Eng-leesh."

To Americans direct from the States Panama city ranks still as
rather a miserable dawdling village. But that is due chiefly to
lack of perspective. Against the background of Central America it
seemed almost a great, certainly a flourishing, city. Even to-day
there are many who complain of its unpleasant odors; to those who
have lived in other tropical cities its scent is like the perfumes
of Araby; and none but those can in any degree realize what "Tio
Sam" has done for the place.

Toward sunset I passed through a gateway with scores of fellow-
countrymen, all as composedly at home as in the heart of their
native land. Across the platform stood a train distinctively
American in every feature, a bilious-yellow train divided by the
baggage car into two sections, of which the five second-class
coaches behind the engine, with their wooden benches, were densely
packed in every available space with workmen and laborer's wives,
from Spaniards to ebony negroes, with the average color decidedly
dark. In the first-class cars at the Panama end were Americans,
all but exclusively white Americans, with only here and there a
"Spigoty" with his long greased hair, his finger rings, and his
effeminate gestures, and even a negro or two. For though Uncle Sam
may permit individual states to do so, he may not himself openly
abjure before the world his assertion as to the equality of all
men by enacting "Jim Crow" laws.

We were soon off. Settled back in the ample seat of the first real
train I had boarded in months, with the roar of its length over
the smooth and solid road-bed, the deep-voiced, masculine whistle