Читать книгу Panama and the Canal in Picture and Prose онлайн

31 страница из 85

But the picturesqueness of Colon does not long survive a closer approach. The white houses are seen to be mere frame buildings of the lightest construction which along the seafront stand out over the water on stilts. No building of any distinction meets the eye, unless it be the new Washington Hotel, a good bit of Moorish architecture, owned and conducted by the Panama Railroad which in turn is owned by the United States. The activities of Uncle Sam as a hotel keeper on the Isthmus will be worth further attention.

COLON IN 1884

The author counted twelve ocean liners one day at the docks now standing at this spot

As we warp into the dock we observe that Colon is a seaport of some importance already. The day I reached there last I counted six British, two German, one French and three American steamships. The preponderance of British flags was the first thing to catch the eye; and somehow the feeling that, except for the Royal Mail ship, all the vessels over which they were waving were owned by American capital was not a little humiliating. It is quite probable that in the course of the year every foreign flag appears at Cristobal-Colon, for the ocean tramp ships are ever coming and going. In time, too, the docks, which are now rather rickety, will be worthy of the port, for the government is building modern and massive docks on the Cristobal side of the line.