have had this summer, but I think, too, that you would not wish to
miss this chance.

"Of course if you do not want to go to Panama I can get some other
operators to work the moving picture cameras, but I would rather
have you than anyone I know of. So I hope you will accept.

"The idea is this: The big canal is nearing completion, and the
work is now at a stage when it will make most interesting films.
Then, too, there is another matter--the big slides. There have
been several small ones, doing considerable damage, but no more
than has been counted on.

"I have information, however, to the effect that there is
impending in Culebra Cut a monstrous big slide, one that will beat
anything that ever before took place there. If it does happen I
want to get moving pictures, not only of the slide, but of scenes
afterward, and also pictures showing the clearing away of the
débris.

"Whether this slide will occur I do not know. No one knows for a
certainty, but a man who has lived in Panama almost since the
French started the big ditch, claims to know a great deal about
the slides and the causes of them. He tells me that certain small
slides, such as have been experienced, are followed--almost always
after the same lapse of time--by a much larger one. The larger one
is due soon, and I want you there when it comes.

"Now another matter. Some time after you get this you will be
visited by a Spanish gentleman named Vigues Alcando. He will have