close at hand though the railroad takes seven miles--and thirty-
five cents if you are no employee--to reach it, was Colon, the
tops of whose low buildings were plainly visible above the
vegetation. Not many "Zoners," I reflected, catch their first view
of Colon from the veranda of the Administration Building at Gatun.

We had arrived with time to spare. Fully an hour we loafed and
yarned and smoked before a whistle blew and long lines of little
figures began to come up out of the depths and zigzag across the
landscape until soon a line of laborers of every shade known to
humanity began to form, pay-checks in hand; its double head at the
pay-windows on the two sides of the veranda, its tail serpentining
off down the hillside and away nearly to the edge of the mammoth
locks. Packs of the yellow cards of Cristobal district in hand--a
relief to eyes that had been staring for days at the pink ones of
Empire--we lined up like birds of prey just beyond the windows. As
the first laborer passed this, one--nay, several of us pounced
upon him, for all plans we had laid to line up and take turns were
thus quickly overthrown and wild competition soon reigned. From
then on each dived in to snatch his prey and, dragging him to the
nearest free space, began in some language or other: "Where d'ye
live?"

That was the overwhelming problem,--in what language to address
each victim. Barter, speaking only his nasal New Jersey, took to
picking out negroes, and even then often turned away in disgust
when he landed a Martinique or a Haytian. West Indian "English"
alternated with a black patois that smelt at times faintly of
French, muscular, bullet-headed negroes appeared slowly and
laboriously counting their money in their hats, eagle-nosed