Then
this ceased, and a far steeper trail zigzagged up the face of the
bare mountain, covered only with thin dead grass. The setting sun
cast its shadow obliquely across the summit when I reached it,--a
long ridge, with groves of trees, running off abruptly toward the
sea. On the opposite side Uncle Sam was cutting away a whole side
of the hill. But the five o'clock whistle had blown, and whole
armies of little workmen swarmed across all the landscape far
below, and silence soon settled down save for the dredges at
Balboa that chug on through the night. But for myself the hill was
wholly unpeopled. A sturdy ocean breeze swept steadily across it.
The sinking sun set the jungle afire in a spot that would have
startled those who do not know that it rises in the Pacific at
Panama, crude, glaring colors glowed, fading to gentler and more
delicate tints, then the evening shadow that had climbed the hill
with me spread like a great black veil over all the world.
But the moon nearing its full followed almost on the heels of the
setting sun and, casting its half-day over a scene rich in nature
and history, invited the eye to swing clear round the hazy circle.
Below lay Panama dully rumbling with night traffic. Silent Ancon,
still better lighted, cuddled upon the lower skirts of the hill
itself.
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