Head Hunters of the Amazon | Page 4

small country towns
much the same as Colon itself, and having frequent glimpses of the old
De Lesseps Canal. The abandoned machinery still lay where it had
been left by the French, rotting in the mud and water, tropical growth
sprouting from the stacks of the steam-shovels, their great boilers half
hidden in the tangled mass of rank weeds. It was a dismal spectacle.
Arrived at Panama, I wrote home on December 12th, 1894, from the
Grand Hotel, the only one the town boasted. It described itself on its
letter paper as "Situated in the Parque de Santa Ana, the most central
point of the city, and at the same time the healthiest; a first-class
restaurant; splendid bedrooms for travellers and transients; cup-and-ball
room."
In reality, dirt, bugs, and an absolute disregard for the decencies of life
as we understand them were the outstanding features of that hotel. The
sanitary arrangements were primitive in the extreme. The "splendid
bedrooms" to which the letter-paper gave witness were so teeming with
vermin that no proper impression of the state of things can be conveyed.
I was not aware at the time whether it was the custom to mow the grass
and weeds before showing a guest to his room, but at any rate the
proprietor of that hotel neglected to do so. The verdure was growing
between the floor-boards to the height of at least a foot when I took
possession of my room. I did a little weeding before bringing in my
steamer trunk, and depositing it in the clearing which I had made, that
night I slept on it, escaping the crawling creatures which lived in the
bed, and which would have had to risk being lost in the forest on the
floor in order to reach me. The mosquitoes, however, were appalling.
Mr. Soresby, the American consul, was very kind to me, and gave me a
good deal of friendly advice for which I was very grateful. Many were
the traps awaiting the young, unwary traveller from the North. On my
second evening in the town, he took me out to see the places of

amusement, demonstrating among other things his skill at the wheel of
fortune. In a very few minutes he broke the bank for twenty thousand
Colombian pesos. To the proprietor, who came and begged him to lend
him half the money to re-start the wheel, he put a leading question:
"Would you," he asked, "have given me back half my money if I had
lost a fortune to you?"
Next day I was glad enough to board the S.S. Santiago of the Pacific
Mail Line, and see the last of Panama as we sailed for Guayaquil. After
forty-eight hours' sailing, we arrived at our destination.
There were two outstanding features of the chief port of Ecuador which,
I think, deserve mention; the sewage system, and the "Admiral." Mr.
Dillard, the American consul, described to me the former as I was not
staying long enough in the town to see it for myself, due to the
prevalence of yellow fever and bubonic plague, and introduced me to
the latter.
The refuse of all kinds, instead of being carried away in drains, was
thrown out of the upper windows of the houses on to the roofs of
passing tram-cars which were surrounded by a special boarding a foot
high. A fair proportion hit its mark. When the car arrived at the
outskirts of the town, the deck-cargo was dumped by the conductor. A
leak in the roof of one of those cars must have been a serious matter.
This system must be unique in all the world.
We met the "Admiral" in a tavern, from which he had just ejected
everyone else with the aid of a table-leg which he still grasped when we
entered. His name was Brown, and he was from Pittsburg. He was the
navigating officer, chief gunner, and engineer of the Ecuadorian fleet,
which was lying at that moment under repair in the harbour of
Guayaquil. The fleet was composed of a couple of gun-boats, known to
the English-speaking residents as the Espere un poco and the Pasada
ma–ana.
From Guayaquil I went up the Guayas, a tidal river, to Bodegas, the
greatest cacao-collecting station in the world. It lies about eighty miles

from the port of Guayaquil. Never have I seen such enormous numbers
of alligators as those which lived along that river. The water seemed to
be composed of mud and alligators. The mud-bars were almost eclipsed
by them. We ran over them and into them all the time.
Thus it happened that just two and a half years from the day on which I
had been driven in state to Schenectady station, I was met by my friend
C—rdovez on the wharf