Then beyond, the curving bay, half seen, half guessed,
with its long promontory dying away into the hazy moonlit
distance, lighted up here and there by bush fires in the jungled
hills. Some way out winked the cluster of lights that marked Las
Sabanas. In front, the placid Pacific, the "South Sea" of the
Spaniards, spread dimly away into the void of night, its several
islands seen only by the darker darkness that marked where they
lay.
On the other side of the hill the rumble of cranes and night labor
came up from Balboa dock. There, began the canal, which the eye
could follow away into the dim hilly inland distance--and come
upon a great cluster of lights that was Corozal, then another
group that was Miraflores, close followed by those of Pedro
Miguel; and yet further, rising to such height as to be almost
indistinguishable from the lower stars the lights of the negro
cabins of upper Paraiso twinkled dimly above a broad glow that was
Paraiso itself. There the vista ended. For at Paraiso the canal
turns to the left for its plunge through Culebra hill, and all
that follows,--Empire, Cascadas, and far Gatun, was visible only
in the imagination.
If only the film of time might roll back and there pass again
before our eyes all that has come to pass within sight of Ancon
hilltop. Across the bay there, where now are only jungle-tangled
ruins, Pizarro set out with his handful of vagabonds to conquer
South America; there old Buccaneer Morgan laid his bloody hand.
Pages:
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210