical Spanish-American smell." They cer- tainly were exceptionally fortunate if this was the case, but I think the gentleman must be severely afflicted with what a little girl I once knew called "cat are." This is good, too. Speaking in praise of the lady school teachers, "Every man there felt proud to think that he was of one blood with these devoted young women who dare and do so much in the line of duty. All without ostenta- tion or hope of reward." I was not aware that the school teachers receive no salaries. I know they do, and I wish every "proud man" there, and those who are not there, would see to it that women whose work is in the stenographic line have a chance to work on the Isthmus as well as school teachers. Neither would they spend any time in ostentation. I enclose a clipping from the Colon "Inde- pendent" : Bigelow Homestead, Maiden-on-Hudson, New York, December 21, 1906. Dear Sir : Will you kindly allow me thru your columns to inform the many correspondents whose letters I am unable to answer personally that I am not connected with any newspaper, magazine or any salaried office whatever — that I am simply a plain 212 Light on Dark Places tax-paying American farmer, whose enemies are mainly amongst those who like their truth in small quantities. With my best wishes for the success of "In- dependent!" journalism on the Isthmus. POULTNEY BlGELOW. To Professor Bynoe, Colon. To our great regret the Astor House changed hands January 1st and has been taken by a man from New Orleans. This means just what we feared — no fresh fish, no fresh vegetables, poor food and just as high a price. I had a severe bilious attack and went to the hospital for a few days. They now have a white women's ward at Colon Hospital. Heretofore they have had accommodations only for colored women and white and black men, but thru some one's mag- nanimous action they have condescended to take care of white women when they are ill. I ex- pect it was either Matthew Vassar or Henry Bergh. When looking for board down here go to the best hotels kept by natives, for they take the trouble to provide fresh food and hire good cooks. I and some others are fortunate enough to be allowed to board at the Somerset Cafe at Colon after the change at the Astor. The pro- prietor is the man who ran the Washington Hotel for so many years. When his contract with the Panama Railroad Company expired the Isthmian Canal Commission took charge and placed it under the superintendent of Labor Quarters and Subsistence. For a short time the food at the Washington was fairly good, then Facing page 213 at Panama 213 the manager was removed and the same sort of food served as at the Cristobal Hotel. The many changes prophesied as a result of the president's visit are too numerous to men- tion. The one which nearly everybody hoped for, the removal of Mr. Jackson Smith, was not made; quite the contrary. This man, whose gross mismanagement of the government eating houses has made misery almost incalculable has been advanced by President Roosevelt; he has been made a member of the Isthmian Canal Com- mission and retains what he had. I enclose an interesting photograph of the M. & S. office force at Cristobal. These are as excellent likenesses as such pictures usually are, especially when people are facing the sun, how- ever it is quite interesting to me, so do not let anything happen to it. Thru Judge Rerdell's efforts they have reduced the price of kerosene at the commissary from $1.18 to $1.00 per can. He found that he could buy it in Panama from the merchants and have it shipped to Cristobal at less cost than buying it in the commissary at Cristobal. They have canned butter for sale at the com- missary which is covered with statements that it is the best butter made. I have bought it twice and found it spoiled. I think this is due entirely to the fact that when taken out of the cold stor- age on the ships instead of being put in cold storage here it is piled on the shelves in the hot commissary. It costs 42 cents per pound. When they get good stuff they do not take proper care of it. 214 Light on Dark Places You asked in your last letter how the office work is conducted if so many incompetent peo- ple are employed. These are copies of a few letters I have written and they are fair samples of the entire correspondence which is dictated to me. COPY. Mr. E. D. Hammond, Storekeeper, Empire. Sir: Reference requisition ELC 51, item 1, two generators, engine, priced at $4,000 each. You are advised that the correct price of these should read $2,000 and the total should read $4,000 instead of $8,000. These were incorrectly priced to you on trans- fer invoice No. 11 54 and you will please change your records to correspond. Very respectfully. Copy to Electrical Engineer, Empire. I write countless letters similar to the follow- ing: "Your attention is again invited to circular let- ter sent from this office directing you not to combine French and new stock on the same requisition." I do not know how many letters I have sent concerning the negligence of that order, also the order to give plate numbers on steam shovel parts. Every letter written correcting mistakes is at Panama 215 sent to the man addressed and copies to one, two or three other men; which means that each one must have his records changed. Consider the expense it is to the government to have such a large proportion of its office force continually making such inexcusable mistakes. It surely means tens of thousands of dollars a year. COPY. Mr. E. D. Hammond, Storekeeper, Empire. Sir : Referring to requisition A. C. 147 dated De- cember 5th, item 5. Unit price quoted by you, $1.92, is an error. The correct unit price is $ .192 and the correct total should be $ .yy. Please correct your rec- ords to agree. Very respectfully. Copy to Copy to COPY. Cristobal, January 11, 1907. Mr Sir: Your attention is again invited to the instruc- tions issued from this office concerning the issu- ing of property as transferred to you. As this manner of issuing items under differ- ent names is very confusing and causes a great deal of unnecessary correspondence, both for 216 Light on Dark Places this office and the different storehouses, etc., etc., etc. COPY. Cristobal, January 8, 1907. File JJJ — 7272. Mr. L. C. Vannah, Storekeeper, La Boca. Sir : Referring to the numerous mistakes in com- putation on requisitions filled by your store- house, you are directed jto see to it that more care is used in the preparation of same in order that these mistakes be reduced to a minimum. Reference requisition 537; you will note a number of mistakes which are well nigh inex- cusable. For instance, items 6 and 7. The unit price reads .093, but you have carried out the total .10. Only in cases where the total result is y 2 of a cent or over should the next greater number be used. Reference item 12, you make the mistake of y 2 a cent the other way, as 3x4^ equals .13^ and the total should have read 14 cents instead of 13 cents as quoted by you. (See also item 20.) You will please to instruct those in charge of this work that they must be more accurate in the future. Acknowledge receipt. Respectfully, Chief, Division M. and S. at Panama 217 COPY. Cristobal, January 23, 1907. File JJJ — 7404. Mr. E. D. Hammond, Storekeeper, Empire. Sir: Referring to requisition E 786, dated Decem- ber 17th, item 37, you are advised that the unit price should read .027 instead of .036 and the total should read .11 instead of .14. Item 40; unit price should read .044 instead of .04 and the total should read $1.06 instead of .96. Item 60; unit price should read .087 each in- stead of .95 per dozen and the total should read $1.04 instead of .95. Item 61 ; unit price should read $6.30 instead of $2.94 and the total should read $6.30. Item 72; unit price should read $2.33 instead of $5.95 and the total should read $2.33. Item 96; unit price should read .49 instead of .17 and the total should read $1.57 instead of .51. Reference requisition E 799, item 54; unit price should read .068 instead of .048 and the total should read .10 instead of .07. Item 77; unit price should read .028 and the total should read .34 instead of .24. COPY. Cristobal, January 11, 1907. File JJJ— 7326. Mr. E. D. Hammond, Storekeeper, Empire. jir * Reference requisition E 802^ ; your attention 218 Light on Dark Places is invited to the following errors in extensions Item 3, total should read .31 it 4, a a a •51 tt 6, tt it a .67 it 8, a tt tt .07 it 18, tt tt it .67 ti 3h tt tt it 1.65 ti 38, tt it tt 1 .41 It 42, tt tt a 2.04 ft 55, tt tt tt .24 tt 66, tt tt tt I.I6 ft 7o, tt tt ti .17 ft 74, tt tt it •57 tt 92, n tt tt 1.29 tt 93, n tt tt I 91 tt 97, tt tt it 1.29 it 100, tt tt a i-35 tt 117, tt tt a .88 it 145, tt it a •25 tt 149, tt it tt •54 tt 206, » tt a .24 tt 207, a tt it .82 tt 210, tt a it .76 tt 218, tt a tt .24 tt 219, tt tt tt •79 tt 220, it tt tt .64 tt 223, tt ti tt 1.28 tt 224, tt tt tt .27 if 228, tt it tt .27 ti 230, tt a ft 1.28 tt 231, tt tt tt 2.01 ti 233, tt ti it .24 ti 234, it tt tt 1.22 it 241, tt ft tt I.46 at Panama 219 Item 256, total should read .85 " 258, " " " 1.28 " 261, " " " .24 " 264, " " " 9.21 You will note that most of these errors are of but one cent, the fraction of a cent less than half being carried to the next greater number. You will please see to it that the parties mak- ing up these requisitions use more care in their preparation and that they are checked before forwarding to this office. Respectfully, Chief, Division M. and S. Copy to Master Mechanic, Empire. Copy to Supt. Motive Power and Machinery. These are fair samples of letters I constantly write and are nothing in comparison to those others tell me they have in their collections. One man has a letter in which the writer asserts there are 400 gallons in a barrel. Twice this month big bunches of requisitions amounting to thou- sands of dollars' worth of goods have been found tucked away in out-of-the-way corners that have not been invoiced. You can imagine how dis- couraging it is for those who are trying to do their best to have to work with so many who do not understand how to do their work, and some who take no pride in their work. It is madden- ing for conscientious men who have several un- der them for whose work they are responsible. I have not read the president's message regard- 220 Light on Dark Places ing his visit to Panama, but every one is com- menting about this remark : "Moreover, I was given to understand that one real cause of the complaint was that at the gov- ernment hotels no liquor is served and some of the drinking men refused to go to them." The president was misinformed when given this contemptible excuse for the food served at the government hotels. This term "hotel" in connection with the eat- ing houses of workers on the Isthmus should be dropped. The overwhelming majority of work- ing people on the Isthmus are those whose sal- aries enable them to live at boarding houses, not hotels. Neither do they want to pay $2J a month for table board, even tho they receive board worth $27. I never paid more than $5.50 a week for table board even in New York City. Table board for $4, $4.50, $5 or $5.50 in the sev- eral cities of the United States where I have been is infinitely better than that in the govern- ment hotels on the Isthmus for $27. When I was at the hospital a doctor came to my room one day and tho I objected, the vampire took a drop of blood from one of my ears, and I am informed that the specimen was "Negative of malaria," which means I have no malaria. They test every patient's blood in the same way. Our office is located upstairs in one of the De- Lesseps houses, for some inscrutable reason mis- called "palaces." These were originally large comfortable wooden houses with piazzas running all around the house, upstairs and down, which at Panama 221 is the only proper way to build houses in hot countries. To enlarge the office space they re- cently enclosed the piazzas and at certain hours in the day the sun pours in on us, grilling us, I am sure, enough to satisfy even the gentleman with the pitchfork. They wrote to Washington for blinds for the windows and an inquiry came back as to what kind of blinds were wanted. This information was forwarded. Then another inquiry came as to what color was wanted. I think by the time the blinds arrive there will be nothing but grease spots at several of the desks. Cristobal, C. Z., March 1, 1906. You must not expect me to write oftener than once a month, but I will write you a long letter each time, full of news. How do you think the Hindoo belief of the origin of woman compares with the Adam and Eve story? I enclose it for your delectation. "The Hindoo Belief of the Origin of Woman." A very terrible creature indeed is a woman and one of strange elements. In the beginning, when the Creator came to the creation of woman he found that he had exhausted all his materials in the making of man and that no solid elements were left. In this dilemma, after profound medi- tation, he did as follows: He took the rotundity of the moon, and the curves of creepers, and the clinging of tendrils, and the trembling of grass, and the bloom of flowers, and the lightness of leaves, and the taper- ing of the elephant's trunk, and the glances of / 222 Light on Dark Places the deer, and the clustering of rows of bees, and the joyous gaiety of sunbeams, and the weeping of clouds, and the fickleness of winds, and the timidity of the hare, and the vanity of the pea- cock, and the softness of the parrot's bosom, and the hardness of adamant, and the sweetness of honey, and the cruelty of the tiger, and the warm glow of fire, and the coldness of snow, and the chattering of jays, and the cooing of the cuckoo, and the hypocrisy of the crane, and the fidelity of the drake, and compounding all these together he made woman and gave her to man. But after one week man came back to him and said, "Lord, this creature that you have given me makes my life miserable. She chatters incessantly, and teases me beyond endurance, never leaving me alone, and she requires incessant attention and takes up all my time, and cries about nothing, and is always idle, and so I have come to give her back again as I cannot live with her." So the Lord said, "Very well," and he took her back. Then, after another week man came again to him and said, "Lord, I find that my life is very lonely since I gave you back that creature. I remember how she used to dance and sing to me and look at me out of the corner of her eye, and play with me and cling to me, and her laughter was music and she was beautiful to look at and soft to touch, so give her back to me." The Lord said, "Very well," and gave her back again. Then after only three days, man came back to him and said, "Lord, I know not how it is, but after all I have come to the conclusion that she at Panama 223 is more of a trouble than a pleasure to me, so please take her back again." But the Lord said, "Be off, I will have no more of this, you must manage how you can." But the man said, "I can- not live with her." The Lord said, "Neither could you live without her." The man said, "What is to be done? I cannot live either with her or without her?" This letter will consist mostly of enclosures which is a convenient way to write to you. If you want a good description of the wild part of this tropical country read the piece in "Recreation Magazine" entitled "Jungle Hunting in Panama," by the Superintendent of Colon Hospital. I re- member Florence specially asked me about the tropical forests some time ago. Note the clippings from the Isthmian papers about the horses : HELP OUR ANIMALS. Now that we have a good supply of water laid on in our streets may we not consider for the wants of the poor animals who toil hard dur- ing the day and so erect drinking troughs at cer- tain spots where they can be led to slake their thirst? The higher order of animals need no leading nor direction to the places provided for them to satisfy their cravings, so go, as we may say, instinctively; therefore those who have a touch of human nature about them should for the benefit of the dumb beasts of burden take the matter in hand and make provision for them. This appeared in the Colon "Starlett" Febru- ary 8, 1907. 224 Light on Dark Places Panama, February 2, 1907. Editor Star and Herald: While I was promenading up Central Avenue yesterday at the close of the day's work I noticed near Santa Ana Park a "cabby" whipping his steed mercilessly without getting it to make a move. Any one could see at a glance that the horse had been "run to death." The driver would not listen to remonstrances, but let his whip fall on him again, and suddenly the horse fell across the sidewalk and broke one of the shafts. It was cab No. 81, and the black driver after getting the horse on his feet had to lead him off, leaving the hack on the street. There is a wide field for a humane society here. Observer. From the "Star and Herald," Panama. I heard that they had opened a grill at the Cristobal Hotel and went there one noon to see if the food was eatable, with the view of always lunching there. To my disappointment I learned that it was only after 7 o'clock in the evening that special orders were served, so I ordered the regular lunch and this is what it consisted of: Watery soup, a chunk of sour liver, half cooked, poor quality of canned vegetables, a piece of leather called pie and slop coffee. I paid for it and left it uneaten. I send you a bill of fare from the grill at the Washington Hotel. Do you see anything in the prices asked that would indicate that this restau- rant is not run for profit? at Panama 225 WASHINGTON HOTEL RESTAURANT. SPECIAL FOR TO-DAY. MENU. February 10, 1907. SOUP. Consomme, .15. Clam Chowder, .15. Clams Stewed, .25. Shrimp Stew, Oyster Stew, .25. FISH. Boiled Salt Mackerel, .25. Salmon Salad, .35. Buttered Shrimp on Toast, .50. Grilled Sardine, .30. Lobster Mayonnaise, .35. ENTREES. Braised Beef, Pepper Sauce, .25. Chipped Beef in Cream, .25. EXTRAS. Roast Turkey, .50. Roast Chicken, .45. Fricasseed, .40. Half Broiled Spring Chicken, .75. Cold Boiled, .35. CHOPS. Pork, Veal, Mutton, .30. Veal Cutlet Breaded, Tomato Sauce, .40. STEAKS. Tenderloin, .45. Porterhouse, 1.25. Sirloin, .75. Mushrooms, .15. Celery, .15. Olives, .20. VEGETABLES. Asparagus Tips, .20. 226 Light on Dark Places Peas, Corn, String Beans, .10. Butter Beets, Stewed Tomatoes, Creamed Potatoes, ,10 Mixed Pickles or Pickled Onions, .10. Succotash, .10. CHEESE. Neufchatel, .15. Camembert, .15. Peaches in Cream, .15. Preserved Fruit, .10. Stewed Prunes and Cake, .10. Oranges, .10. Apples, .10. Fruit Salad, 40. Grape Nuts, 10. Force, .10 Iced Tea or Coffee, .10. Hot Tea, Coffee or Cocoa, .10. By the pot, .15. TO-DAY'S SPECIALS. American Milk, .50. Dozen Oysters Raw, .40. Fried, .50. Oyster Cocktail, .25. Before Governor Magoon left the Isthmus he said, when asked by so many to allow women to come here and fill clerical positions, that he would consider it when the Hotel Tivoli was fin- ished. The Hotel Tivoli was built supposedly for quarters for the employes, but now that it is completed it is understood it is for tourists and any one who can pay the price, which has been placed at such a figure as "to exclude the resi- dence there of the poorer clerks." The follow- ing letter was written to me in answer to my in- quiry for rates: at Panama ' 227 COPY. HOTEL TIVOLI, UNDER THE MANAGEMENT OF THE DEPARTMENT OF LABOR, QUARTERS AND SUBSISTENCE. Ancon, Canal Zone, February 19, 1907. Miss Mary A. Chatfield, Care Division of Material and Supplies, Cristobal, C. Z. Dear Miss Chatfield: Your letter of February 18, 1907, requesting rates at the Tivoli Hotel. The permanent I. C. C. rates at this hotel from the first of March will be $50 and up per month. The transient rates are $3.75, $4-75, $5-75 and $6.75 per day. From these rates we give to I. C. C. transients a reduction of 33 1-3 per cent. The account, however, to obtain this reduction must be paid in hotel meal coupons. To get the permanent I. C. C. rates it would be necessary to make application for quarters thru the head of your department. Very respectfully, J. B. Brown, 'Assistant Manager, I also enclose a luncheon bill which I took away with me the day I boarded there and a picture of the hotel : 228 Light on Dark Places COPY. HOTEL TIVOLI LUNCHEON. Radishes. Chicken Soup. Baked Filet Halibut. Imperial Boston Baked Beans. Roulette de Beouf. Boiled Cabbage. Potatoes Hollandaise. Cold Beef and Ham. DESSERT. Apple Pie. Assorted Cakes. Cheese. Edam. American. Demi Tasse. How does this luncheon bill compare with that of hotels in the States charging the same rates? The butter was strong enough to walk. The rooms and furniture, for the Isthmus, were fair, but only what you would find in a good boarding house in the States. For some inscrutable reason the architect, or the builder, or somebody, failed to put transoms over any of the doors and I nearly stifled the night I spent there. You can have no conception of the dif- ference it makes in the torrid zone not to have means provided for the air to circulate. You might have the whole of one side of a room open and unless there was an opening on the oppo- site side it is stifling. But I was not aware that transoms were omitted from the doors of build- ings nowadays, even in the temperate zone. It is reported that Mr. Shonts has resigned from the chairmanship of the I. C. C, also that at Panama , 229 John F. Stevens has resigned. All sorts of rea- sons are given, and many do not believe it. What do you think of the following? COPY. Empire, C. Z., February 21, 1907. In reply refer to File B-491. Mr. W. G. Tubby, Chief, Division M. and S., Cristobal. Dear Sir: Referring to a conversation had in your office on the 19th instant, regarding corrections on in- voices after they have been taken up by the de- partment. This matter has been given further consideration in connection with the Mechanical Department. It appears that the Mechanical Division is not anxious to make small corrections, nor does it seem to me that it is necessary for us to do so. I have looked over a good many of the cor- rections that have been made and find that most of them are small and insignificant. The Superintendent of Motor Power and Ma- chinery is trying to keep his accounts correctly and when you make a correction advising him thereof he goes back to his records and makes a similar correction. This requires a great deal of work without very much benefit. There seems to be no reason why those small errors should be taken into consideration at all, at least those er- rors that are not deducted until after-the requisi- tions have been taken into account by the division officers. Is there any reason why we should not estab- 236 Light on Dark Places lish a minimum of $2? No correction on an in- voice to be made unless the net corrections on same exceed $2, all corrections exceeding that amount to be listed on a statement at the close of the month, so as to show the invoice reference, the amount of correction and the account to be effected. The Superintendent of Motor Power and Machinery will be entirely satisfied with such a correction sheet and it will save him a good deal of work and our accounts would be practically as correct as they are now, and I be- lieve it would be the most satisfactory way all round. If such a plan would disturb the money values on your stock cards, where particular items are affected, resulting in some cases in a credit with- out any material and in others a debit without any material, an adjustment could very easily be made at the end of a month or a period, and I think it could be done much more easily than to spend so much time in handling corrections. I think it would be safe to assume that the corrections exceeding $2 are very rare. I notice in preparing some statistics relating to corrections that out of 100 errors in prices your storekeeper at Gorgona was responsible for 14 — the one at Paraiso for 7, and the one at Em- pire for 79. It would appear that there must be a great deal of carelessness at Empire for such a state of affairs to exist. When the price book on which you are now engaged is ready for business there should be very few errors in prices and the corrections at Panama 231 problem will almost work itself out without any further action. Will you kindly advise me if you can see any objection to the above plan, which I have out- lined involving a minimum correction of $2. Yours truly, H. L. Stuntz, Local Auditor. Are you reading Jack London's story, "Before Adam"? One of the nurses told me that she believes, with the author, that we are descended from monkey-like beings, and when we dream of falling thru space she thinks the memory of our subconscious selves is taking us back to ante-Adamite times when we were monkeys fall- ing thru trees. She may be right, but I disagreed with her. I do not believe we fell thru the trees when we were monkeys, if ever we were mon- keys, for we would have cast our prehensile tails around the nearest limb and swung happily and carelessly in the breezes and not fell at all. I think this is the best valentine I ever saw. It was printed in the February "Scrap Book." Per- haps you have seen it. I would send it to some man only the conceited creature might think I was in love with him: "A VALENTINE. I wish I wuz a pint er stout, an' you the only mug here that didn't leak, an' all about was nary pail nor jug. here. I wish I wuz the figger one, an' you the hour hand rusty, of my old clock that never'll run, just stickin' there so trusty ! I wish I wuz in that 'ere jar, the last cent's wuth er 232 Light on Dark Places taffy, an' you the only boy there ar' ez hungry's a giraff-e ! I wish I wuz a lump er coal, an' you the shinin' fender; within them claspin' arms my soul 'ud glow out warm and tender! I wish I wuz a thoughtless mouse, an' you the only Thomas that ever corned intu the house, you'd hev me then, I prommus." The water pipes in Cristobal are all leaking because they were not laid properly. They say that every job the Municipal Engineering De- partment has done has to be done over. The former resident engineer here was discharged a few months ago, but it took two years for those above him to find out that his work was not done right. The Chinese w r ere celebrating their new year February 13th and thereabouts. It lasted three days or more. There was a continuous popping of firecrackers with the usual effect on horses and folks that do not like that kind of a racket. On the 17th of February a German tourist boat, said to be the largest steamer ever in this harbor, anchored off Colon. It certainly was a large vessel. Its passengers went by special train to Panama and back. I was glad to see it come and have the passengers go over the Isthmus and I hope there will be many such tours to the Isthmus at any and all times, for I think nothing annoys grafters and dishonest officials more than to have the "Public Eye" turned on their work. I enclose Circular No. 113, dated February 20th, issued by the chief engineer: at Panama 233 Culebra, February 20, 1907. Circular No. 113. The following rules and regulations covering the granting of leave of absence and sick leave adopted by the commission at its meeting held on February 13, 1907, will become effective April I, 1907 : An employe whose salary is fixed on an annual or monthly basis will receive no pay for over- time work. Such employe may be granted, in the discretion of the head of the department in which employed, with the approval of the chairman or the chief engineer in the absence of the chair- man from the Isthmus, or of a representative designated by either of them, leave of absence for each twelve months' service as follows : Six weeks' leave of absence with pay, if said leave is to be taken in the United States, or thirty days' leave with pay, if leave is to be taken out- side of the United States. This leave is not to be accumulative for more than one year, and may be granted any time after ten months' service. No portion of same to be allowed, however, until the completion of the required ten months' service. If such leave be granted, an employe will be furnished the government rate on the steamers of the Panama Railroad and Steamship Com- pany, operating between the United States and Colon. This grant of leave of absence is not a vested right, but is made to promote the welfare and interests of the service, and compensation for the period of leave will not be payable until 234 Light on Dark Places the first pay period after the employe returns to the Isthmus and resumes his duties. If an employe after ten months' service shall have been declared by a medical examining board of the Department of Health to be physically unfit for further service upon the Isthmus or after ten months' service he shall have been dis- charged on account of reduction of force, he may, at the discretion of the head of the depart- ment in which employed, with the approval of the chairman, or the chief engineer in the absence of the chairman from the Isthmus, or of a repre- sentative designated by either of them, be granted six weeks' leave of absence with pay, and may be paid in the United States for this period of leave without returning to the Isthmus. Employes not reporting for duty within ten days after expiration of leave will forfeit right to pay for leave period. An employe whose compensation while on duty carries with it subsistence will not be entitled to subsistence or commutation in lieu thereof while on leave of absence. An employe whose compensation while on duty carries with it quarters will not be entitled to quarters or commutation in lieu thereof while on leave of absence. All employes on the gold rolls shall be entitled to sick leave with pay, as follows : Upon the certification of an authorized physi- cian in the service of the Department of Health of the Isthmian Canal Commission in the Canal Zone, that the employe has been unable to work on account of illness or injury, payment for not at Panama 235 to exceed fifteen days for each period of six months' continuous service may, by direction of the head of the department in which employed, with the approval of the chairman or the chief engineer in the absence of the chairman from the Isthmus, or of a representative designated by either of them, be made, such payment to be shown on the first pay roll after the expiration of the six months' period of continuous service for which sick leave is granted ; and then only when the time rolls of the commission show that the employe has worked 96 per cent, of the legal working days or hours, or those declared to be legal by the commission, during the period, less the time the employe is absent from duty on ac- count of sickness, which must be properly cer- tified to, or thru orders, other than disciplinary ones, of an authorized officer of the commission. The amount of compensation to be paid any employe to whom sick leave is granted, under the conditions as herein mentioned, will be cal- culated at the rate at which such employe is car- ried on the rolls of the commission at the time of said illness, and in the case of an employe working on an hourly basis such calculation shall be based upon a day of the legal working hours. No leave on account of illness, as above de- scribed, shall be accumulative. An employe may be granted, in the discretion of the head of the department in which employed, with the approval of the chairman or the chief engineer in the absence of the chairman from the Isthmus, or of a representative designated by either of them, such sick leave on account of in- 236 Light on Dark Places jury incurred in the performance of duty, not exceeding thirty days in any current year, as may be necessary while such employe is inca- pacitated from duty by reason of such injury. The amount of compensation to be paid an em- ploye to whom sick leave on account of injury is granted, under these conditions, will be calcu- lated at the rate at which such employe is car- ried on the rolls of the commission at the time of his injury; and in the case of an employe ap- pointed with rate of pay per hour, such calcula- tion shall be based upon an eight-hour day. Such sick leave on account of injury, as herein men- tioned, may be granted to an employe in addi- tion to the sick leave above provided. Such sick leave on account of injury shall not be accumu- lative, and payment for same will be made on the first pay roll following its authorization. Signed Jno. F. Stevens, Chief Engineer. This circular has caused no end of ill feeling and dissatisfaction. The withholding of one's pay for six months when absent from work on account of sickness practically robs one of their pay. Six months is a long time ahead on the Isthmus. One might get so full of malaria in the meantime that the best thing to do for one's self and the government would be to leave the Isthmus. It is extremely unjust to deprive a person of their salary when ill, especially in this trying climate, as there is a limit to the sick leave. The making of rules which make posi- tions here less desirable than those in first-class at Panama 237 business houses, of course, has the effect which is plainly desired, the keeping away from the Isthmus of first-class workers and the driving away of those who have come to a climate where they expected that more privileges would be given to employes rather than fewer. Of course, inexperienced people and dissipated people and all those that a business man would not want are the ones who are content to remain here any length of time, because of the policy pur- sued, to the great detriment of the work. Of course, the favored ones drawing fancy salaries will not feel the hardship of unjust rules. Neither do I believe that favorites lose a day's pay when absent from the office. It is easy enough to find some "official business" for them to attend to, and when absent on official busi- ness pay is not deducted. Up to the time this circular was issued em- ployes were taken under a contract that after eight months' service on the Isthmus they would be granted six weeks' leave of absence with pay, and if they desired to remain twenty-one con- secutive months in service they would be granted twelve weeks' leave of absence with pay, spend- ing such vacation where they chose. What busi- ness is it of the Isthmian Canal Commission if employes desire to spend their vacation in Europe rather than in the United States? Many people preferred to let their leave of absence accumu- late and take their vacation every two years. Men with families, on account of the expense of traveling with so many, and many single people prefer it, because it is a very usual thing to be 238 Light on Dark Places sick a month when going to a healthy climate after leaving the Isthmus, and people do not like to feel that they have got to spend all of their vacation in bed. By issuing this circular the government breaks the contract it has made with those employed under the agreement above, and it has been the cause of much dissatisfaction and discontentment. In fact, it has been the instiga- tion of labor trouble among a certain class. Im- mediately after it was issued the railroad con- ductors held a meeting condemning such action and at once set about formulating a new schedule, requesting an advance in salaries and more favor- able sick leave and vacation privileges. I hear the steam shovel men say that if their vacations are not allowed to accumulate they will stop work. I expect to leave here very shortly and stop at Costa Rica on my way back to the States. Port Limon, Costa Rica, April 24, 1907. I had this letter written before I left Colon in short hand, but did not have time to typewrite my notes. You are mistaken in thinking I was so un- fairly treated only because I am a woman. Men, without backing, are as unjustly treated after they arrive. Of course, their passage is paid and they are started on $125 a month, which are not small matters to be considered. I had one advantage due to the kindness of the men directly over me, viz., when calling out men for night At Panama 239 Work they have never ordered me out, and I think if I had been a man they would have. Following is the experience of a young man who came down here. One morning I saw a new stenographer at a desk next to mine and I won- dered what sort of a person he might be. The third day I went over and spoke to him and glanced over some letters he had written and saw that he was Ai, which surprised me. He said, "Will you tell me what in the world you are doing down here?" I said, "Will you tell me what in the world you are doing down here? You are the sort that ought to be here, but there are not many like you." He said, "I worked in the De- partment of Justice two years in Washington, then I had a difference of opinion with the man over me, so asked for a transfer to the Isthmus." "Well," I said, "What do you think you are in now ?" He said, "My God, I don't know. I can- not eat the food at the Cristobal Hotel. I have to go to the Washington Grill and that makes it very expensive." I advised him that it was much cheaper to pay $30 a month and board at the Astor. He said he did not care to go to a place where they were drinking and swearing as they did in so many of the hotels. I told him that those who wished could eat in the ladies' dining room, where no one was allowed who did not behave. He had an ambitious streak one day and, wishing to get an extra lot of work out, stayed nearly all lunch hour to do it. Dur- ing the afternoon he nearly fainted. It is very unwise to skip a meal and work when it is the proper time to rest down here. The longer he 240 Light on Dark Places stayed the more disgusted he became. Finally the man who dictated to him went on his vaca- tion and the entire work in that line, requests for articles to be manufactured on the Isthmus, was passed over to him. He had to dictate to himself, as it were. A few days afterward I said to the man who dictated to me, "I think Mr. Hale must be very lonesome for his dictator, don't you?" He said, "Yes, he is awfully lonesome. You go over and ask him if he does not feel lonesome for his dictator." I did so and he said, "It would not be proper for me to use language to you that would express how I feel about my dic- tator." I was told that it was the worst mixed-up desk in the office and he was trying to straighten it out. He resigned in disgust the next morning, as a boat was going that afternoon to New Or- leans, and asked for a clearance and this is what was sent out to him : "Cristobal, March 4, 1907. This is to certify that Mr. Robert Hale has been in the service four months and four days and is leaving on four hours' notice. Mr. Hale's services were satisfactory. W. G. Tubby, Chief of the Division Material and Supplies'* He turned as white as he did the day he went without his lunch and showed us the letter. Then he went to the private office to protest. This is the gist of the conversation: He said to our chief, "Since I have been here I have worked hard for you every day, I have often been called at Panama 241 out nights and Sundays and I do good work and I am entitled to a better letter than this." The chief alluded to his resigning on such short notice and Mr. Hale explained that he had been given two men's work to do and that the other man had left his work in such confusion that it was almost impossible to straighten it out. "But," he said, "if you will pay me what it is worth I will withdraw my resignation." Then the chief informed him that he had accepted his resignation. He cannot present even that recom- mendation because he took a big blue pencil and wrote "Lemon" all over it. Now this is a man whose work would make him valuable to any business man. I know from many things he had said to me during the time he had been in the office that he resigned because he was disgusted and not to try to get a raise in salary, but when he got that recommendation it made him so mad he went in to remonstrate. They next put another $125 man at that desk. I watched him with interest. He would go prowling among the papers, trying to straighten things out, then sit and look blank for a while, then fly at the typewriter and work like a beaver, then do more digging. After a few days he gave up and said he could not do it. Then they put a $175 man on that work and when I left he was digging for all he was worth. Mr. Hale was just as good a man and he would have remained for $150 a month. Another clerk who had been a milk man in the States was given a position in the office here and worked until his vacation was due. When they 242 Light on Dark Places tried to take up his work it was in such confusion no one could make head nor tail of it. I heard that they had to send for an experienced book- keeper to straighten things out. Then they wrote the man and discharged him. You remember the letter on the magazine cover stating that the president wished everybody to report things that they knew were going wrong on the Isthmus and he would see that no one was injured by so doing. One man tried it. He saved bills from the commissary showing the excessive prices charged. Then he wrote to the same business houses in the States that had sup- plied the goods to the commissary and asked them what they would charge him for the same goods delivered at Colon. They replied, giving lower prices than he had paid at the commissary. He took the bills and the merchants' letters and sent them to Washington. From Washington they were sent to Chief Engineer Stevens. Mr. Stevens handed them to Jackson Smith and Jack- son Smith discharged the man, who was em- ployed in one of his offices. "Well," I said, "if any American would take such a treatment as that and not put it in every paper in the United States we have sunk lower than I thought we had." "He is not an American," said my in- formant, "he is a 'bally lime juicer, don't you know.'" (That means an Englishman.) I said, "Jackson Smith would not have dared discharge an American like that." "Yes, he would," was the reply. J have heard that the steam shovel men re- at Panama , 243 quested Mr. Stevens to discharge Jackson Smith and he told them that he could not do it. The prices on the bill I sent you from the Washington Grill have been raised! Half of a broiled chicken now costs 90 cents instead of 75 cents. I have often gotten half of a broiled chicken in New York City for 60 cents, other cities from 30 to 50 cents, much nicer than any- thing ever served at the Washington Grill. Some of the things served at the grill are as good as you would get at a restaurant run for profit, but most are not, and the prices are all as high and higher. On March 12th I sent the following letter: COPY. Cristobal, March 12, 1907. Mr. W. G. Tubby, Chief, Division Material and Supplies, Cristobal, C. Z. Sir: I tender my resignation as a stenographer in the Division of Material and Supplies, to become effective April 9th, and request transportation to the city of New Orleans, United States. Very respectfully, Mary A. Chatfield. Mr. Hale's leaving made them a stenographer short and another stenographer's vacation is soon due, but I gave them ample notice. I expected to sail on the 9th in a boat of the United Fruit Com- pany and stop over at Costa Rica, but finding that this line would not allow me to stop over 244 Light on Dark Places at Costa Rica because there is yellow fever in Port Limon, I deferred my departure to take a steamer sailing later on another line, because I was resolved to see Costa Rica. I was permitted to change the date of my resignation. On March 19th, at a smoker given in honor of the visiting congressmen, one of the steam shovel men delivered a speech in a jocular vein which was a clever roast on Jackson Smith. I do not remember all I was told, but part was : "They tell us we can bring our wives down here, but when we get here they tell us we must wait six months before applications for married quarters will be considered." That question of married quarters is a burning one. People should receive their quarters in turn, but many married people have been eating, sleep- ing and cooking for months in one room, while others who have been here hardly any time are provided with nice quarters. March 27, 1907. I was rash enough to go down to the Washing- ton Grill for lunch. I paid 50 cents for one leg and second joint of a tough, bitter-tasting fowl that was listed on the bill of fare "Roast Chick- en," 10 cents for a cup of bad coffee, 20 cents for a small dish of canned mushrooms, cab fare each way 10 cents. One dollar for a very poor lunch. Hurrah for the United States! I will soon be there and Jackson Smith does not run the restau-. rants. r at Panama _ 24S Good Friday, March 29, 1907. I had to walk to and from Colon to-day in the hot sun, but I was glad of it. Good Friday is the only day in the year in the Spanish- American countries they let the cab horses rest. There was not a cab out and Mrs. Snow says that it is the custom in other Spanish-American countries. I am sure the Saviour is glad he died for this rea- son if for no other — these poor, miserable beasts are spared one day's torture every year. Tho I promised you pictures of my room long ago this is the first opportunity I have had to have them taken. I send them in this letter. You say you have read that there are fine en- gineers on the planet Mars and advise that one be sent for to dig the canal. Your suggestion is good. Send the engineer. Mr. Stevens has not left the Isthmus yet. Dame Rumor thinks she has found out all about it and says that he ob- jected to the Oliver Company having the contract to dig the canal and wrote President Roosevelt "the most dictatorial letter ever written to a president of the United States," threatening to resign if he did not have his way. The president, after consulting with his advisors, sent a cable to this effect: Letter received and resignation accepted. The work is to be put in charge of army engi- neers. I hope the management of the whole Isthmus will be raised above its present low level by this change, and I believe the army engineers are men more like Colonel Gorgas. I told a young man here that some of my friends want me to write up my experience on 246 Light on Dark Places the Isthmus and said, "If I could write in the style of Lord Macaulay I would do so." He said, "What is the style of Lord Macaulay?" And I read him the following: THE CROWNING OF PETRARCH. Nothing can be conceived more affecting or noble than that ceremony. The superb palaces and porticos by which had rolled the ivory chari- ots of Marius and Caesar had long moldered into dust. The laureled fasces, the golden eagles, the shouting legions, the captives and the pictured cities were indeed wanting to his victorious pro- cession. The scepter had passed away from Rome. But she still retained the mightier in- fluence of an intellectual empire and was now to confer the prouder reward of an intellectual triumph. To the man who had extended the dominion of her ancient language — who had erected the trophies of philosophy and imagina- tion in the haunts of ignorance and ferocity, whose captives were the hearts of admiring na- tions enchained by the influence of his song— whose spoils were the treasures of ancient genius rescued from obscurity and decay — the Eternal City offered the just and glorious tribute of her gratitude. Amid the ruined monuments of ancient and the infant erections of modern art, he who had restored the broken link between the two ages of human civilization was crowned with the wreath which he had deserved from the mod- erns who owed to him their refinement, from the ancients who owed to him their fame. at Panama 247 Never was a coronation so august witnessed by Westminster or Rheims. T. B. Mac aula y. When I finished he said, "If you are going to write like Lord Macaulay you will have to learn English." I told him to go home. A lady who thinks as I do about Burbank's combinations sent me this clipping : "IN A LUTHER BURBANK GARDEN. White are the coreless apple buds, As your hand in mine I clasp, And we wander through the eyeless spuds And the raspberries, sans rasp. You plucked a blackberry, dazzling white, As we chanted a tuneless rune, And I took a luscious, soulful bite, Of a pitless, skinless prune. The cactus plant ne'er cackles now, As its teeth have all been drawn, And calm there falls upon your brow The light of a sunless dawn. In this dear place I would live for aye, Discussing the whyless how, And speeding the minuteless hours by, From the path of the pathless now." When I was boarding in California I walked thru the kitchen one day and seeing some tempt- ing berries on the table, took a couple. They 248 Light on Dark Places were so sour I snatched them out of my mouth and thru them as far as I could. Then I went in to my landlady and said, "I stole some of your berries and I wish I had not. I never tasted anything so sour in my life." She said, "Those are Burbank's Logan berries. He took a black- berry and a red raspberry and made" I in- terrupted her with, "a monstrosity." She laughed and said that they were awfully sour and she seldom bought them, but her son thought he would like a Logan berry pie, and that she would have to put two pounds of sugar in one small pie and then it would not be sweet. They say the combination flowers which he has juggled together wilt in no time, and I am sure they are not any prettier, if as pretty, as the others. You may not be as interested in my posses- sions as I am, but every object in my room is a treasure to me; even the rough shelves have a story in connection with them. My room is so small and narrow I wanted some shelves very much to get my things out of my way. Mr. Tubby's secretary went to Labor and Quarters office and asked if he might have the M. & S. carpenter put up some. Nothing can be done without permission. They said they would have to ask the Department of Building Construction. The Superintendent of the De- partment of Building Construction said he would not allow the Material and Supplies carpenter to do it, but would have his carpenter do it as soon as he had finished putting up one shelf in a room upstair and for me to be ready for the man to begin work at 7 o'clock the next morning. I at Panama 249 was all ready, but he did not come, and the next morning he did not come. Then I asked the car- penter why he had not come to my room the morning before. He said he had had further orders to take out the windows upstairs and put in wire screens and I would have to wait several days longer. I then went to the Superintendent of Building Construction and reminded him that he had promised to have the shelves put up in my room two days before. He replied, "There aint no money in calling a man downstairs be- fore he is finished upstairs." I said, "I have been waiting three months for those shelves and if your carpenter cannot put them up now will you allow Mr. Wellman to have the M. & S. car- penter put them up?" He said, "Mr. Wellman aint got no business interfering with my busi- ness" and turned his back. I left. Then he sent for Mr. Wellman and told him to not let his car- penter put up the shelves. I suppose he was afraid I would persuade him to do so. This is probably red tape. After a while the shelves were put up and you see what a comfort they are to me. The candlestick on the second shelf I bought in San Francisco. The tea canister near it at a Chinese store in Panama. The prayer book and hymnal traveled with me from Connec- ticut. The big shell is a lovely pink in the in- side which does not show in the picture. A na- tive boy brought a basket of them to my room one day and asked me to buy this for a dollar, Panamanian. I asked him to change a five-dollar United States bill and he said, "If I had five dollars gold I would not be carrying this basket 250 Light on Dark Places of shells around" in a way that indicated five dollars was an enormous sum to him. So I thought I would surprise him and gave him a dollar gold for the shell. I think he expected me to beat him down on the price instead of giving him more. I never had an alarm clock before I came here and I never will be without one again, for it gives me such a safe feeling to know that the alarm will go off when it is time to get up. Beyond the clock you see the glass containing my paint brushes and pencils, then my dictionary, my bible, my Spanish books and a few books of poetry. Two cups and saucers on the next shelf I bought at Chinese shops and one at the commissary. The cut-glass rose bowl came with me from Connecticut to San Francisco and down the Pacific Coast to Panama. The pile of books in the corner on the lower shelf are back numbers of the "Philistine." 'Way back in May, 1902, Elbert Hubbard wrote an even more eloquent appeal for the poor children working in the factories in the South than Edwin Markham's recent articles on this subject. Read that piece at your next meeting. Also "Beauty as Collateral," in the April number of the "Philistine," signed Alice Hubbard. I never read anything better about women and sel- dom anything as good. You see my kitchen on the first table. The second holds" my work box and several other boxes, and when I want to do a little pressing I unroll that paper and cloth and use the little flat iron on the corner shelf in the other picture. When I buy soda crackers here it is much more at Panama 251 expensive matter than it is to go to a grocery in the States and get a 5-cent box of Uneeda bis- cuits. They sell nothing less in the commissary than a whole big tin box, for which I must pay 60 cents gold, and I always have to give away half of them or they spoil. That big black spot on the door is my traveling cap, and if I had had any idea how funny it would look in the photo- graph I would have taken it down. That is my ice box in the corner. The drawers of the nice- looking bureau which should be such a con- venience are empty because the mice and roaches insist on living in them to such an extent that I cannot keep my clothes in them. You see my favorite Madonna on the wall and the corner the roaches have eaten off: I pasted the Madon- na on that pasteboard with photograph paste one evening, also several other pictures on other pasteboards and the next morning found that the roaches had nibbled corners off of every one. The dove on the Easter number of the "Home Journal" shows very nicely, but my photograph in the opposite corner is very faint. What do you think of my den? When we have our liter- ary meeting at my room we are quite crowded. April 1, 1907. Mount Hope Storehouse was over half burned to the ground this noon. Accounts of the value of the property destroyed vary, but it is generally considered to be something more than $150,000. This fire started about fifteen minutes after the force had left for lunch. Secretary Taft was going to inspect the storehouse immediately after 252 Light on Dark Places the noon hour, but when he arrived there was comparatively little to see. This is a very unfor- tunate occurrence. I have a paper weight as a souvenir. It is composed of Tobin bronze and naval brass melted together in the fire. I took a walk around the island one evening with a gentleman and passed some of my ac- quaintances without seeing them and the follow- ing document was their revenge : COPY. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ISTHMIAN CANAL COMMISSION, CANAL ZONE, ISTHMUS OF PANAMA. CIRCULAR 69. Beginning with April 1st all stenographers in the employ of the Bookkeeping Division of the Division of Material and Supplies will be re- quired to be in their rooms between 9:30 P. M. and 6 130 A. M. The provost guard will inspect quarters be- tween 9:30 P. M. and 11 P. M and occupants re- ported not in quarters will be detailed to Mount Hope. All persons found outside of their quarters after 11 P. M. will be detained until morning and required to appear before Judge J. M. Law- ton. W. G. Tubby, Chief, Division M. and S. Note : Mr. Benson will bring this to the atten- tion of his stenographers. I found this on my desk the next morning. i at Panama 353 The signature of the chief of the division is very cleverly imitated. The following is the property of one of the clerks, who passes it around when so disposed, to have another opinion added : COPY. RETURN TO C. R. B. M. & S. Clerks. What is your idea of a lemon? 1. A life sentence on the Isthmus. F. H. P. 2. A position with the "Great Northern" at $48 per. C. E. F. 3. A day's board at one of the L. & Q. "Bean- eries." C. R. B. 4. $75 in commissary books. C. W. K. 4. One night in Colon Calaboose. A. W. R. 6. Three weeks' vacation after spending two years in H. 7. Wanting to leave the Isthmus and can't. M. 8. I. C. C. circular No. 113. V. C D. 9. P. R. R. train service. Gil. 10. Boarding at the "Paris," Panama. G D. F. 11. Three flights up and no bath. L. E. W. 12. Not getting position to v/hich you were appointed. E. 13. To have the son of a certain soul saver calling on one's lady. W. CB. 14. A never-ending job (not position) of shuffling papers in the M. & S. office. J. C. K. 15. The putty medal (bluff) tendered by his nibs "Teddy." H. L. 16. 20 per cent, increase for the canal em- ployes. J. W. C. 254 Light on Dark Places 17. The grading of M. & S. clerks. O. W. H. 18. "Nigger" cops on the Canal Zone. HC. 19. "Working Saturday afternoons." B. J. 20. When you have been touched, drugged, down and out and unable to quench your thirst or hunger or a night's experience at Palace Navajo. P. W. 21. No. 5 expresses it beautifully. W. R. H. 22. To get in line P. D. Q. and resign. S. 23. View of Colon from bow of steamer. E. W. W. 24. A job in the lumber division. G. A. C. 25. Having it rubbed in by a nigger when your hands are tied. L. E. B. 26. J. Smith's smile. Anon. 27. The "Big ditch." V. L. C. 28. I was told of the lemon grove on the Isthmus. I doubted. I came. I have seen. My idea is that it is (to quote the ad. writer of the "Road of a 1,000 Wonders") "Just as the man said." M. C. I will explain the second No. 4, which, I sup- pose, should have been numbered five, "One night in Colon calaboose." Three of the clerks pass- ing thru Colon one evening became very inter- ested in the case of a prisoner in the Panamanian police station. They stood just outside the door and listened and were ordered to pass on. They went out into the middle of the road and watched and a policeman came out and told them to either pass on or come inside. They went inside and were promptly arrested and put into cells and stayed there until the alcalde came down the next morning and ordered them released. When they at Panama 255 appeared late at the office with their tale of woe one of the other clerks said that was a joke, but it was on them. "The putty medal bluff." When the president was here he said every one who worked on the Isthmus should have a medal, and, I think, a pension. It doesn't matter. We will never get it. April 4, 1907. To-day they passed another petition to every employe in the room requesting them to donate 50 cents to buy a present for the chief engineer. The first one was a request to sign their names under a verse to this effect : We request you to withdraw your resignation and promise to serve you with greater loyalty than before. There were a few lines more of that sort of rubbish. A few of the men and myself were brave enough to decline to sign it. I was aston- ished to see men signing it who had expressed themselves as furious over Circular No. 113. This eloquent appeal was circulated before the circumstances, as afterwards published, were known. I thought it was our chief clerk's pri- vate affair and said I would like to oblige him, but would not ask a man to withdraw his resigna- tion who allowed such rascality in the commis- sary, but was told it was not our chief clerk; that they were running petitions thru lots of the offices asking every employe to sign. We heard later that they were sent up to the newspapers in the States. Days afterwards the 50-cent petition 256 Light on Dark Places was hanging on the bulletin board with a request that those who had not paid up would do so. April 6, 1907. I wrote a note to our chief to-day asking for letter of recommendation if my work had been satisfactory while in his service and received the following : UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ISTHMIAN CANAL COMMISSION, CANAL ZONE, ISTHMUS OF PANAMA. Cristobal, April 6, 1907. F-7467. To Whom Concerned : This is to certify that MissM. A. Chatfieldhas been employed in the Division of Material and Supplies, Isthmian Canal Commission, Canal Zone, as stenographer from December 1, 1905, to April 9, 1907, and is now leaving her present po- sition of her own accord to return to the United States. Miss Chatfield is a thoroughly competent ste- nographer and while in our employ has per- formed any and all duties assigned to her in a very satisfactory manner. W. G. Tubby, Chief, Division of Material and Supplies. Yet he would not pay me a stenographer's sal- ary. Responding to your request to know what we are studying at our literary meetings, I en- close a copy of my report of our last meeting, at Panama 257 which I wrote to our absent president, inter- spersed with explanatory remarks for your in- formation. I can imagine your amazement at the frivolity thereof as compared with your meetings. Make allowances for the climate, etc., please. Cristobal, 1907. Dear President : The White-Faced Monkey Literary Society met last night at Chatfield H 'all (Hole in the Wall) and deplored your continued absence. (I am the only member who calls it by this name.) We followed our invariable custom and com- bined literature with festivity. The readings were mostly Longfellow's poems. Our idea was to celebrate the anniversary of Longfellow's death, tho we were rather late about it. Mrs. Emmett read "Beware" with great elo- quence and expression. Her delivery was much admired. This was followed by the reading of one of the new books of epigrams by Mr. Warner. One, "A plain face and no figure have been many a woman's passport to heaven," so impressed Mrs. Emmett that she stopped stirring the pudding sauce and laughed immoderately. (I bought a can of Libby's plum pudding for part of the lunch.) Mr. Benton and Mr. Archer were also invited. Mr. Benton is suffering from an ulcerated tooth and declined to present himself with one side of his face larger than the other. This was a great 258 Light on Dark Places disappointment. Mr. Archer has not been seen since drawing his last pay check and we presume he is in a brown study somewhere endeavoring to decide whether the International Banking Com- pany is a safe place to invest it. I was also dis- appointed in not being able to have floral decora- tions in the shape of Mr. Plant from Gatun, but unavoidable circumstances prevented this pleas- ure also. (There was a false alarm recently which caused a run on the International Banking Company.) The evening passed off happily with the ex- ception that Mr. B., who was our guest of honor, while endeavoring to avoid walking over Mr. Warner, struck his funny bone on the edge of the bureau. He set his teeth and looked unutter- able things in two languages. I suggested that he relieve his feelings by saying Caramba, but he said that would not begin to express them. I wanted to read the "Legend Beautiful," the theologian's second story in the "Tales of a Way- side Inn," but I could not borrow or buy Long- fellow's Poems on the Isthmus. One store had a small book which contained a few and we had to content ourselves with that. I remember the first opportunity I had to express my admiration of the "Legend Beautiful" in a practical manner after reading it. I met a little girl struggling up the steps of one of the elevated railroad sta- tions in New York with an enormous basket of clothes and tried to induce her to let me help her, but she firmly and persistently refused. I ex- pect the poor child thought I intended to run off with the basket. That is the only time similar at Panama 259 effort has met with a similar result so do not let this discourage you. I suggested that we read Whittier, as it was past Longfellow's anniversary, as I had read that, tho not so popular, he was the better poet, and too refined for ordinary people to appreciate — but everybody said simultaneously, "Then it's Long- fellow for us." The piece in the April number of the "Ladies' Home Journal" entitled "A Day in a Tropical Forest" is an excellent description of tropical animals. That grinning beast sleeping on the rock is a very common sight down here. I have seen several carried thru the streets by the tail by colored men. They are said to be excellent eating. Saturday evening, April 6, a farewell reception was given to Mr. Stevens on the Cristobal pier. I enclose photograph of it. You would not think this was a bare old wooden pier, would you? The palm branches look so graceful on the posts and the flags take the bare look from the beams. The speech-mak- ing was opened by Mr. Bierd, General Manager of the Panama Railroad, Mr. Stevens' special protege, who said, "We are here for the sad task of bidding farewell, at least for a time, to the chief engineer." Some one shouted, "Louder!" but his voice got so low it could hardly be heard unless one was close to the platform. Mr. Stevens talked louder than Mr. Bierd, but could not be heard very far. I was nearer the platform by that time and heard him say he knew he had the respect of every American citizen. This was 26b Light on Dark Places the first time I had heard he had any great re- gard for the American citizen and again thought of the newspaper squib, "Now that the elections are over, the Sovereign People will again become the working classes." At one time during his speech I heard the word "woman," but could not make out what he was saying on that interesting subject. A gentleman I knew standing near me said, "He is upholding woman suffrage and said that women ought to vote." I said, "He is not. How could he be saying anything like that on an occasion like this?" But he insisted that he was ri^ht. Later another gentleman told me what he said was, "Next to the pleasure I felt when the woman I loved accepted me, is the pleasure of learning how much the people on the Isthmus think of me." He must have taken the signa- tures on those petitions seriously. A lady I know says he is daft on the subject. She stood so near him when he was making his farewell speech in Panama she heard all he said, part of which was, some people had circulated the story that he did not want women on the Isthmus, but he was glad to have them on the Isthmus, and proposed a health be drank to all women on the Isthmus. As I sat talking to a friend the chief clerk of the Division of Meteorology and River Hy- draulics came to me and said, "Good evening." I looking FREEZING, tho only nine degrees from the equator, but vouchsafed a frozen "Good evening." Presume had I been a good Christian I would have been gracious and continued the conversation. I wished I had not answered at at Panama 261 all ; then I wished I had said more, then I did not care either way. Next day, Sunday, I took a long-planned trip to the ruins of San Lorenzo. Having been up very late the night before, I felt too tired, but knew that if I did not go then I probably never would go. The Fort of San Lorenzo was cap- tured by one of the lieutenants of Morgan, the pirate, in the year 1669. You can get all the de- tails in the "Story of the Spanish Main," by Maysefield. They destroyed the fort at Porto Bello in the preceding year. I took the train at Cristobal at 9 o'clock for Gatun, that being the place to take the boat down the river. Just before the train reached Gatun it ran over a cow. This unpleasant incident was quite upsetting and the odor filled our nostrils for a long time. I could not think of anything else and would have been carried past Gatun had it not been for the delay caused by a broken coupling just as we stopped at the station. They never call the names of the stations on the Panama Railroad, consequently many people are carried past their destinations. I heard one man telling another that it was Gatun and rushed for the door. Mr. Plant, who had arranged to meet me at Gatun station, thought I had not come and was just receiving the joyful congratulations of his friends on hav- ing a date with a lady who had shaken him, when I appeared, trembling with the excitement of my narrow escape at not being carried past the sta- tion. We started up the Chagres in a native boat at 10 o'clock. These boats are hollowed out of the trunks of trees and you move about in them 262 Light on- Dark Places at your peril. You must not drag your hands in the water either unless you are willing that some hungry fish shall make a meal of them. The na- tives call them cayucas. It was very warm until the sun, fortunately, went behind a cloud. We passed huts on the banks of the river which looked just like those on post cards I have sent you. We saw parrots and other gaily colored birds flying about, but no monkeys were visible. The boatman said the woods are full of them, but they stay on the higher ground and do not come down to the river. We reached San Lor- enzo about 12 130 P. M., having been rowed about seven miles, then started to climb the hill to the fort. It was long and steep and the tropical sun was pouring down. I stopped a third of the way up and vowed I would not go a step farther. My escort told me to take hold of the belt of his coat and he would help me; as I still refused to move he got behind me and pushed. I expect he consigned me to almost any place, but did not say so. When he began to push me up the hill my thoughts immediately flew back to a steep hill in New York City near Columbia University, where one icy cold winter I used to watch the electric cars push heavy wagon loads of coal up the slip- pery tracks. It was paved with asphalt and horses could hardly pull up heavy loads when it was slippery. The fort is built chiefly of mas- onry, but there are some bricks around the arches which look in good condition even after so many centuries. Illustration 1 shows the place we walked thru. Illustration 2, one of the cham- bers we entered which contains some of the old at Panama 263 instruments of torture. These were, I under- stand, placed around the ankles and necks of prisoners. Spanish cruelty! The only picture I could get you of the top of the fort has a lot of picnickers around it, which gives it a festive appearance that is entirely lack- ing. We ate our lunch in this cupola, which is much larger than it appears to be in this picture. When we went down we went thru all the look- out towers and dungeons. I have not pictures of the towers at San Lorenzo, but those at Porto Bello are similar, and I send you pictures of them and two other views of Porto Bello. We saw. several piles of old cannon balls of different sizes. I had an opportunity to go to Porto Bello the following Sunday, but had had enough of trav- eling around in the tropical sun and more than enough of red bugs. These pests invariably get all over one when they go picnicking in the trop- ics and it takes liberal doses of alcohol, applied externally, to get rid of them. I also send you photo taken in an old Spanish cemetery at Porto Bello and a picture of some natives of Mindi, a village in the Zone. I am so glad that child has those bracelets. I enjoy her evident satisfaction in wearing them. I should have had a picture of another ceme- tery. A young man named Douglas felt that he would as soon die as not because a certain lady refused to appreciate that he was "tender and true," so he came to Panama to work. Hearing of the skeletons above ground in the old Spanish cemetery he went there with a photographer, ar- 264 Light on Dark Places ranged some skulls and bones around himself, had a photograph taken and sent it to the heart- less fair one. She wrote him not to do anything rash and to come and see her when he came home. He boarded where I did in Panama. A friend of his told me about these photos and was prom- ised me one, but the house where the gentleman roomed was burned to the ground and he lost his souvenirs and all his clothes, as did all the other inmates of the place. A petition was circulated thru the office to-day which stated that one of the force who had been in the hospital nine weeks is destitute and has a wife and child dependent upon him. Our chief clerk did this to help this man home. Contribu- tions varied from $1 to $5. The chief of our divi- sion gave $10. April 12, 1907. The following copy of Congressman Rainey's views on Isthmian affairs was pasted on the bulle- tin board in the office by some unknown mis- creant. It was removed during the noon hour, but I borrowed a paper that contained it and send you a copy. April 15, 1907. Representative H. T. Rainey, of Ohio, who ar- rived in New York on the 1st of this month, says the "New York Herald," said in an interview: "I went to the Isthmus on my own account," Mr. Rainey said, "spent eight days there, refused all courtesies that were extended by officials, went thro all the cuts by myself and took meals OS a O at Panama 265 with the white employes and with the common laborers. I found the commissary department in a bad way. More than one hundred personally com- plined to me of the food. There is no fault in the shipment of the food. It leaves the United States in cold storage and it reaches the Isthmus in splendid condition. The trouble arises when it reaches there. It is supposed to be trans- shipped into refrigerator cars. This is not done, and the leisurely way in which the frozen meat is transferred in the tropic heat quickly renders it unfit for consumption. I have proofs that not one refrigerator car has been on the docks in six months. LIKE 'EMBALMED' BEEF. As a consequence the meats are not good, dis- tinctly otherwise. Stewards told me that the mutton had to be treated with a solution of soda before cooking in order to remove the green mold. Then, too, I noticed that all meats were served with a strong garlic dressing and I was told that this was necessary to disguise the taste. I be- lieve that if an investigation is made a scandal would be brought to light that would equal that of the embalmed beef scandal of the Spanish- American war. I had understood that the ob- ject of the commissary department was to sup- ply food at a cost that would just cover expenses. But I found that the stewards were ordered to make a profit of at least $50 or $60 from each of the dining halls. There is no doubt that graft is rife. Take the 266 Light on Dark Places matter of shoes that are issued down here. Shoes and other supplies are bought here at wholesale prices and are shipped there practically at no cost by the government, for the government itself practically owns the vessels carrying the sup- plies. Yet shoes that can be bought here at re- tail for $3 a pair cost $8 a pair down there. And this is in face of the fact that one should be able to buy shoes down there as cheaply as in New York. NOT THE SAME LUNCH. Recently a congressional party of fifty-three visited the Isthmus, and while there were served with lunch in one of the dining halls and were told that it was the same lunch served from day to day to the employes at a cost of 30 cents v I can prove that lunch was ordered five days in advance and cost $1.65 a head. Again, recently some members of commercial clubs from St. Louis and other cities visited the Isthmus and were s&wed with luncheon in the Culebra dining hall. They were told that the lunch with the exception of the cigars and wines was the same as is served to the employes for 30 cents a head. Why, the oyster soup alone cost 30 cents a head. The day President Roosevelt visited the Isth- mus he was served with a ^o-cent' meal. I found out that it was generally understood that the president would eat at one of the dining halls, so all were ready for him, and had an unusually well served lunch." Mr. Rainey approved of the Sanitary Depart- ment and believes that the canal will be built at Panama 267 I am glad some one is man enough to talk straight beside Poultney Bigelow. Read the article on the Philippines in the last "Burr Mcintosh Magazine." Take special note of this paragraph: J "Should the time come, in a day, a week, a year, five years, when Japan may wish our pos- sessions there, she could take them and we could do practically nothing to prevent. Of course, our 'National Honor' would have to be protected. After the first great blow we would then set to work and after years of preparation and millions upon millions of dollars spent we would be able to regain our 'Lost Honor.' But that will only be when the dull, sleeping people of this sup- posedly alert 'Greatest Nation on Earth' finally awake and realize the position in which the dema- gogic obstructionists in Washington have placed us." Be sure and read at the next meeting the piece entitled "Our American Oligarchy. How the Remedy for the Ever-increasing Danger to Our Republican Institutions Through the Trust-con- trolled Senate Lies in the Hands of the People." This was written by Ernest Crosby and published in the last "Cosmopolitan." I tear out the page and send it to you. Our republican institutions are in danger. That is a moderate statement of fact, and to make light of it is to offer certain proof of a lack of insight into things as they are. We are rapidly drifting into the hands of that most odious of all forms of government, the oligarchy. The 268 Light on Dark Places self-interest of a real democracy tends to make it just. The centralization of power in a king is apt to produce a sense of responsibility, free from petty ambitions and rivalries, and this makes for impartiality and fairness. But there is nothing which can keep an oligarchy straight. It has all the faults of all other forms of government, and none of their virtues. It has the absolute power of a monarchy without any sense of responsibil- ity. It has all the rivalries and envies of democ- racy in aggravated form, and its self-interest, in- stead of neutralizing this defect by a broad ap- peal to equality, is, on the contrary, the sure creator of special privilege, inequality and mon- opoly. Venice was a conspicuous example of the bane- ful effect of a commercial oligarchy, such as we are building up at present. With all the advan- tages of her position on the highway between East and West, with all her wealth and enter- prise, with her mastery of the seas, she yet fell the victim of that internal corruption which in- heres in every oligarchy by the very nature of its constitution — the prey of insatiable, unscrupu- lous, unrestrained, self -conflicting greed. And it is an ominous fact that in Venice the seat of this disease was the Senate! There is a difference between the Venetian and the American Senate. The grand seigniors who ruled and ruined Venice sat in the Senate hall themselves and passed daily from the counting- room to the legislative chamber. We have spe- cialized things to a higher point than they ever did, and we are more economical of our time. at Panama 269 Our lords of finance for the most part send their stool-pigeons to the Senate. It would be an un- expected act of condescension for any one of the half-dozen biggest men of Wall Street to ac- cept a senatorial chair. They are not in that class. If by chance one or two of them have bought a legislature and a seat it is recognized as a foible or as a concession to the ladies of the family, affording a good excuse for passing the winter at a pleasant watering-place like Washing- ton. Nobody takes such a legislative career seri- ously, and the great man of dollars is rarely found in his place. It is the clerks and employes of the first rank that must attend to such vulgar business. And what is the chief business of our official Senate at Washington, controlled by the unoffi- cial oligarchy of Wall Street? It is to prevent any change in the present status of the business world, which, as experience has fully proved, is peculiarly adapted to the needs of financial graft — a system which produced the oligarchy and which the oligarchy naturally intends to perpetu- ate. The fountain of wealth which gushes out from the natural resources of our country in re- sponse to the labor of man ought to irrigate fairly the whole surface of the land, and its waters should circulate in abundance wherever men con- tribute their volume. Instead of this, we find it dammed up in certain places far beyond all rea- sonable requirements, and at other points there are stretches of unreserved desert from which every drop has been drawn. Some months ago I walked up Fifth Avenue 270 Light on Dark Places with a man who is prominent in finance and inno- cent of any subversive ideas. "Do you know who lives in that house?" he asked, indicating a handsome residence. "No," was my answer. "His name is Blank. Did you ever hear it be- fore?" "Never." "Well, he's worth forty millions." A few rods further on he repeated the same question with reference to another house, whose owner I had never heard of and who was the possessor of twenty-five millions. And still a third time he put a similar question and obtained the same answer. "I don't know what we're coming to !" he added. "Every week I'm hearing the names of these men, utterly un- known to me, who are worth twenty, thirty, forty and fifty millions !" And in corroboration of this I may say that I saw the death of a millionaire in one of our cities mentioned inci- dentally in the papers some time ago — a man whose name was altogether new to me — who was said to have left an estate of one hundred and eighty millions! Doesn't this look just a little bit like unhealthy congestion in a country, too, where the number of paupers and tramps is con- tinually increasing? We call in the surgeon when the circulation of a human being swells up in places like this. Is it a more wholesome symp- tom in the body politic? The immense accumulations of "watered stock" in our telegraph, telephone and express companies show how much more we have to pay for their services than they are worth, and if it were possible to ascertain the original cost of our railroads the same thing would appear with at Panama 271 reference to them. The railroads obtain one- tenth of their gross earnings from extortionate mail contracts with the government. Why ? Be- cause the Senate is there to prevent any inter- ference with the railway, express, telegraph and telephone monopolies. Our Senators could at a single session break up the steel trust by reducing the tariff, the ex- press trust by establishing a parcel post, the tele- graph and telephone trusts by adding these analogous services to the postoffice. They could thus go a great way towards diverting the flow of wealth from the pockets of the people into those of the monopolists. Why don't they do it? Because they are the servants, not of the people, but of the monopolies. Away with the oligarchy ! Let the people elect their Senators! As soon as I can get my stenographic notes transcribed I will send you more of my diary. I mail this in a postoffice opposite the most beautiful little park I have ever seen. I will de- scribe it and the rest of this country in my next letter. Cristobal, April 19, 1907. Both the German and French steamers sailed to-day. I would have gone on one of them, but I had a headache yesterday and could not pack my trunks. I am going on the "Zephyr," which sails to-morrow, as far as Boca del Toro (Mouth of the Bull), so called because the shape of the harbor resembles the head of a bull — if you get the right view of it. Mrs. Snow says that the accommodations are so poor, the boat being so 272 Light on Dark Places small, it is "absolute madness" for me to travel on it, but I prefer to rather than wait ten days for the next German steamer. Saturday, April 20, 1907. The "Zephyr" is terrible ! I have the one state- room on the miserable little craft, given up to me by an employe of the United Fruit Company. The passengers, with three exceptions, are all negroes, or part negro. A dear little friend of mine came down to the boat with her father to see me off and brought pretty farewell presents. San Jose de Costa Rica, April, 1907. I was very seasick for the first time in my life — on the sea — because the boat was so very small, I suppose. Everybody else aboard was seasick, too, and you can imagine how unpleasant it was. My stateroom was a little hole in one side of one end of the boat, in which I could not sit up straight. I wish I had waited for the next Ger- man steamer as advised by Mrs. Snow T and the German Consul. We arrived at Boca del Toro the next morning. I had a letter of introduction to a merchant there given to me by a mutual friend in Colon. After leaving the boat I asked every person I passed on the dock where the gentleman lived to whom my letter was ad- dressed, but no one seemed to understand and those who answered spoke Spanish. Finally one man led me to the porch of a large mercantile building and pointed upstairs. I ascended and found myself on a wide veranda extending over the water. Being hungry and exhausted from at Panama 1273 the wretched night I had passed I was extremely; anxious to present my letter of introduction, es- pecially as not a person in the town seemed to understand English. I hoped he possessed a hos- pitable wife, but he had carelessly neglected to have such a person there to welcome me. There were several rooms opening on the veranda and the doors to all but one were open. I knocked loudly on every one in turn, but received no reply. Then I looked in every door and every room was vacant. Sinking deeper and deeper into the depths of despair, I went back down the veranda and knocked again on every door. On my third trip down the veranda I decided to walk into the second room, hoping to find somebody in some room beyond — and I did. In the adjoining room I surprised, and I supposed scared, a half- dressed man washing himself. I retreated in haste, and as soon as I was out of sight said, "Please excuse me, but can you tell me where I can find Mr. Strauss, I have a letter of introduc- tion to him?" "He has been dead a year," re- sponded the voice within. I almost wept. "What shall I do?" I said, "I cannot speak Spanish and I have got to stop in this town two days. I thought perhaps he was the deceased Mr. S. and would not own it because of the way I surprised him. Then I looked at my letter and saw that it was not addressed to Mr. Strauss, but to "Mr. Walker. Successor to Mr. Strauss." I stated this fact and thankfully heard this response, "I am Mr. Walker and I will be out in a few minutes." He soon escorted me to the French Hotel, where he boards, and where I was able to secure a room 274 Light on Dark Places and meals — very poor meals, but not a bad room. As soon as I had washed and rested I started out to view the town. After filthy Colon and Pan- ama I was very much surprised to find a pretty, clean little town in this Spanish-American coun- try, but it is not laid out in the Spanish style — narrow streets, etc. It is very small, the houses wooden and the streets unpaved. The United Fruit Company has large buildings here and it is one of the ports from which they ship bananas. There is a little wooden church on one street with the doors and pillars at the entrance painted in an exact imitation of red and white Castile soap. I stepped in to view the interior and found a row of ants busily drinking the holy water. There is nothing eatable or drinkable ants in the tropics are not after unless it is in sealed bottles or jars. During my walk I passed a fruit stand, and there, in their own country, a native woman refused to sell me a very small pineapple for 5 cents gold. I left it and later in the day mentioned the fact to a U. S. sanitary officer stationed at Boca. He said that was nothing unusual, an American was lucky to buy one for 10 cents gold, and he would get me a pineapple. I asked him to go to that fruit stand because it looked cleaner than the others. When he returned he said he went there first, but this independent woman refused to sell him anything because a few days before he had forbidden her to throw dirty water in the street. The United States Government has placed sani- tary inspectors at Boca del Toro to prevent the spread of disease there and so keep disease com- ing: to the Isthmus from there. I left Boca Mon- at Panama 275 day night at 9 o'clock on the "Heliogoland." I thought in traveling on the "Zephyr" I had reached the last limit of human endurance, but it was palatial as compared with the "Heliogo- land," which is about the size of a big bath room. I was going to exaggerate a little and say bath tub, but remember I promised you to always give exact facts. In this tub, called a gasoline launch, and there was a strong smell of gasoline, were packed nearly as closely as sardines several pas- sengers with their baggage, a quantity of freight and a Scotch collie, all bound for Port Limon. We were due there at 4 o'clock the next morning, but as the engine broke down repeatedly we did not arrive until over six hours later. As the inspecting physician had gone to breakfast we were obliged to remain in the boat until 12 o'clock, at which time he returned. You can imagine our fatigue and misery, but not realize it as you did not experience it. The courtesy to one another and the good behavior of every one on the boat, suffering as we were from the ex- treme discomfort of such a long trip in such wretched accommodations, was remarkable. We had to sit up all night, had nothing to eat, and did not have room to even sit comfortably, we were packed in so closely. There were only three white passengers besides myself — the man who owned the collie and two other men. A little col- ored boy had taken off his stockings in the night and his mother told him to put them on before . he landed. The poor little fellow was so sea- sick he could hardly do it and the distressed way in which he rubbed his stomach during the proc- 276 Light on Dark Places ess of putting on the stockings was both pitiable and comical. Baggage is weighed and duty collected on everything, old and new, at Costa Rica. All that escapes duty is what you are wearing — or have concealed about your person. On new goods the duties are higher than on old. The colored woman at my right side put on a pair of new white kid slippers and put her old shoes in her bundle. Another colored woman took off her old shoes and put on a pair of new Chinese bed- room slippers. She stuffed her bust with small packages until her dress waist refused to stretch farther. These preparations had to be made in the presence of the crowd as there was no cabin of any sort. Had I not been utterly exhausted I should have shrieked with laughter. How they passed the custom house officers I do not know, for as soon as I landed I made a bee line for the nearest hotel and left my trunks to be thrown overboard; if anybody was so inclined. I was too sick to care. I tried to get accommodations at the United Fruit Company Hotel, but there was no room. This company's hotels are built for the accommodation of its employes, but if they happen to have vacancies they accommodate travelers. They seldom have them. The treated me very courteously and sent an office boy to direct me to the best boarding house in town, which is a most uncomfortable place. The bed in my room was made of bunches of hardness. I had heard favorable accounts of the food served in Costa Rica and expected something nice, but nothing was very nice but the fish. The coffee at Panama 2JJ was more bitter than the tonic I take for indiges- tion. I walked around Limon to see all I could. It was evident at once that it was laid out by an American or an Englishman as the streets are wide; in fact, it looks very nice. The plaza, or public park, contains the most beautiful collec- tion of variegated foliage plants I ever saw. There are also tea roses and other flowers we have in the temperate zone. I walked pass ole- anders half as tall again as myself. I wish it had been possible to have gotten a picture of this plaza which would give you some idea of its beauty. It was the fragrance of the tea roses which first made me conscious that they were there. I smelled them before I saw them. In the evening there was a delightful nutty odor, something like an English walnut, from some plant. I wish I knew its name. The streets were very clean, but the only vis- ible members of the street cleaning depart- ment were turkey buzzards. These homely birds are as independent and saucy as all pro- tected monopolists. It is nearly $12 gold fine to injure or kill one. Tho they are so highly valued I do not think entire credit for the cleanliness of the streets can be their due. I had to pay $1.75 gold for two meals and lodging at the boarding house. Wednesday, April 24, 1907. I took the 10:30 train next morning for San Jose. I left my big trunk in the custom house, locked, and took my steamer trunk with me. I had to pay duty on my steamer trunk. Also ex- 2j8 ; Light on Dark Places tra baggage on the railroad, 75 cents Costa Rican money. Every one spoke Spanish, which was, of course, very inconvenient for me. The United States Consul was very kind. He went to the depot with me when I bought my ticket and put me safely on the train. One of the officials of the Fruit Company, happening to be at the sta- tion, introduced me to the doctor in charge of the Fruit Company's Hospital and asked him to tell the driver of the cab I took at San Jose to take me to the boarding house to which I had been di- rected by a friend at Colon. I was very for- tunate to be introduced to this doctor, as he speaks English fluently, having lived and been educated in the United States. As the train passed thru the mountains he described all the points of interest. Tho I traveled in a first-class carriage almost all the passengers were negroes. The women were very dressy, wearing consid- erable jewelry, silks, embroideries, etc. One sat near me with a rose pink waist and scarlet sash. The railroad follows the seashore for about eight miles. It is a narrow gage road and the cars are so narrow they reminded me of toys. On one side of the narrow aisle two people may be seated, but only one on the other. Of course, there are many palm and banana trees. I should judge each banana stalk is about a yard long and covered with clusters of bananas, which are termed "hands." The stalks are classed as firsts and seconds, according to the number of hands. The bananas I saw growing were all green and each stalk hung from the tree and terminated in a large reddish purple flower at Panama 279 at the end of a long stem. These flowers were conical in shape when I saw them, being closed and wilting. There were plum trees bearing long narrow green plums (I think unripe) with fine beautiful leaves. This plum is called the jocote. There were also rose bushes with our pink roses, and sugar cane. One railroad station is named Madre De Dios (Mother of God). I noticed some very tall trees, taller than any of the rest, with very large trunks. These are the Guayabo Macho. The next station was Rio Hondo (Deep River), another Monte Verde (Green Mountain). We next came to immense banana fields, many square miles in area; just how many the doctor did not know. We crossed the Reventazon (Splashing River) twice on iron bridges and then followed it. The bed of this river is very stony. The train stopped about 10 minutes at Siquirres. Many of the passengers left the train and returned with bottles of cocoa cola. I saw one of my old friends, the white- faced monkeys, tied on a porch shortly after leaving Siquirres. I noticed the more bracing air as we ascended the mountain a while before this. ■ Presently we passed a large ice factory. It is from this that Port Limon is supplied with ice. The probable reason for its location at such a distance from Port Limon is the abundance of water. The Costa Rican Railway belongs to a com- pany whose contract with the government will expire in about ninety years. The fresh air as we ascended the mountain was fine ; you could imag- ine you were out of the tropics. We then passed 2&> Light on Dark Places a place on the mountain where landslides some- times occur which tear up the tracks and travel ceases until they are repaired. There had been none for about a year and I sincerely hoped that they would not have any more until I got back down the mountain. It looked strange to see corn like that in the States growing among the tropical trees and plants. The train consisted of five cars. I rode in the last, but often saw the engine, ow- ing to the curves of the mountain. It reminded me of my trip to the Yo Semite Valley and the curves we passed over in the Sierras when the heads of the leaders on the stage seemed parallel with the back seat. We next passed thru what I hate most in railroad travel — a tunnel. I was very glad that it was a short one. The worst one I ever passed thru was the Hoosick tunnel in New England. The next station is Turrialba, a cor- ruption of "Torre Alba" (White Tower), named for the estate of the Marquises of Torre Alba in Spain. I infer from this that the Spaniards must have given England its ancient name of Albion, for it seems to me that I have read that England was formerly called Albion, because of its white, chalk cliffs. Am I right, or am I wandering in the fields of imagination? Beyond this station, negroes are not allowed to live. The doctor in-! formed me that the negroes in Costa Rica are Jamaicans, imported to build the railroad and to tend the banana plantations. It is a mystery to me how such a small place as Jamaica supplies so' many negro laborers. Negresses came to the cars at Turrialba carrying large platters filled with sliced pineapples and candies. The doctor told at Panama 281 one of them to pass the platter to me. The fruit was white, juicy and very delicious, but had a large core in the center. I had brought no lunch, supposing that on a journey of so many hours the train would stop for lunch at some station. The doctor kindly offered me some of his. I re- fused it at first, not wishing to impose on a stranger in that way, but when he repeated the offer two hours later, I was so much hungrier I accepted. He handed me half of a broiled chicken and some crackers. Knowing my fond- ness for broiled chicken, you can imagine the courage it took for me to break off the drumstick and second joint and return the rest. However, I managed to do so and ate what I kept with in- imitable grace. I was very much pleased and concluded that Costa Rica abounded in broiled chickens. Alas! that was the only thing in the guise of a chicken I met in Costa Rica with the exception of an old fowl served at Sunday dinner at my boarding place, which surely must have been a great-great-grandparent. I have regretted ever since that I did not eat the whole half. There are almost no Indians in Costa Rica as they were nearly exterminated by the Spaniards when they settled in the country. Tobacco is raised here and I also saw the plant growing from which rope is made. After the station Paraiso it seemed very odd to find the fields divided off by stone walls like those of New England. We soon passed the extinct volcano, which the ladies at Colon told me of, then Cartargo, the health re- sort. This place boasts a church named "Our Lady of the Angels," which shelters a miraculous 282 Light on Dark Places virgin. I asked the doctor what she did and he said, "Anything you want." I contemplated get- ting out and invoking her aid in several things, but concluded to leave my affairs with Headquar- ters, as heretofore in my weary pilgrimage thru this vale of tears. Cartargo is a real old Spanish town with nothing modern in its appearance, al- most all the buildings being one story, stucco, with tile roofs. They looked quaint and com-, fortable, but the glimpses of the interiors as the., train passed appeared to be very dirty. A little black pig chasing a little dog was a funny sight. The air was chilly, and the grass being all dried up, as the rainy season had not commenced, made the landscape look very bleak. The rainy season does not begin until about the 1st of May. When the grass is green the whole appearance is changed and beautified. 'The train reached San Jose at 5 P. M. and the doctor directed the cab driver to the boarding house and bade me good- bye. My hostess was a native Costa Rican with the charming manners which the native ladies of tropical countries so often have. Her parents had lived twenty years in San Francisco during the childhood of herself and brothers and sisters, so they speak English and Spanish with equal fluency. The architecture of San Jose is almost entirely that of Spanish- America, and most of the streets are narrow with sidewalks barely wide enough for two people to walk abreast, tho some of the newer ones are of convenient width. The climate reminded me of that of San Fran- cisco, being very warm in the sun and always a little uncomfortable chill out of the sun; never, at Panama" ,283 in my opinion, an agreeable medium. Those who like the California climate would surely be pleased with that of San Jose. Also, as in San Francisco, fleas favor every newcomer with un- ceasing attention and do not neglect the perma- nent residents. My hostess, believing it healthier to sleep upstairs, has just built a new two-story wooden house similar to homes in the States. This being full, I was quartered in an old Spanish house just across the street which she hires. This is one story, stucco, with a narrow hall in the center and rooms on each side. It reminded me of a New York flat. Every morning, very early, I could see and hear the ox carts passing my win- dow. The way these oxen are yoked was a con- tinual source of distress to me and my landlady said it is a very cruel way to yoke them, and many foreigners who have come to Costa Rica have tried to have it changed, but have hot succeeded. Instead of a yoke and bow, as our oxen are har- nessed, a sort of wooden hat is placed on each ox's head with holes for their horns, and the tongue of the wagon is fastened to these hats. This brings the entire weight of the load on their foreheads and it seems dreadful to me. Being compelled to hold their heads so low must be more than bad enough aside from the weight of the load. Then, too, this wooden hat reaches low enough to keep their ears pointing downward. I never noticed how our cattle wear their ears, but it did not look proper at all to me to see the Costa Rican oxen's ears hanging so low. Some of the carts are plain and unpainted, but many of them are bright red or blue with designs outlined in 284 Light on Dark Places yellow paint. I do not like the wheels of the carts because I think they are heavier than our wheels are. They have no spokes, but are solid disks of wood. Is not this a much heavier wheel than one with spokes? I enclose a post card which I bought for you to see the oxen and ox carts, but to fully understand what I am describing you would have to see them pulling a heavy load up a steep hill. The carts I saw were loaded with vegetables, bricks or sugar cane. I visited the city market one morning with my landlady, where I saw many of the fruits and vegetables that we have, as well as all those of the tropics. There is seldom any fish served in San Jose because it has to be brought up from Port Limon, the Splash- ing River being such a rough and turbulent stream, fish do not live in it. As I was walking thru Limon one day I met a man with a wheel- barrow containing a fish nearly a yard long and about a half a yard in diameter and almost the color of a goldfish. I intended to find out what kind it was, but forgot to do so. Fish is abun- dant in Limon. There are no sheep in Costa Rica, consequently no lamb or mutton. After the tropical custom, the first meal was mostly imag- inary. At the next meal, which they call break- fast, from the quantity of food served, every one must have been expected to gorge themselves. The first course, oatmeal; second, eggs; third, meat, with from three to five vegetables and cof- fee and oranges. If they had served the eggs and oatmeal in the early morning I would have been much better pleased. The dinner, served at six, consisted of soup, a substitute for the fish at Panama 285 course, meat and vegetables, dessert and bitter coffee. One of the boarders, a Scotch gentleman, doing business for some English house, said we were fortunate to get as good a place in Costa Rica, that the roaches and fleas in the best hotels are terrible, and sometimes there is water for the bath and sometimes there is not. Miss M's is kept as clean as any boarding house I have ever seen anywhere, which surprised me, as I was in the tropics. San Jose, April 27th. As I wrote you in a former letter, I intended to take the German steamer for Jamaica when I left Port Limon, but after seeing Costa Rica de- cided it was not worth while spending any more time and money prowling round in the tropics. The United Fruit Company will not risk having a steamer held in quarantine by sick passengers, as a cargo of bananas would get too ripe to be salable, which would mean thousands of dollars' loss, therefore to be allowed to take passenge from LimOn on a fruit boat for New Orleans I was told to report daily to the U. S. Consul at San Jose, then to the Fruit Company's doctor at Port Limon, thus proving that I had not the yel- low fever for five days before embarking. I first reported to the Consul on Saturday, April 27th. We had a long talk about Panama and he was greatly interested in what I told him. Beyond the rear of the house where I roomed is a place where coffee is prepared for market and I visited it to see the process. I took a road across the fields which seemed to lead there, but 286 Light on Dark Places I wandered into a brewery, and found a lot of people bottling beer in countless bottles. The en- trance was guarded by two enormous mouse- colored dogs in large iron cages, who looked something like Great Danes. They rushed to the front of the cages, growling, barking and throw- ing themselves against the bars. I asked several people the way to the coffee factory, but it was some time before any one answered in English. When I reached it I found only three men walk- ing thru the grounds and one of them, in response to my inquiry, informed me that they made cof- fee only in January, February and March. There were several large cemented spaces as large as big rooms divided by low partitions about a foot high, and back of these a building with an enor- mous mill wheel. I am sorry that I cannot de- scribe the works in operation. I continued my walk along the country road. The houses were all one story, built of brick and covered with plaster. The roofs are made of tiles that look more like half flower pots than anything else. Had it not been for its fragrance I would have missed the beautiful sight of a large orange tree in full bloom on a hillside just be- low the road. Again I longed for a camera that would photograph colors for your pleasure. Miss M. went to Port Limon to meet two sis- ters who had been in the States several months for their health. She delegated one of the board- ers to preside at the table and when we met at dinner we were served with claret and he in- formed us that if we would pay our board in advance we would have 15 per cent, discount. at Panama 287 Also that he had a telegram from Mr. Barr re- questing that, in memory of him, grace be said before all meals. Mr. Barr was one of the nu- merous crooked employes of the Canal Commis- sion. He had been up to recruit his health in the bracing air of San Jose and left owing Miss M. two months' board. I wanted to see some of the "beauties of Costa Rica." One of the gentlemen told me to get up early Sunday morning and go to the Roman Catholic Church and I would see some pretty women, but as I would had to have been at church at 8 o'clock I concluded not to take the trouble. I went to walk Sunday afternoon and saw several of the ladies of Costa Rica at the windows talking to their masculine admirers, who stood in the street below, and immediately re- membered the pictures that come in raisin boxes. The general appearance and manner of the ladies was as picturesque, but not that of the men. They wear the same unattractive garments our men do, the noticeable difference being that the average native of the United States appears to be twice their size. There was nothing that seemed like the United States in San Jose except the small boys and the dogs. I saw one of the former with a dead rat in his hand chasing a lot of screaming little girls and I thought, "The small boy is the same all the world over ; that is, wherever I have seen the lit- tle imps," and the dogs wag their tails in the same old way, only they think they are perros. The garden of the Brazilian Consulate is beau- tifully kept and displays a most attractive variety. 288 Light on Dark Places of trees swid plants. There were beautiful ever- greens and weeping willows, which I was sur- prised to see, and, of course, the tropical palms and plants. I met a little girl in a pretty white dress and a long white veil going to take her first com- munion, I suppose. Her fine costume looked odd as she had bare feet, but they were clean, pretty little feet and doubtless she felt more comfortable than if she had on a pair of stiff shoes. The boarding house is located near the top of a very steep hill and the brewery of which I told you is at the bottom of it. Every day I saw loads of bottles drawn up this hill by horses and oxen harnessed to the same wagon, the horses as help- ers until the top of the hill was reached. Tuesday, April 30, 1907. I left San Jose on the 9 o'clock train for Port Limon a day before the boat sailed so as to be sure and not miss it, even tho this necessitated my reposing another night on that downy couch in Limon. They charged me but 50 cents extra baggage on my steamer trunk at the San Jose depot, instead of 75 cents, as in the Limon depot. When I arrived at Port Limon I found I could not go to New Orleans the next day as every available space had been filled before its arrival at Limon by members of the Southern Board of Trade, who had gone to the Isthmus to look into the discrimination which was being made against New Orleans in the purchasing of supplies for the commissary. I made as big a fuss as I could about being left, but the boat would not stretch at Panama 289 any. I made up my mind to sit in the beautiful plaza as much as I could and study the plants. There are barracks back of it where a Costa Rican regiment is quartered. I arrived in time one morning to see a drill. They marched out into the road and formed in two lines and played a piece of music very beautifully, it seemed to me. A little dog belongs to the regiment and he came out with the rest and sat down between the lines swelling with importance, looking as tho he owned the whole regiment. He marched back, too, and vanished in the barracks with the rest of them. They conducted themselves very nicely, but as compared with our soldiers, in the way of physique, they looked like toys. What lots of people there are in the world who have not money enough to exist comfortably! Comparatively, I often feel quite rich because I do not owe anybody a cent. There was an elderly lady stopping at this boarding house who had gone to Colombia with her husband years ago. He was a mining engineer and was killed there. Up to that time she said she did not know what it was to be unhappy, but that left her alone with four little children to take care of and almost no money. She managed some way to get her children back to the States, but I think she had to give them away because she is not quite sure where her sons are. She is now trying to get back to them because she lost the position she had as matron in a hospftal and cannot get anything else to do. Then there was a young man, a stenographer, who came down to Port Limon to work, but lost his position and could not find 290 Light on Dark Places another. He owed the landlady money and felt so badly about it she said he refused to eat but two meals a day because he could not pay for them. He could not leave town because he had nothing to pay his fare. Money did not come from home when he hoped for it and he had just made up his mind to walk to Panama be- cause there is plenty of work there, but the U. S. Consul persuaded the captain of one of the ships going to New York to let him work his passage home. Every one was thankful because he prob- ably would have died on the way had he tried to walk to Panama. He left a trunk full of nice clothes as security for his board. I had to pay duty on my trunks when I landed and when I left, tho one of them was never un- locked. It stayed in the custom house all the while I was there. Then I had to pay the ex- pressman the same amount I paid for duty. The duties on old clothes are not excessive, but it is such a nuisance to be going to the custom house, and they will not even put your trunks on the scales, but make you bring a man to the custom house and pay him to weigh your trunks for their benefit. I sailed for New Orleans Saturday, May 4th, on the steamer "Venus." She carried about $20,000 worth of bananas, the loading of which I watched with interest. The stalks were laid hori- zontally on a revolving contrivance which carried them from the dock to the steamer. They looked like enormous green centipedes — monster centi- pedes, crawling steadily, mechanically and surely for the ship. They were then packed solidly, at Panama 2gf standing erect. A very few were ripe by the last day and were served at meals. I was allowed a reduction on my ticket of the amount paid for board while waiting in Limon because they had promised I should sail on the preceding ship. How different the policy of the Panama Steamship Company and the United Fruit Company! I am informed that fine coffee is raised in Costa Rica, but is mostly exported, and the bitter stuff served the weary traveler is the decayed refuse, carefully saved, roasted and bought by boarding house keepers for about 6 cents a pound. The laws in Costa Rica are convenient for the owners of estates — they pay no taxes. The ex- pense of running the government is met by levy- ing duties on everything brought into the coun- try by its merchants and residents and visitors. If you ever go to Costa Rica let your baggage be light. The day before sailing from Costa Rica I re- ceived a letter stating that a friend who had been to Washington said I should have what I asked, for he knew I was entitled to it, and that while there he had seen influential people and every- thing had been arranged for me to receive a fair salary. I do not intend to return, however, for I feel that I have done one citizen's duty towards building the Panama Canal, and my future ef- forts shall be confined to sympathizing with the engineers of our army, who have now undertaken this difficult task and who have the reputation of being everything they should be, both in ability and integrity. Sam S. & Lee Shubert direct the following theatres and theatrical attractions in America : Hippodrome, Lyric, Casino, Dalys, Lew Fields, Herald Square and Princess Thea- tres, New York. Garrick Theatre, Chicago. Lyric Theatre, Philadelphia. Shubert Theatre, Brooklyn. Belasco Theatre, Washing- ton. Belasco Theatre, Pittsburg. Shubert Theatre, Newark. Shubert Theatre, Utica. Grand Opera House, Syra- cuse. Baker Theatre, Rochester. Opera House, Providence. Worcester Theatre, Worces- ter. Hyperion Haven. Theatre, New Lyceum Theatre, Buffalo. Colonial Theatre, Cleveland. Rand's Opera House, Troy. Garrick Theatre, St. Louis. Sam S. Shubert Theatre, Norfolk, Va. Shubert Theatre, Columbus. Lyric, Cincinnati. Mary Anderson Theatre, Louisville. New Theatre, Richmond, Va. New Theatre, Lexington, Ky. New Theatre, Mobile. New Theatre, Atlanta. Shubert Theatre, Milwau- kee. Lyric Theatre, New Orleans. New Marlowe Theatre, Chattanooga. New Theatre, Detroit. % Grand Opera House, Dav- enport, Iowa. New Theatre, Toronto." New Sothern Theatre, Den- ver. Sam S. Shubert Theatre, Kansas City. Majestic Theatre, Los An- geles. Belasco Theatre, Portland. Shubert Theatre, Seattle. Majestic Theatre, San Fran- cisco. E. H. Sothern & Julia Mar- lowe in repertoire. Margaret Anglin and Henry * Shore Acres." Mlller * Louis Mann in « « The White Virginia Harned. Hen." Mary Mannering in " Glori- „ The Road to yesterday." ous Betsy." * Mme. Alia Nazimova. Hen ry Woodruff in - Brown Thos. W. Ross in "The 14m _ _ .* n . - „ - Other Girl." ^ Secret^ Orchard," by Cecelia Loftus. Channing Pollock. De Wolf Hopper in " Hap- Clara Bloodgood. pyland." Blanche Ring. ^^ Foy fa „ The 0rchid „ Alexander Carr. DigbyBell. Mar^erite Clark, m a new "Sunte?" 1 BChlnd thC "The Social Whirl," with <~ oumer - Chas. J. Rosi. "The Light Eternal.' Jameg T p(meM . fl t< ^ "The Snow Man." Blue Moon." Blanche Bates in " The Girl Bertha Kalich. from the Golden West." "j^ah Kleschna." Darid Warfield in "The Music Master." "The Man on the Box." " The Rose of the Rancho," with Rose Starr. Cyril Scott in " The Prince Harrison Gray Fiskr's Chap." Attractions. „ Mrs Tcmple . s Telegram." Mrs. Fiske in "The New York Idea." " The Three of Us." You cannot go wrong in selecting one of these play-houses for an evening's entertain- ment in whatever city you may happen to be. BOOKS YOV MVST READ SOONER OR. LATER Lady Century By Mrs. A. G. Kintzel^ >4 Drawings by Hartman. Decorated cover in black, red and gohfr ^$1.50. Critics who have seen the book declare 'irsupenor lo "Leave Me My Honor," the success which has recently brought Mrs. Kintzel into prominence as a_story-tellcr who has something to say and can say %f "Sparkling from cover to cover." NAN & SUE Stenographers *By Harriet C. Cullaton^ ^$1.00. y You've - !© "doubt heard of this booklTltstandVal! alone in the originality of its title and subject, and every- one knows how charming a subject "Nan & Sue, Ste- nographers," must be. It is the diary of a typewriting office in New York run by two young and pretty girb. who have the most amusing adventures. The book's ap-' pearance is as original and charming as Nan and Sue themselves., Orde* iiowland join^e7procession7o^tbO«tofMi 10th edition. < ■ ll H>Mf BOOKS YOU NVST HEAD SOONER OK LATER Saltan of the Modern World By E. G. Doyen.. *2mo, cloth, handsomely produced. $150- Ttielitle of this book will arouse cufi6s^tyr"ari„ .Cloth, i2mo. $1.00.. 3 Illustrations.. Llewellyn A NOVEL BY HADLEY S. KlMBERLlNa, Cloth. $1.50* "5 Illustrations by S. Klarr? Here is a story whose artistic realism wflf~appeal to everyone, while its distinction as a serious novel is made evident by its clever analysis, sparkling dialogue and thrilling and powerful situations. . "Llewellyn'^will win all hearts by her purity and charm.^ BOOKS YOU MVST READ SOONER OR LATER Lost in the Mammoth Cave By D. Riley Guernsey. Decorated cloth, i2mo. Illustrated. Price, $1.50. A tale which a Jules Verne might envy from his own vantage ground. Imagine the possibili- ties for a story which are conjured up by the thought of a party of brainy men and women lost in the Mammoth Cave! A prominent reviewer says: "This ought to be an immensely popular book. There are no idle moments from cover to cover, and it is one which the reader will not think ^of laying aside until he has read every word.' Under the Darkness of the Night A Tale of West Indian Insurrection. By Ellen Chazal Chapeau. Cloth, i2mo. Attractively Produced. Price, $1.00. The scenes of this story are laid in Ste. Domingue from 1792-93- It is a most timely book, written bv one whose life has been passed among West Indians, and who can read the African character with surprising skill and ac- curacy. A wonderful picture of tropical life, brilliantly depicted. Broadway Publishing: Company, 835 Broadway, New York, BOOKS YOU NVST READ SOONER OR LATER J\[o Surrender. By John N. Swift and William S. Birge, M.D. Cloth, i2mo. Frontispiece. Price, $1.50 From the moment this story opens in the old whaling station of New Bedford, until the climax of climaxes is reached in the high seas some- where off the coast of Chile, excitement and in- terest are in order. It is a tale that allows of no laying aside and as incident comes crowding upon incident the reader finds himself utterly oblivious to everything but the words before him. Imagine, if you can, the consternation of the Chilean commander and his officers of the cruiser "Dona Inez" when, on their arrival at the land- ing stage, ready to embark after an hour's shore leave, they find the ship, which they had left safely swinging at her moorings, completely vanished. Such a statement is enough to arouse im- mediate curiosity and what became of the "Dona" and what became of the Chilean commander and his officers forms the plot of this most extra- ordinary narrative. Of course the "Dona" has been skilfully pur- loined for felonious purposes, and while she and her piratical crew are undergoing all manner of marine castastrophe one of the former officers is dashing overland to head off if possible dis- agreeable contingencies with the Chilean Naval Department. His adventures are not less thril- ling than those which befall the ship, and the clever chapter arrangement keeps the reader's interest ever whetted. Broadway Publishing Company, 835 Broadway, New York. ^BOOKS YOU MVSrREAD SOONER OR LATER Reuben: His Book By Morton H. Pembertow. Cloth, Gilt lettering, limo. Postpaid, $1.00. Portrait in Colors. One of the funniest, cleverest, uniquest volnasaa of the day, it has won spontaneous and unaai- mous approval from reviewers the country or*r. Just hear what a few of them say: Champ Clark.— "I haven't laughed so much since I first read Mark Twain's 'Roughing It.'" Globe-Democrat.— "This little book has the merit of brevity, variety and humor. It is safe to say that the book will have many readers and that it will afford much amusement." St. Louis Republic— "The book is already heading the list of 'best sellers/ and deserves to go. It is GOOD. It is the sort of thing which might move the provincial journalist to say, 'Reub, here's our hand.'" Ji Scarlet Repentance By Archie Bell. Cloth, i2mo. Price, $1.00. One Review: "The history of one night and one day's flaming passion between a beauti- ful Italian woman and a handsome youth — strangers — who meet upon a Pullman car. There comes into the story all the elementary passions, hatred, jealousy, desire and — sorrow. "It is a story that will appeal to those who prefer novels in which red blood is throbbing madly. It is not for prudes, nor for parsons, nor poseurs. It's a book for men and women who have lived."— The Club-Fellow. Broadway Publishing Company, 835 Broadway, New York. BOOKS YOU MUST READ SOONER OR LATER Why JVot Order fiobu ? Evelyn lAlStory of the "West and the Far East, By Mrs. Ansel Open beim. 4 Illus. $1.50. Limited edition in leather, $2.06. IftetNN baa spoken of tala book wltb unqualified terms of pr*J*C The Le^st of the. Cavillers By N. J. FLom. v 9 Drawings and Author's Photo.: $1*50. JJ?N© wiser or more brilliant pea has told the story of [the Gvfl War than Capt Floyd's ; no work more thrilling Simply as a romance has recently been within th# reach of Oook-lavers." iwimMUjawiunajajULi-jj 1 ' ww j.^iAUiajliUJij!,liuuLU i .. i i i ii.i i . i n ■ » m APR 23 1908