ACROSS THE EQUATOR WITH THE AMERICAN NAVY 



593 



Photograph by H. G. Cornthwaite 



THK GATUN SPILLWAY WITH TWO GATES OPEN, DISCHARGING WATER AT THE RATE 

 OE 20,000 CUBIC EEET PER SECOND : PANAMA CANAL 



The spillway regulates the height of the water in Gatun Lake and prevents it overflowing 

 during heavy tropical floods. At times six or more gates are opened at once to take care of 

 big floods. The illustration shows two of the gates open. 



the seductive Daiquiri. A boy grinds at 

 the ice-shaving machine in the rear. 

 Pablo and Toney barely have time to 

 make change. 



So it goes down the dingy, dusty, 

 sometimes flagrantly muddy street, with 

 its weird multitude of vicious odors. 

 Cubans look at the Americans with a 

 certain reservation. It is not the Cuban 

 temperament to hurry so over a handful 

 of drinks. Nor does the Cuban need to 

 Tiurry. Big negroes, with the strong 

 features of the Arab, look one squarely 

 in the eye. 



Here and there one sees a conical 

 thatch, which lends an air of distinction 

 to the sordid streets of one-story shanties 

 roofed with tin. 



On Sundays the cockfight lasts all day 

 long. The owners parade the streets 

 with their sleepy birds under their arms 

 and the laborers throng in from near-by 

 plantations in their newest clothes. 



SETTING SAIL EOR COLON 



Brightwork was shining and paint was 

 glistening when the fleet set sail for the 

 second leg of its long cruise to Peru. 



It was a different fleet entirely. The 

 rust of the winter had been rubbed off 

 ships and men alike. The next stop was 

 to be at Colon, at the Atlantic end of the 

 Panama Canal, where the Strangers' 

 Club opens its hospitable doors. 



Every writer of Central American fic- 

 tion has come here to gain color for his 

 narrative. Some have not gone beyond 

 it. Why, indeed, should they, when any 

 day the men drinking at the tables can 

 offer the story of adventures that are in- 

 credible and true? One hears of the col- 

 lege man who has turned savage and of 

 the lake that is paved with golden vessels 

 sunk in it to save them from the hands 

 of the Conquistadores 



But I temporarily abandoned the fleet 

 at Guantanamo in favor of the seaplanes. 

 The Atlantic flotilla of F. L. 5's had 

 hopped down the coast from Philadel- 

 phia and was on its way to the Panama 

 Canal. 



I made my temporary headquarters on 

 board the Shaivmut, the mother-ship of 

 the airboats. 



The Shawmut has not lost the habit of 

 rolling she acquired before the war. when 



