No power was sufficient to make
these mules step anywhere else. Each hole was full of muddy water. When
the mule inserted his hoof, water spurted out violently as though from a
squirt-gun. Walking was simply impossible.
All this was merely adventure for the young, strong, and healthy; but
the terrible part of the Panama Trail was the number of victims claimed
by cholera and fever. The climate and the unwonted labor brought to the
point of exhaustion men unaccustomed to such exertions. They lay flat by
the trail as though dead. Many actually did die either from the jungle
fever or the yellow-jack. The universal testimony of the times is that
this horseback journey seemed interminable; and many speak of being
immensely cheered when their Indian stopped, washed his feet in a
wayside mudhole, and put on his pantaloons. That indicated the
proximity, at last, of the city of Panama.
It was a quaint old place. The two-story wooden houses with corridor
and verandah across the face of the second story, painted in bright
colors, leaned crazily out across the streets. Narrow and mysterious
alleys led between them. Ancient cathedrals and churches stood gray with
age before the grass-grown plazas. In the outskirts were massive masonry
ruins of great buildings, convents, and colleges, some of which had
never been finished.
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