Panamans will not say-as they might, truly-"These are only a few unworthy Americans, who have left their country for their country's good. The mass of the American people and the American Government are just and courteous." No, but they will say as we should do in their place "So! The Americans regard us as 'damned Greas ers,' do they? Well, who cares what the damned Yankees think, anyway?" Seriously, it is in such fashion that half the international animosities in the world are generated.

There is need, too, that we shall study Panama and the Panamans. Certainly we ought to know as much about them as they do about us. At present we certainly do not. Few things impressed me more at Panama than the perfect familiarity of Panamans with America and American affairs, as contrasted with the ignorance of Americans of Panama and Panaman affairs. The Panamans have visited America. They have studied in our schools and colleges. They are familiar with our social customs. But what do we know of them? It will not do to say that America is worth but Panama is not worth studying. Our own conduct gives that excuse the lie. If Panama is worth going to, as we are going to it, it is worth studying. If the Panamans are worthy of the relationships with them which we, at our own initiative, have sought, they are worthy of study. We have much to teach them, but they have also much to teach us. Especially have they to teach us a lesson of tactful adaptation. The Panaman endeavours to treat his American guest as that American wants to be treated. He studies his tastes, sus ceptibilities, prejudices, national idiosyncrasies. He says, in effect, "Your ways are not my ways, and I would not like them for myself; but they are yours, and therefore I respect them and cater to them to the best of my ability." Do Americans treat Panamans thus? Some do, and some do not; but it is in proportion as they do so that they establish mutually satisfactory relations with them.

This is a lesson which Americans greatly need to learn in commercial matters, not only in Panama but in all the lands

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of Central and South America. It is a matter of surprise and regret to many that our European rivals so far outstrip us in the markets of those countries. To those who have studied and compared the methods of Americans and Europeans in pushing trade, it is a matter of no surprise at all. A Panaman merchant expressed it to me epigrammatically but most comprehensively, when he said, "The American brings samples, but the European gets samples." That is precisely it. The American commercial agent goes to Central or South America with a case full of samples of goods such as we use at home and such as are not at all designed for use in the tropics, and tries to persuade the people that these are the things they ought to buy and to use, instead of the things they have long been accustomed to and which are especially suited to their needs. "You poor, benighted heathen," he says, in effect, "you ought to give up your ways and manners, your tools and clothes, and adopt such as we Superior People have. You don't know what is best for you. We do. Behold, here are the things you ought to buy!" The German, or the Frenchman, or the Englishman, on the other hand, goes to them with an empty bag, and asks "What kind of clothes do you like to wear? And what kind of tools do you prefer to use? And what are your tastes in this and that and the other thing?" He gets samples of all the things they use, and takes home a bag full of them. Then his employers at home manufacture exactly the sorts of things which he has found out the people want, and they send those goods to them, and sell them at a handsome profit, and get a practical monopoly of the market.

Now that is what we must do, if we are to win the place in the Central and South American market which we desire. We must cater to our customers. We must give them the things they want, and not try to force upon them the things they don't want but which we think they ought to want. In Europe there are vast manufacturing establishments whose wares are never seen in European markets, but are all shipped abroad, for the supplying of foreign demands. And

the foreign order is faithfully filled, no matter how strange or outlandish it may seem. As a widely and shrewdly observant friend of mine said one day, "It is no business of ours what they want. Our business is to supply it. No matter if it is razors without edges, or guns without triggers, or shoes without soles-if they want such things and are willing to pay for them, in the name of Mercury, god of trade, let them have them!" As a matter of fact, our Panaman friends know what they want and what is good for them a great deal better than we do. They have been settled on that tropical Isthmus for a hundred years longer than we have been settled here, and they understand their natural environment not only better than we do but, I am inclined to think, actually better in some respects than we understand our own.

All this, however, is not to say that we are not to introduce any of our ways and manners at Panama. On the contrary, we must do so, promptly and resolutely, if our enterprise there is to prove successful. Americans cannot live at Panama as the Panamans live, and cannot do in all things as the Panamans do. There must be special laws and customs and institutions provided for the benefit of the Americans who are now there and who will be and must be there in increasing numbers in future. For example, Panamans are largely immune against yellow fever, while Americans are not. Panamans could therefore afford to neglect sanitary precautions which are necessary for the safety of Americans. But for the sake of Americans, it is necessary that the Panamans shall adopt and maintain regulations which seem to them unnecessary. They are willing, of course, to do so. But even with their voluntary and efficient coöperation, the task of keeping Panama free from pestilence is not going to be an easy one. That is not because the place itself is essentially unhealthful, or must remain so, for it can be made almost a tropical sanitarium, but because it is and will be increasingly subject to invasion from all parts of the world. It is to-day a cosmopolitan spot. But when the canal is

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opened it will be a veritable world centre, the resort of trade and travel from every continent and from all the islands of the seas. With every plague of every clime making insidious approaches to it, Panama will need, and needs to-day and from this day forward unremittingly, a sanitary guardianship surpassed by none in the world for intelligence, for vigilance, and for inflexible authority.

CHAPTER XXI

PANAMA

I HESITATE to write of Panama. I mean not only Panama the country, but also and more especially Panama the city, and its environs, and its people. I mean Panama, with its faults and frailties, and also with its beauties and its virtues, and with its unique and ineffable charm. One may well hesitate to write about his host, save with unfailing courtesy. Yet at least equally one must hesitate to write aught but the truth. Let me hope that in writing the truth, both pleasant and unpleasant, unfailing courtesy may prevail, and the net balance may be on the side which is not only agreeable but welcome to my friends in Panama. The memory of that place is one of blue skies, seen through a fairy tracery of palm-fronds; of quaint old streets that made me dream a composite dream of Seville, Naples, and Hong Kong; of a sea more blue and more calm than ever is seen on our boisterous Atlantic coasts; of a strange mingling of the fifteenth century with the twentieth; of pearl-roofed spires and clangorous bells; of a riot of rich colours and sweet sounds; of a hospitality at once stately and inviting, dignified and cordial, which made the stranger to feel at home and the wanderer to realise that he had won the goal of his desire. Because of such memories I have deferred writing of Panama until I have written of all else that I may write about upon the Isthmus, and now I shall try to write of Panama as it was, but as it will be no more. It was then trembling upon the verge of a great and strange transition. The Panama of Philip of Hapsburg still remained, and the Panama of Theodore Roosevelt was dawning into existence. No more suggestive contrast has been seen in all the world than