BY GEORGE A. MILLER Illustrated by ALICE AND A. W. BEST From Photographs by the Author...

Copyright, 1919, by GEORGE A. MILLER DEDICATED TO THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF THE EPWORTH LEAGUES OF THE CALIFORNIA CONFERENCE...

The fine art of prowling may be achieved, but is more often a gift of those to the manner born. Professional globe-trotters are not prowlers. They are often the victims of their own sense of superiority. Personally conducted tours are little help to real prowling, and professional guides reduce the sight-seer to a machine for receiving "canned" information with gaping mouth, while with his free hand he extracts tips from his reluctant pocket. Prowling is an instinct, a sixth sense of locations a

Panama is the great American curiosity shop. The first city founded by explorers in the New World, the oldest town in America inhabited by white men, the most conglomerate mixture of humanity on earth are in Panama. The bloodiest tale of modern history, the most romantic story of American exploration, the greatest engineering achievement of man all center in Panama. If there be any interest in congested and sweltering humanity, any concern for the problems of social uplift and personal reaction,

The present conglomerate of humanity living on the Isthmus of Panama is the racial remainder of some very much mixed social history. Here were enacted some of the most stirring stories and tempestuous times in American history. In 1453 the Eastern Roman Empire fell before the assaults of the Turks and closed the land routes to India. Nearly forty years later Columbus set sail in his great effort to find a westward passage for the commerce of Europe. In this he failed, but on his fourth and final

A Panamanian cart loaded with English tea biscuit, drawn by an old American army mule, driven by a Hindoo wearing a turban, drove up in front of a Chinese shop. The Jamaican clerk, aided by the San Blas errand boy, came out to supervise the unloading. The mule wriggled about out of position, a Spanish policeman came along and everybody got out and "cussed" the mule. That is Panama, every day. Across the street is an Italian lace shop run by a Jew. Next door is a printery, operated by a Costa Ric

No one has ever satisfactorily explained the existence of ghosts in an enlightened world, but I have a theory that they survive because they render a real service. They lend interest to life and at least keep us from forgetting the super (or sub) natural. Likewise ruins have high value as a link with the past, and with neither ruins nor ghosts life would become a very flat affair. And if ever a spot, by history, tradition, situation, and present condition, was marked for rendezvous purposes by a

What the desert is to Arizona and the ice to Alaska the jungle is to tropical America. He who has never traveled through a tropical jungle on a trusty mule has missed something out of his life. He should go back and begin over again. The jungle is much maligned and often misinterpreted. The jungle has a place in the agricultural life of the tropics, but it has also a place in the æsthetic and moral life of mankind. Here at last there is room, and the starved and stunted life may relax its strugg

"Forty years ago I took a bath, and the next day I felt chilly, and then—" "Never mind forty years ago. What is the matter this morning, and why have you come to me for medicine?" chants the seasoned employer of plantation labor. "That is what I was telling you, señor. Forty years ago I took a bath, and the next day I felt chilly, and then I thought that I had made a mistake, and so I went—" "Now, see here. I have no interest nor curiosity about forty years ago. What is the matter with you now?"

We had reached the town of Anton the day before, and I had sent the guide back with the horses and purposed to make my way alone. The morning was fresh and balmy, as befitted the dry season, even if a night spent on an antiquated cot in a room next to that occupied by a man with a racking cough and a rooster with a clarion voice, were not a perfect repose. The rapport between the fowl and the afflicted was complete: when one of them broke the silence, the other immediately took up the refrain. A

If it is true that South America is the victim of a bad start, it may also be said that Panama is the net result of a continuous and consistent follow-up campaign of wholesale demoralization through a long period of years. Beginnings are apt to be determinative, and when reenforced by continuous applications of similar influences, are sure to set a stamp on a long period of civilization. Three centuries of rule or misrule make a considerable impression on any people. There is something more than

The coat of arms of the Republic of Panama bears the inscription, "The repudiation of war and homage to the arts which flourish in peace and labor." Under the existing treaty with the United States the first part of this excellent motto is guaranteed. Panama is a providential Republic and presents some of the finest possibilities of the American tropics. The educated Panamanians have not been slow to proclaim these rich resources, but no large advance has been realized yet. The government of Pan

Whatever the cause or results, the fact stands that we are not well acquainted with our nearest national neighbors. Like the modern city-dweller, we know least about those who live nearest. The North American knows more about the other side of the world than he does about those who live on the same continent with him. Neither the North American nor his southern neighbor has treated the other fairly. Many of us have not yet discovered that there be any Latin-American. Some one lives south of the

When came this Latin-American? Is he a mystery, a complex, or a racial conundrum defying analysis and baffling understanding? So many people have said. Others have reported a something impossible to name or describe about this man from the southlands—all of which is nonsense. There are few human mysteries when once we have the key. Any people may be understood if we know their racial origin, social history, and reaction-power. Such knowledge usually explains these so-called race peculiarities. A

Much misunderstanding has been due to faulty methods of approach to our southern neighbor. Political diplomacy, commercial competition, and military displays will never get to the core of this international apple. The Latin-American is a man of heart, and until we recognize this fact we shall fail to understand him. Sympathy and courtesy will avail more than battleships and boycotts. This man is a born diplomat and has high intellectual development, but the deep and dominant motives of his life

Readers of Robinson Crusoe associate the Caribbean Sea with piracy and rum, but usually have few other ideas on the subject. Most people of the United States have scarcely so much as heard that there be any Caribbean world except that it is somewhere in the tropics. To be sure, the Caribbean Sea has a way of impressing itself upon those who sail its troubled tides. Perhaps the shades of the villains who used to cross these waters on their murderous expeditions still linger to raise the adverse w

Probably most pilgrims to Panama think of the Canal as the outstanding feature of the American tropics, and in one way such it is. The traveler will probably want to see the Canal first, and he will find it well worthy of preferential position. The story of construction days and engineering problems has been ably told elsewhere and does not belong here. Every intelligent traveler will secure some good account of the work and read it as something that every man should know. It is the romance de l

Many prophets have taken in hand to tell us what the Panama Canal is to bring forth in its commercial, social, political, geographical, and educational results for the world. Probably no world-event has ever had so much advance advertising as this much written-up achievement. Great as is the Canal, it came near being out-*shone in brilliancy by the publicity material sent out by journalists who found the subject to be profitable copy. In the main, the prophets were right. The world war postponed