ACROSS THE EQUATOR WITH THE AMERICAN NAVY 



603 



that some day they will be given a motor 

 that will never stop, and so they will be 

 absolved from the necessity of carrying 

 3. burdensome boat. 



old providence;, where it costs 

 nothing to live 



One wonders what the inhabitants of 

 Old Providence Island thought when the 

 seven remaining airboats of the flotilla 

 swooped down to wait for news of the 

 foundered plane. No airboat had ever 

 been seen before in that part of the 

 world. 



The crews perched in their tiny cock- 

 pits, unable to go ashore because of fleet 

 quarantine regulations, and looked long- 

 ingly at the land. 



Old Providence is four miles long and 

 eleven hundred feet high and everywhere 

 is a vivid green. Sometimes a little yawl 

 btrings mails and canned goods from 

 Colon. This does not often happen. 



"How much does it cost to live here?" 

 the flyers asked of the port official, who 

 was paddled in a dugout to give them 

 pratique. Over his head he held a yel- 

 low umbrella. In one hand he fitfully 

 agitated a small yellow flag. 



"Why, nothing," said he, puzzled. 



All day long the flyers sat in the shift- 

 ing shade of the upper wings, as their 

 planes bobbed on the placid water, and 

 smoked many angry cigarettes. 



But Old Providence did its best to en- 

 tertain them. The brown belles and 

 beaux paddled out to chat. Small, naked 

 boys did perfectly unbelievable feats of 

 swimming and diving for pennies. Large 

 family parties were rowed out in sturdy 

 boats. The most delicious oranges and 

 bananas the Americans had ever tasted 

 were offered at infinitesimal prices. But 

 of the romantic island of Old Providence 

 the flyers thought only as of a place in 

 which they had been marooned. 



"Gee," they reported. "We were glad 

 to get away." 



THE MARVEL OE THE CANAL TAKEN AS A 

 MATTER OE COURSE 



It is doubtful if Young America, as 

 represented 'tween decks, fully appre- 

 ciated the marvel of the Panama Canal 

 as the warships passed through its great 

 locks. They were immensely interested, 



of course. One could see the fighting 

 tops of the great ships white with sailors. 

 Their decks seemed to have been white- 

 washed, so thickly had the men gathered 

 to gaze overside at the electric mules and 

 the lock mechanisms (see page 592). 



But most of them had been fed for 

 the better part of their lives with stories 

 and pictures of the canal. They took 

 great achievements as a matter of course, 

 as all Americans do. Nothing seems im- 

 possible or even improbable to them. 



The boys commented wisely on the 

 various mechanical gadgets used in the 

 canal operation, but the thing that really 

 aroused their enthusiasm was the zone's 

 flylessness. 



This was within the range of their 

 every-day knowledge. Every boy born 

 on a farm or reared in a village knows 

 of the plague of flies and mosquitoes the 

 summer brings. All knew that the tropics 

 are the happy home of every bug that 

 flies or creeps. Yet they saw the Canal 

 Zone — this green ribbon which unites 

 the two oceans in the very heart of the 

 tropics — as clean and shaven and bugless 

 as though it had been painted on a back- 

 drop. 



For one question I heard about the 

 building or operation of the canal I heard 

 a dozen about the process of getting rid 

 of winged pests. 



"We're a pretty smart people at that," 

 was one boy's conclusion. "We can get 

 rid of them whenever we really want to." 



THE TWO ELEETS JOIN 



It was at Panama that the Pacific fleet 

 joined that from Atlantic waters, and 

 the combined fleets steamed for Pern 

 and Chile in company. 



The greater part of each day was oc- 

 cupied in what were called maneuvers, 

 but were really tactical exercises. The 

 purpose was to accustom the deck officers 

 of the various ships to work in concert. 



The spectacle of more than sixty ships 

 of war moving in harmony was a superb 

 one, but it was not until it was announced 

 that the fleets were to have night battle 

 practice that the real thrill came. That 

 night I was leaning over the port rail in 

 company with an officer. 



The night was one of soft blackness. 

 Not a star was reflected in the placid sur- 



