The natives, calm in the consciousness that
there was plenty of demand, refused to be hurried. Many of the
travelers, thinking that they had closed a bargain, returned from
sightseeing only to find their boat had disappeared. The only safe way
was to sit in the canoe until it actually started.
With luck they got off late in the afternoon, and made ten or twelve
miles to Gatun. The journey up the lazy tropical river was exciting and
interesting. The boatmen sang, the tropic forests came down to the banks
with their lilies, shrubs, mangoes, cocos, sycamores, palms; their
crimson, purple, and yellow blossoms; their bananas with torn leaves;
their butterflies and paroquets; their streamers and vines and scarlet
flowers. It was like a vision of fairyland.
Gatun was a collection of bamboo huts, inhabited mainly by fleas. One
traveler tells of attempting to write in his journal, and finding the
page covered with fleas before he had inscribed a dozen words. The gold
seekers slept in hammocks, suspended at such a height that the native
dogs found them most convenient back-scratchers. The fleas were not
inactive. On all sides the natives drank, sang, and played monte. It
generally rained at night, and the flimsy huts did little to keep out
the wet.
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