The reason for it all was the three-cornered fight which then was being
waged by the Government, the Nitrate Trust, and the Walker-Keefe crowd
for the possession of the nitrate beds. Valencia is so near to the
equator, and so far from New York, that there are few who studied the
intricate story of that disgraceful struggle, which, I hasten to add,
with the fear of libel before my eyes, I do not intend to tell now.

Briefly, it was a triangular fight between opponents each of whom was in
the wrong, and each of whom, to gain his end, bribed, blackmailed, and
robbed, not only his adversaries, but those of his own side, the end in
view being the possession of those great deposits that lie in the rocks
of Valencia, baked from above by the tropic sun and from below by
volcanic fires. As one of their engineers, one night in the Plaza, said
to me: "Those mines were conceived in hell, and stink to heaven, and the
reputation of every man of us that has touched them smells like the
mines."

At the time I was there the situation was "acute." In Valencia the
situation always is acute, but this time it looked as though something
might happen. On the day before I departed the Nitrate Trust had cabled
vehemently for war-ships, the Minister of Foreign Affairs had refused to
receive our minister, and at Porto Banos a mob had made the tin sign of
the United States consulate look like a sieve. Our minister urged me to
remain. To be bombarded by one's own war-ships, he assured me, would be
a thrilling experience.

But I repeated that my business was with Panama, not Valencia, and that
if in this matter of his row I had any weight at Washington, as between
preserving the nitrate beds for the trust, and preserving for his