; still
others set resolutely forth afoot into tropical paths; a dozen or so,
gleaned one by one from all the towns along the line were even on their
way to church. Yet with all this scattering there still remained a
respectable percentage lounging on the screened verandas in pajamas and
kimonas, "Old Timers" of four or five or even six years' standing who
were convinced they had seen and heard, and smelt and tasted all that
the Zone or tropical lands have to offer.

Well on in the morning there was a general gathering of all the
ditch-digging clans of Empire and vicinity in a broad field close under
the eaves of the town, and soon there came drifting across to me at my
labor, hoarse, frenzied screams; sounding strangely incongruous beneath
the swaying palm-trees;

"Come on! Get down with his arm! Aaaaahrrr!"

But my time was well chosen. In the Spanish camps above the canal,
still and silent with Sunday, men at no other time to be run to earth
were entrapped in their bunks, under their dwelling-places in the
shade, shaving, exchanging hair-cuts, washing workaday clothes,
reminiscing over far-off homes and pre-migratory days, or merely
loafing. The same cheery, friendly, quick-witted fellows they were as
in their native land, even the few Italians and rare Portuguese
scattered among them inoculated with their cheerfulness.

Came sudden changes to camps of Martiniques, a sort of wild, untamed
creature, who spoke a distressing imitation of French which even he did
not for a moment claim to be such, but frankly dubbed patois.
Restless-eyed black men who answered to their names only at the
question "Cummun t'appelle?" and give their age only to those who open
wide their mouths and cry, "Caje-vous?" Then on again to the no less
strange, sing-song "English" of Jamaica, the whining tones of those
whose island trees the conquesting Spaniards found
bearded--"barbados"--now and again a more or less dark Costa Rican,
Guatemalteco, Venezuelan, stray islanders from St. Vincent, Trinidad,
or Guadalupe, individuals defying classification. But the chief reward
for denying myself a holiday were the "back-calls" in the town itself
which I was able to check out of my field-book. Many a long-sought
negro I roused from his holiday siesta, dashing past the tawdry calico
curtains to pound him awake--mere auricular demonstration having only
the effect of lulling him into deeper child-like slumber. The surest
and often only effective m