But
in compensation they will see some wondrous jungle scenery,--a
tangled tropical wilderness with great masses of bush flowers of
brilliant hues, gigantic ferns, countless palm and banana trees,
wonderfully slender arrow-straight trees rising smooth and
branchless more than a hundred feet to end in an immense bouquet
of brilliant purplish-hue blossoms.
"The boss" barely noticed these things. One quickly grows
accustomed to them. Why, Americans who have been down on the Zone
for a year don't know there's a palm-tree on the Isthmus--or at
least they do not remember there were no palm-trees in Keokuk,
Iowa, when they left there.
Along this new-graveled line, still unused except by work-trains,
we rode in our six negro-power car, dropping off in the gravel
each time we caught sight of any species of human being. Every
little way was a gang, averaging some thirty men, distinct in
nationality,--Antiguans shoveling gravel, Martiniques snarling and
quarreling as they wallowed thigh-deep in swamps and pools, a
company of Greeks unloading train-loads of ties, Spaniards
leisurely but steadily grading and surfacing, track bands of
"Spigoties" chopping away the aggressive jungle with their
machetes--the one task at which the native Panamanian (or
Colombian, as many still call themselves) is worth his brass-
check.
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