tree near Bas Obispo that marked the northern limit of our
district.

The P.R.R., you will recall, has been operating across the Isthmus
since 1855. When the United States took over the Zone in 1904 it
built a new double-tracked line of five-foot gauge for nearly the
whole forty-seven miles. Much of this, however, runs through
territory soon to be covered by Gatun Lake, nearly all the rest of
it is on the wrong side of the canal. An almost entirely new line,
therefore, is being built through the virgin jungle on the South
American side of the canal, which is to be the permanent line and
is known in Zone parlance as the "relocation." This is forty-nine
miles in length from Panama to Colon, and is single track only, as
freight traffic especially is expected, very naturally, to be
lighter after the canal is opened. Already that portion from the
Chagres to the Atlantic had been put in use--on February
fifteenth, to be exact; and the time was not far off when the
section within our district--from Gamboa to Pedro Miguel--would
also be in operation.

That portion runs through the wilderness a mile or more back from
the canal, through jungled hills so dense with vegetation one
could only make one's way through it with the ubiquitous machete
of the native jungle-dweller, except where tiny trails appear that
lead to squatters' thatched huts thrown together of tin, dynamite
and dry-goods boxes and jungle reeds in little scattered patches
of clearing. Some of these hills have been cut half away for the
new line--great generous "cuts," for to the giant 90-ton steam-
shovels a few hundred cubic yards of earth more or less is of
slight importance. All else is virtually impenetrable jungle.