The market plaza is
outside the walls, and a small stream runs through it, with the banks
pretty thickly occupied by washerwomen. All the washing was done without
the aid of a fire.
On the plaza there were plenty of donkeys loaded with truck of all
sorts, from wood, green grass, cocoa-nuts and sugar-cane to parrots,
monkeys and all kinds of tropical fruits. Outside the walls the houses
were made of stakes interwoven with palm leaves, and everything was
green as well as the grass and trees. Very little of the ground seemed
to be cultivated, and the people were lazy and idle, for they could live
so easily on the wild products of the country. A white man here would
soon sweat out all his ambition and enterprise, and would be almost
certain to catch the Panama yellow fever. The common class of the people
here, I should say, were Spanish and negro mixed, and they seem to get
along pretty well; but the country is not suitable for white people. It
seems to have been made on purpose for donkeys, parrots and long-heeled
negroes.
The cabin passengers engaged all the horses and mules the country
afforded on which to ride across the Chagres River, so it fell to the
lot of myself and companion to transfer ourselves on foot, which was
pretty hard work in the hot and sultry weather. My gold dust began to
grow pretty heavy as I went along, and though I had only about two
thousand dollars, weighing about ten pounds, it seemed to me that it
weighed fifty pounds by the way that it bore down upon my shoulders and
wore sore places on them.
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