Head Hunters of the Amazon | Page 4

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�Cana.
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 of Bodegas.
And so began my seven years wanderings in South America.
* * *
CHAPTER II
A LAND OF OPPORTUNITY
Mules-- Cacao-- La Delicia-- My first trail-- Rum-- A first-class road-- The C��rdovez Family-- Easy money-- Salinas-- Chimborazo-- A window-dresser-- An industrial revolution-- I retire from business.
IN Ecuador, from the Andes to the Pacific, the