Chapter II: Foreword

When I made up my mind to go to Panama, I could find no guide book. I had to depend for information upon the advertising matter of the United Fruit Company, and upon the experience of a friend who had spent a few days there on business and who had seen nothing but swamps, rusty machinery, polyglot politicians and gesticulating foreigners. I had no conception of what I was coming to, and had to be content with the reflection that he who has no books must learn by experience. On the other hand, it occurred to me that by recording the main facts and mental impressions of my trip, I might take the reader with me in spirit and impart to him such knowledge as would be of use to him if he went there, and of interest if he stayed at home, for he who has no experience must learn from books.

As a physician attending the Pan-American Medical Congress, I felt that I was not competent to give the accurate general information sometimes found in guide books, and that I should be more concerned with climate and disease than the average writer; but on the other hand I hoped that, since my viewpoint would differ somewhat from that of the general run of writers, my impressions might not be unworthy of record, and might contribute in their way to a better understanding of the country and its customs.

Some readers will think that the book is too full of appetizers and nightcaps, of diet and _donnerwetter_, and they will be right. But this is so because the narrative is honest and describes what was seen and felt instead of what ought to have been, or might have been, seen and felt. The busy majority care more about what was than what ought to have been. What was is truth; what ought to have been is fiction, and the worst kind.

Many readers will conclude to wait until the United States has finished the reconstruction of the climate and country before going there, and will agree with me in saying that traveling in the tropics, like eating and sleeping, should be done at home. Indeed, the absurdity of the notion that it is necessary to leave home in order to study a guide book, should be taught to our travel-stricken public. Quarantine, yellow fever, yellow jaundice, black water fever, white swelling, elephantiasis, ague, anemia, neurasthenia, berri-berri, leprosy, dengue, dropsy, dysentery, drinking habits, and dozens of other dread diseases and denouements lie in wait in the tropics. The romance of these things does not consist in exposing oneself to them, but in letting others do it, and of reading about it afterward.

PART I

TO PANAMA