Here the peculiar personality of Col. Gorgas came into play. Had that gentleman not been a great health officer he would have made a notable diplomat, particularly in these new days when tact and charm of manner are considered more essential to an American diplomat than dollars. He went among the people of the two towns, argued, jollied and cajoled them until a work which it was thought might have to be accomplished at the point of the bayonet was finished with but little friction. The bayonet was always in the background, however, for the treaty gives the United States unqualified authority to enforce its sanitary ordinances in the cities of Colon and Panama. We can send a regiment if necessary to compel a man to keep his yard clean--which is perhaps more than we could do in some benighted towns of our own United States. The tone of the man in the street toward these American innovations is partly surly, partly jocular. In Panama he will show you a very considerable section of the town which is not yet fully rebuilt and insist that the fire which started it was caused by the “fool fumigators”. There is some difference of opinion as to the origin of this blaze, and the matter of damages is, as I write, in the hands of arbitrators, but the native opinion is solidly against the fumigating torch bearers. On the subject of the extermination of mosquitoes the native is always humorous. He will describe to you Col. Gorgas’s trained bloodhounds and Old Sleuths tracking the criminal _stegomyia_ to his lair; the corps of bearers of machetes and chloroform who follow to put an end to the malevolent mosquito’s days; the scientist with the high-powered microscope who examines the remains and, if he finds the deceased carried germs, the wide search made for individuals whom he may have bitten that they may be segregated and put under proper treatment. [Illustration: THE MOSQUITO CHLOROFORMER’S OUTFIT Used in tracking the criminal _stegomyia_ to his lair] In reality there is a certain humor in this scientific bug hunting. You are at afternoon tea with a hostess in one of the charming tropical houses which the Commission supplies to its workers. The eyes of your hostess suddenly become fixed in a terrified gaze. “Goodness gracious”! she exclaims, “look there”! “What? where”? you cry, bounding from your seat in excitement. Perhaps a blast has just boomed on the circumambient air and you have visions of a fifty-pound rock about to fly through the drawing-room window. Life on the Zone abounds in such incidents. [Illustration: _Photo by Dr. Orenstein_ THE MOSQUITO CHLOROFORMER AT WORK Once subdued by chloroform the mosquito is removed for analysis] “There”! dramatically. “That mosquito”! “I’ll swat it”, you cry valorously, remembering the slogan of “Swat the Fly” which breaks forth recurrently in our newspapers every spring, though they are quite calm and unperturbed about the places which breed flies faster than they can be swatted.