runs _North-west_ to the Atlantic, though at this particular part
of the line we were travelling due West, so the Southern Cross was
right after all, and we were wrong.

The track from ocean to ocean seemed to be lined with one continuous
street of wooden stores, eating-houses, and dance-halls, all erected
for the benefit of the workers on the canal, and all alike blazing
with paraffin lamps. It was like one continuous fair, but the kindly
night masked the endless cemeteries.

We bought in Colon a little book of verse entitled _Panama Patchwork_.
It was the work of an American, James Stanley Gilbert, who had lived
for six years on the Isthmus, and had seen most of his friends die
there. Gilbert's lines have, therefore, a certain excusable tinge of
morbidity, as, for example:

"Beyond the Chagres River
Are paths that lead to death:
To fever's deadly breezes,
To malaria's poisonous breath."

I refrain from quoting others which are really too gruesome to
reproduce, but I like his welcome to the Trade wind, the boisterous
advent of which announces the end of the very unhealthy wet season,
and a brief spell of dry weather. It must be remembered that the
author was unused to the pen:

"Blow thou brave old Trade wind, blow!
Send the mighty billows flashing
In the radiant sunlight, dashing