But the Martiniquians are not alone in possessing extraordinary names. I remember looking through the register, kept in an official’s office in one of the West Indian islands, and was amazed at the extraordinary names written in it. I asked how it was possible for such inappropriate appellations to have been selected by negroes who surely could hardly have seen them before. The official produced a large old-fashioned dictionary, and explained that when parties came to register the birth of a child and were at a loss for a name, he would read out a list of long words, the most unsuitable of which was sure to be selected by the parents, regardless of absurdity. Fancy a small black child with little clothing or dignity having to support such a name as “Bathybius Johnston.” Luckily, the registered name is forgotten in a day or two, and unless a copy is written out the child usually grows up accustomed to hear itself called by some commonplace and familiar nickname. During the year 1906-7 there were over twenty-four thousand labourers employed upon the isthmus by the Canal Commission, and most of these were imported from the neighbouring West Indian Islands and Italy and Spain, as it was found difficult to obtain the necessary labour from among the natives. The country life of Panama is simple, and it requires little effort to supply the necessities of life. The poorer classes of Panamanians who dwell in the country are a mixture of Spanish, Indians, and negroes--all living a more or less primitive life. Marriages are very rare amongst this class, for the women prefer to remain independent of their mates, dreading the ill treatment which is usually meted out by the lords of creation to wives who cannot escape from their bondage. The more common form of family life is one in which the man and woman form a partnership, which can easily be terminated by mutual agreement, and when a parting occurs a division of the household belongings and assets takes place even down to the children. Their houses are of the simplest construction, consisting of a few trees stuck into the ground roofed over with palm or other suitable leaves. Some of the huts constructed in this manner have an extra room in the roof, which is approached by a roughly constructed ladder. The sides or walls of the huts are made of bamboo split and woven into a kind of rough matting, although some have walls made of the bamboos placed side by side, the intervening spaces being filled in with clay. Partitions devised in the same way are made inside some of the dwellings. As one would imagine, the furniture contained in most of these houses is of the simplest and most elementary description.