Nevertheless the Americans are hated. They are hated for the commissary system. The French took no such step to protect their workers from the rapacity of Panama and Colon shopkeepers, and they are still talking of the time of the French richness. They hate us because we cleaned their towns and are keeping them clean--not perhaps because they actually prefer the old filth and fatalities, but because their correction implies that they were not altogether perfect before we came. For the strongest quality of the Panamanian is his pride, and it is precisely that sentiment which we North Americans have either wantonly or necessarily outraged. [Illustration: MARRIAGE IS AN AFFAIR OF SOME POMP] Without pretension to intimate acquaintance with Panamanian home life I may state confidently that this attitude toward the Yankees is practically universal. The ordinary demeanor of the native when accosted is sulky, even insolent. The shop-keeper, unless he be a Chinese, as most of the better ones are, makes a sale as if he were indifferent to your patronage, and throws you the finished bundle as though he were tossing a bone to a dog. One Sunday morning, viewing the lottery drawing at the Archbishop’s palace, I saw a well-dressed Panamanian, apparently of the better class, roused to such wrath by a polite request that he remove his hat to give a lady a better view, that one might have thought the best blood of all Castile had been enraged by some deadly insult. [Illustration: THE MANLY ART IN THE TROPICS] [Illustration: _Photo by Underwood & Underwood_ A GROUP OF NATIONAL POLICE]