Panama and the canal in picture and prose .. . onders, but he who hashad no such preparation will stand amazed beforethe barbaric wealth of hues which blaze forth fromthese precipitous walls. Reds predominate—red ofas deep a crimson as though Mother Earths bosomthus cruelly slashed and scarred was giving up itsvery lifes blood; red shading into orange, tropical,hot, riotous, pulsing like the life of the old Isthmusthat is being carved away to make place for thenew; red, pale, pinkish, shading down almost torose color as delicate as the hue on a maidenscheek, typifying perhaps the first blush o
Panama and the canal in picture and prose .. . onders, but he who hashad no such preparation will stand amazed beforethe barbaric wealth of hues which blaze forth fromthese precipitous walls. Reds predominate—red ofas deep a crimson as though Mother Earths bosomthus cruelly slashed and scarred was giving up itsvery lifes blood; red shading into orange, tropical,hot, riotous, pulsing like the life of the old Isthmusthat is being carved away to make place for thenew; red, pale, pinkish, shading down almost torose color as delicate as the hue on a maidenscheek, typifying perhaps the first blush of the bridein the wedding of the Atlantic to the Pacific. Yel-low too from the brightest orange to the palestochre, and blue from the shade of indigo which Co-lumbus hoped to bring across this very Isthmusfrom the bazaars of Cathay; purple as royal asFerdinand and Isabella ever wore, or the palershades of the tropic sky are there. As you lookupon the dazzling array strung out before you formiles you may reflect that imbedded in those parti-. BROW OF GOLD HILL, CULEBRA CUT 212 PANAMA AND THE CANAL colored rocks and clays are semi-precious stones ofvaried shades and sorts—beryls, moss agates, blood-stones, moonstones which the workmen pick upand sell to rude lapidaries who cut and sell them totourists. But in all this colossal tearing up of theearths surface there has been found none of the goldfor which the first white men lusted, nor any preciousstone or useful mineral whatsoever. Again I looked on the Cut from above one morn-ing before the breeze that blows across the Isthmusfrom nine oclock in the morning until sundown,had driven out of it the mists of early dawn. Fromunseen depths filled with billowy vapor rose theclatter of strenuous toil by men and machines, soft-ened somewhat by the fleecy material through whichthey penetrated. Of the workers no sign appeareduntil the growing heat of the sun and the fresheningbreeze began to sweep the Cut clear in its higherreaches, a
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Keywords: ., bookauthorabbotwil, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookyear1913
