The constant music of insect life sounded in my
ears; everywhere were flowers of brilliant hue, masses of bush
blossoms not unlike the lilac in appearance, but like all down on
the Isthmus, odorless--or rather with a pungent scent, like strong
catsup.
Four months earlier I should have been chary of diving back into
the Panamanian "bush" alone, above all on a criminal hunt. But it
needs only a little time on the Zone to make one laugh at the
absurd stories of danger from the bush native that are even yet
appearing in many U. S. papers. They are not over friendly to
whites, it is true. But they were all of that familiar languid
Central American type, blinking at me apathetically out of the
shade of their huts, crowding to one edge of the trail as I
passed, eying me silently, a bit morosely, somewhat frightened
because their experience of Americans is of a discourteous
creature who shouts at them in a strange tongue and swears at them
because they do not understand it. The moment they heard their own
customary greetings they changed to children delighted to do
anything to oblige--even to the extent of dragging their indolent
forms erect to lead the way a quarter-mile through the bush to
some isolated shack. Far from contemplating any injury, all these
wayward children of the jungle ask is to be let alone to drift
through life in their own way.
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