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THE RANK, LUSH GROWTH OF THE JUNGLE

I think that anyone who visited the Canal Zone during the latter years of construction work will have carried away with him a very pleasant and lively recollection of a social life and hospitality that was quite ideal. The official centers at Culebra and Ancon, the quarters of the army at Camp Otis and the navy and marine corps at Camp Elliott were ever ready to entertain the visitor from the states and his enjoyment was necessarily tinged with regret that the charming homes thrown open to him were but ephemeral, and that the passage of the first ship through the canal would mark the beginning of their dismantling and abandonment. The practiced traveler in every clime will find this eagerness of those who hold national outposts, whether ours in the Philippines, or the British in India and Hong Kong, to extend the glad hand of welcome to one from home, but nowhere have I found it so thoroughly the custom as on the Canal Zone. No American need fear loneliness who goes there.