In one notable respect this Panama market differs from most open air affairs of the sort. The vendors make no personal effort to sell their goods. There is no appeal to passing buyers, no crying of wares, no “ballyhoo,” to employ the language of Coney Island. What chatter there is is chiefly among the buyers; the sellers sit silent by their wares and are more apt to receive a prospective customer sulkily than with alert eagerness. Indeed the prevalent condition of the Panamanian, so far as observable on the streets, seems to be a chronic case of sulks. Doubtless amongst his own kind he can be a merry dog, but in the presence of the despised “gringo” his demeanor is one of apathy, or contemptuous indifference. Perhaps what he was doing to the tuna and the iguana the day of our visit to the market was only what he would like to be doing to the northern invaders of his nondescript market place. If you view the subject fairly the Panamanian in the street is somewhat entitled to his view of the American invasion. Why should he be particularly pleased over the independence of Panama and the digging of the Canal? He got none of the ten million dollars, or of the $250,000 annual payment. That went to his superiors who planned the “revolution” and told him about it when it was all over. The influx of Americans brought him no particular prosperity, unless he drove a hack. They lived in Commission houses and bought all their goods in their own commissary. It was true they cleaned up his town, but he was used to the dirt and the fumes of fumigation made him sneeze. Doubtless there was no more yellow fever, but he was immune to that anyway. [Illustration: POTTERY VENDORS NEAR THE PANAMA CITY MARKET] But way down in the bottom of his heart the real unexpressed reason for the dislike of the mass of Panamanians for our people is their resentment at our hardly concealed contempt for them. Toward the more prosperous Panamanian of social station this contempt is less manifested, and he accordingly shows less of the dislike for Americans that is too evident among the masses of the people. But as for the casual clerk or mechanic we Americans call him “spiggotty” with frank contempt for his undersize, his lack of education and for his large proportion of negro blood. And the lower class Panamanian smarting under the contemptuous epithet retorts by calling the North Americans “gringoes” and hating them with a deep, malevolent rancor that needs only a fit occasion to blaze forth in riot and in massacre.