eard the wash of the
Caribbean at my feet. It was the Sunday following our Gatun days, and
nearly a month since my landing on the Zone. The morning train from
Empire left me at the lake-side city for a run over locks and dam which
the working days had not allowed, and there being no other train for
hours I set off along the railroad to walk the seven miles to Colon. On
either side lay hot, rampant jungle, low and almost swampy. It was noon
when I reached the broad railroad yards and Zone storehouses of Mt.
Hope and turned aside to Cristobal hotel.

Cristobal is built on the very fringe of the ocean with the roll of
waves at the very edge of its windows, and a far-reaching view of the
Caribbean where the ceaseless Zone breeze is born. There stands the
famous statue of Columbus protecting the Indian maid, crude humor in
bronze; for Columbus brought Indian maids anything but protection. Near
at hand in the joyous tropical sunshine lay a great steamer that in
another week would be back in New York tying up in sleet and ice. A
western bronco and a lariat might perhaps have dragged me on board,
with a struggle.

There is no more line of demarkation between Cristobal and Colon than
between Ancon and Panama. A khaki-clad Zone policeman patrols one
sidewalk, a black one in the sweltering dark blue uniform and heavy
wintry helmet of the Republic of Panama lounges on the other side of a
certain street; on one side are the "enumerated" tags of the census, on
the other none. Cross the street and you feel at once a foreigner. It
is distinctly unlawful to sell liquor on Sunday or to gamble at any
time on the Canal Zone; it is therefore with something approaching a
shock that one finds everything "wide open" and raging just across the
street.

I wandered out past "Highball's" merry-go-round, where huge negro bucks
were laughing and playing and riding away their month's pay on the
wooden horses like the children they are, and so on to the edge of the
sea. Unlike Panama, Colon is flat and square-blocked, as it is
considerably darker in complexion with its large mixture of negroes
from the Caribbean shores and islands. Uncle Sam seems to have taken
the city's fine beach away from her. But then, she probably never took
any other advantage of it than to turn it into a garbage heap as bad as
once was Bottle Alley. On one end is a cement swimming pool with the
announcement, "Only for gold employees of the I. C. C. or P. R. R. and
guests o