suddenly recalled by the insistent, strident tooting of whistles
that forewarns the setting-off of the dynamite charges from the
little red electric boxes along the edge of the "cut." I turned
back toward Paraiso and, all but stumbling over little red-wound
wires everywhere on the ground, dodging in and out, running
forward, halting or suddenly retreating, I worked my way gradually
forward, while all the world about me was upheaving and spouting
and belching forth to the heavens, as if I had been caught in the
crater of a volcano as it suddenly erupted without warning. The
history of Panama is strewn with "dynamite stories." Even the
French had theirs in their sixteen per cent, of the excavation of
Culebra; in American annals there is one for every week. Three
days before, one of my Empire friends set off one afternoon for a
stroll through the "cut" he had not seen for a year. In a retired
spot he came upon two negroes pounding an irregular bundle. "What
you doing, boys?" he inquired with idle curiosity. "Jes' a
brealdn' up dis yere dynamite, boss," languidly answered one of
the blacks. My friend was one of those apprehensive, over-cautious
fellows so rare on the Zone. Without so much as taking his leave
he set off at a run. Some two car-lengths beyond an explosion
pitched him forward and all but lifted him off his feet. When he
looked back the negroes had left. Indeed neither of them has
reported for work since.

Then there was "Mac's" case. In his ambition for census efficiency
"Mac" was in the habit of stopping workmen wherever he met them.
One day he encountered a Jamaican carrying a box of dynamite on
his head and, according to his custom, shouted:

"Hey, boy! Had your census taken yet?"