This is one of the more distant stations, being ten or more miles outside the Canal Zone] [Illustration: A LIGHT HOUSE IN THE JUNGLE] I saw the upper Chagres in the last days of its existence as a swirling stream full of rapids, rushing along a narrow channel between banks sometimes rising in limestone cliffs 60 feet high and capped by dense tropical foliage ascending perhaps as much higher into the blue tropical sky. The river was at its best and most picturesque as at the opening of the dry season we poled our way up from Matachin towards its source. Then Matachin was a hamlet of canal workers, and a weekly market for the natives who brought thither boat loads of oranges, bananas, yams and plantains. Sometimes they carried stranger cargoes. I heard a commission given one native to fetch down a young tiger for somebody who wanted to emulate Sarah Bernhardt in the choice of pets. Iguanas, the great edible lizard of Panama, young deer, and cages of parrots or paroquets occasionally appear. But as a market Matachin is doomed, for it is to be submerged. With it will go an interesting discussion of the etymology of its name, one party holding that it signifies “dead Chinamen” as being the spot where imported Chinese coolies died in throngs of homesickness during the construction of the Panama Railroad. But the word also means “butcher” in Spanish and some think it commemorates some massacre of the early days. However sanguinary its origin there will presently be water enough to wash out all the stains of blood. In 1913 the place was one of the principal zone villages, with large machine shops and a labor colony exceeding 1500 in number. All vanishes before the rising lake, which will be here a mile wide.