Late in the afternoon you can see many of them astride prancing steeds, neat, round-bellied little animals, with finely-arched necks, tapering legs clattering along the newly paved streets, their small feet making a strange music like castanets. The saddles used are of the Mexican type, and the large leathern protections which surround the front portion of the stirrups give the riders a somewhat grotesque appearance. About the same hour a continuous procession of carriages drives along the Savannah road, many of them of smart appearance. The black coachmen are all more or less disfigured with tall, shining hats and brass-buttoned coats, but the occupants reclining behind them look beautiful and cool in bright-coloured gowns of amazing cuts. There are only two roads leading out of Panama over which carriages can pass, and consequently the drivers in the neighbourhood of the city are limited to them. One of these--that leading to Balboa--passes the cemeteries of the city. Until very recently a custom obtained in Panama with regard to the burial of the dead which was so repellent it is almost incredible that it could have existed even in a savage country. A concession was granted by the Government to one of its prominent citizens who let out graves on lease and collected rents from the relatives. Should they fall in arrears with the rent, the stony-hearted concessioner had little compunction in ordering his men to remove the remains from the vault in which they rested, and cast them into a waste bit of ground near by. Other cemeteries separated by walls from one another are provided for the interment of different religious bodies. Jews, Mohammedans, Chinese, Roman Catholics, and Protestants are each buried among their co-religionists. The United States Government, with a sentimental regard for the feelings of its citizens, has, through the Canal Commission, made a rule that, should any citizen of the United States in the employ of the Commission die while on the isthmus, his body shall be embalmed and conveyed at the Government’s expense to any part of the United States that the relatives may desire. That a reform of the burial system in Panama from a sanitary point of view was necessary and should have impressed itself upon the health authorities is not to be wondered at, but it only could have been brought about in this instance by the United States having full power over the health and sanitation of the country which adjoins their strip of territory. In the country districts there are, of course, no special burial grounds, but the small wooden crosses and cairns that are scattered up and down serve to mark the spots chosen for the interment of the dead.