ng on through a hilly
country of perpetual summer. A peculiarly shaped reservoir sped past on
the left, twice or thrice more the green horizon rose and fell, and at
7:30 we drew up at the base of Culebra, the Zone capital.

On the screened veranda of a somewhat sooty and dismal building high up
near the summit of the town, another and I were pacing anxiously back
and forth when, well on in the morning, an abrupt and rather
gloomy-faced American dashed into the building and one of the rooms
thereof, snapping over his shoulder as he disappeared, "One of you!"
The other had precedence. Then soon from behind the wooden shutters
came a growl of "Next!" and two moments later I was standing in the
reputed costume of Adam on the scales within. At about ten-second
intervals a monosyllable fell from the lips of the morose American as
he delved into my personal make-up from crown to toe with all the
instrumental circumspection known to his secret-discovering profession.
Then with a gruff "Dress!" he sat down at a table to scratch a few
fantastic marks on the blank I had brought, and hand it to me as I
caught up my last garment and turned to the door. But, alas--tight
sealed! and all the day, though carrying the information in my pocket,
I must live in complete ignorance of whether I had been found lacking
an eye or a lung. For sooner would one have asked his future of the
scowling Parques than venture to invoke a hint thereof from that
furrow-browed being from the Land of Bruskness.

Meanwhile, as if it had been thus planned to give me such opportunity,
I stood at the very vortex of canal interest and fame, with nearly an
entire day before the evening train should carry me back to Corozal. I
descended to the "observation platform." Here at last at my very feet
was the famous "cut" known to the world by the name of Culebra; a
mighty channel a furlong wide plunging sheer through "Snake Mountain,"
that rocky range of scrub-wooded hills; severing the continental
divide. At first view the scene was bewildering. Only gradually did the
eye gather details out of the mass. Before and beyond were pounding
rock drills, belching locomotives, there arose the rattle and bump of
long trains of flat-cars on many tracks, the crash of falling boulders,
the snort of the straining steam-shovels heaping the cars high with
earth and rock, everywhere were groups of little men, some working
leisurely, some scrambling down into the rocky bed of the canal