It was my
first entrance into the land of the panamenos, technically known
on the Zone as "Spigoties," and familiarly, with a tinge of
despite, as "Spigs"; because the first Americans to arrive in the
land found a few natives and cabmen who claimed to "Speaga dee
Eng-leesh."
To Americans direct from the States Panama city ranks still as
rather a miserable dawdling village. But that is due chiefly to
lack of perspective. Against the background of Central America it
seemed almost a great, certainly a flourishing, city. Even to-day
there are many who complain of its unpleasant odors; to those who
have lived in other tropical cities its scent is like the perfumes
of Araby; and none but those can in any degree realize what "Tio
Sam" has done for the place.
Toward sunset I passed through a gateway with scores of fellow-
countrymen, all as composedly at home as in the heart of their
native land. Across the platform stood a train distinctively
American in every feature, a bilious-yellow train divided by the
baggage car into two sections, of which the five second-class
coaches behind the engine, with their wooden benches, were densely
packed in every available space with workmen and laborer's wives,
from Spaniards to ebony negroes, with the average color decidedly
dark. In the first-class cars at the Panama end were Americans,
all but exclusively white Americans, with only here and there a
"Spigoty" with his long greased hair, his finger rings, and his
effeminate gestures, and even a negro or two.
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