The plains referred to are cut by numerous mountain streams running at steep grade to sea level, and then becoming in general deep and sometimes broad estuaries. In this way were formed the Bay of San Miguel in which a navy could anchor, Montijo Bay, Almirante Bay, Uraba Gulf, and the estuary at the mouth of the Bayano River. The great number of streams with tidal Water Trans- mouths afford a cheap method of transportaportation. tion. Ships drawing ten feet of water can enter a dozen bays on the Pacific side at high tide, but it is usually necessary to leave at once or wait for another high tide, because at each river mouth are sand bars that can not be crossed except at high tide. On the Atlantic coast the tide has a maximum difference of only 2 feet, and the bays or river mouths are less dependent upon it. Almirante, Limon, Porto Bello, San Cristobal, Mandinga, and Calidonia Bays can be entered at all times by light draft vessels. Many of the rivers on both sides are navigable for coasting steamers for several miles inland, and the Tuyra takes 8-foot vessels inland a distance of 60 miles or more.

The National Transportation Company of Panama runs light draft vessels along the Pacific coast of the Republic making weekly calls at important ports between David and Panama, and Panama and the Gulf of San Miguel. The more important plantation companies and pearl fishers own their own sloops or launches.

On the Atlantic side one must charter a launch, or take his chances on one of the sloops or launches that are run by private traders. Tugs of the Canal Commission make daily trips to Porto Bello, and the United Fruit ships run weekly to Bocas del Toro.

Population.

The population by provinces in 1911, not including the Canal Zone, was as follows:

MALE.

FEMALE.

Cities or Towns.

Total.

White Mestizo Negro Mongol Indian White Mestiza Negro Mongol Indian

In discussing the population the author of the book on Panama in "Porter's Progress of the Nations" series, writes the following, to which should be added the analysis by Sosa and Arce, to be found on pagẹ 121:

The white population is composed of two elements-caucasians and semites forming one, and morenos forming the other. The

Racial, Climatic, National Influences

morenos predominate at least 20 to 1. Yet the statement that there are no absolutely white native people—that is, caucasian or semite unmixed with negro or Indians, in Panama, is erroneous. There are at least a hundred families, not alien to the country, that are white. The morenos are a mixture of white and black, white and Indian, or white and black and Indian. They are among the leading people in education, heredity, physical, and financial fitness.

on People.

The white population also includes a foreign colony of about a thousand people all told, including men on ranches and in business in various parts of the Republic. These isolated white men often marry native women and thus help to perpetuate the moreno element in the population.

The blacks or negroes are of two classes-the descendants of the native slaves, who probably have some white and Indian blood; and the blacks brought to the isthmus by the construction of the Panama Railroad in 1850 and the canal work. Considering their background they compare very favorably with the whites. In general, their status is still that of the laborer, but some of them have emerged into the artisan and professional classes.

Strongly influencing the lives of the whites and blacks in Panama are the climate and the economic inheritances from Spain and from the trading life of the isthmus. The climate is distinctly enervating. This is true, notwithstanding that the terrors of plague, yellow fever, and malaria are no longer felt on the isthmus. The days are hot and the nights cool, and they are much alike the year around, no great variations occurring as they do in the temperate zones, or in countries where one may go to the mountains for cold weather. Life slips along quietly and without much effort for existence. As a result, one becomes listless. Americans on the canal work are not worth more than half as much as workers after two years on the isthmus as they were upon their arrival.

The economic inheritance from Spain is the attitude that manual work is degrading. This is still the attitude of the young men of the ruling class in Panama, and of course it is not confined to Panama. But it is all right to engage in trade. The isthmian people are traders, and have always been. This penchant for trade only adds to the inherited disgust for actual work, and here alone is sufficient answer to the often-asked question, "Why is Panama still a virgin field for development after four hundred years of caucasian rule?'

For a brief account in English of the Indians of Panama, the reader is referred to the report of the Smithsonian Institution of 1909, in which Eleanor Yorke Indians in Bell has a five-thousand-word monograph Tribal State. on this subject, together with a bibliography. The census of 1911 estimates the number of those living in tribal government at 36,178, divided as follows:

The Indians of Colon and Panama (the Darien Section) are supposed to be of one family (Cuna), although divided into a half dozen tribes, the most powerful, because most united, being the San Blas of the Caribbean coast. The tribes along the Tuyra and Chucunaque Rivers are less consolidated but share with the San Blas their habit of exclusiveness. On the map of Panama on page 104, the region held by the Indians from which they exclude white men and negroes is indicated.

They inhabit the Caribbean coast from Mandinga Bay to the Gulf of Uraba and from the coast to the headwaters of the streams that flow into the Atlantic. Nominally they are subject to Panama, but like the Indians in tribal state in the United States they pay no taxes, and have their own form of government. They know that the white man would come into their country only to exploit them, and they therefore keep him out. It is not probable that they could or would offer much resistance to an armed force of a thousand men, but they are able to scare away prospectors and the like, and thus, by preventing the white men from makming claims on them or their land, they avoid any excuse for trouble. From early days they have been able to keep their women free from contamination by contact with white men, and to-day they will not permit a white man to sleep in their country if they can readily get him out of it by sunset. Yet these are not hostile Indians. They trade with the whites (practically all the coconuts of Panama are from their groves), sail their canoes down to Colon, where they sell and buy, and are on friendly terms in general with white men. Only they just won't mix up with them beyond a certain point, just as one might be glad to trade with a fellow white

man and yet not care to eat with him. In their tribal state they live in towns of well-built bamboo and thatched houses; raise corn, yams, oranges, and other vegetables and fruits; make articles of wicker ware; and weave a cloth of coarse grass.

These were the first Indians the Europeans met in Panama. Balboa got along very well with them, but his brutal followers alienated their support. They resisted all efforts of the Spainards to colonize in their country until 1637, when their principal chiefs entered into a treaty of peace with the authorities in Panama, as a result of which the outposts of Pinogana on the Tuyra, Yaviza on the Chucunaque, and Tacarcuna at the headwaters of the Pucro, were founded. No substantial progress has ever been made in colonizing between the Chucunaque River and the Caribbean coast, however. The white men held the country on the south side of the divide with little difficulty, working the mines at Cana by negro slaves, until 1728, when a mestizo, Luis Garcia, led them in a revolt that was not crushed until after they had sacked all the towns of the Darien and massacred the inhabitants. Until 1741 the Indians of Darien were at war with the Spaniards, and then they made peace, the Spaniards returning to the mines and the fields. This peace was only with the tribes south of the mountains, however, and even among them there were many hostile families. A few years after peace was made the Jesuits attempted to evangelize in the Darien, but few Indians would listen to them. One kind or another of missionary has been at them ever since, but they'd rather not, thank ycu, save their souls at the cost of their lands.

The Indians of Chiriqui and Veraguas are said to be of two distinct families,-Doracho-Changuina, and Guaymi. The former inhabit the mountains near the Costa Rica border, and have little power. The latter make their homes in the mountains of Veraguas and eastern Chiriqui, and, although they trade with the whites, exclude them from their territory. Bell quotes Valdes as saying:

"The Guaymies live in groups for the most part in the high Valle de Miranda in the Cordillera of Veraguas, cut off from communication with the plains by defiles difficult of access. They have retained their independence, having warded off invasions of both blacks and whites; who can not penetrate their land without permission of the powerful chief. Some families seem to be descended from those