16 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



\ 



UNDER THE AWN IXC 



Photograph by Ralph Stock 

 AT LAS PALMAS. CANARY ISLANDS 



Buttons come off, rents occur in clothing, and holes in socks, even 

 aboard a Dream Ship. Peter proves as handy with needle and 

 thread as with frying-pan and tiller-rope. 



was overwhelming, but that — Nothing 

 made any difference. 



Somehow we found ourselves in a car, 

 the chief operator's first car, that he had 

 learnt to drive during the dinner hour 

 the previous day. 



Out into the moonlight we sped, or 

 rather zigzagged at the rate of forty 

 miles an hour, while between Peter and 

 myself a youth named Hill — I shall never 

 forget Bill — kept up a running flow of 

 informative rhetoric. 



"On the left we have the famous 

 Isthmus of Panama, intersected by the 

 still more famous Panama Canal — a 

 miraele of modern engineering, as it has 



ot 



been aptly termed 

 (see leaflets). Fear 

 not, lady" (this is an 

 aside to Peter), "the 

 man at the wheel val- 

 ues his life as much 

 as yours, perhaps 

 more. 



"And now w r e ap- 

 proach the historic 

 city of Panama, pass- 

 ing on our left the 

 Union Club, other- 

 wise known as the 

 Onion Club, fre- 

 quented solely by the 

 nobility and gentry of 

 the neighborhood. 



"A n d o n the 

 right—" 



On the right was 

 the blazing portico of 

 a cabaret, and the car 

 had come to a jarring 

 full stop. 



In vain we pleaded 

 our costume, the hour 

 of night, the utter 

 degradation of expos- 

 ing ourselves to the 

 public gaze in such a 

 condition. We liter- 

 ally found ourselves 

 at a table drinking 

 imitation lager beer 

 and grape juice and 

 listening to raucous- 

 voiced, imported la- 

 dies rendering washy 

 ballads to the accom- 

 tinkling ice and tobacco 



pamment 

 smoke. 



It all sounds sordid enough, but it was 

 vastly amusing to sea-weary wanderers, 

 and will remain with us a memory of 

 kindness and good-fellowship. 



Today we lie at anchor off Balboa, in 

 the Pacific Ocean. We have come far 

 and hope to go a great deal farther. To 

 do so we have come to the conclusion it 

 will be necessary to make some money. 



I low? Well, we have a ship; a group 

 of pearling islands lies thirty miles to the 

 westward, and — but of this anon. 



A strange life, my masters, but one 

 that I would not exchange with any man. 



