The rebuilding of Kingston, compelled by the earthquake, is proceeding apace. The town will lose much in quaintness, one can see that by the ruins of some of the older structures in which stately colonial outlines can be traced. But it will gain in adaptation to the climate and the ever-present earthquake menace. The main business street--King Street, of course, being a British colony--is lined on either side with arcaded concrete buildings of a uniform type. Ceilings are high, windows large and one may walk the three long blocks of the busiest business section without emerging from the shady arcades. The government buildings, occupying two full squares and setting well back from the street, are of a type that suggests the streets of India, and are also of reinforced concrete. It is the belief of the authorities that the comparative lightness of this material coupled with its resistant powers will enable it to survive any earthquake. The whole period of the shock of 1907 barely exceeded ten seconds, but its wreckage will not be repaired in ten years. [Illustration: “GWINE TO DE BIG JOB”] The cargo that we have taken on from the spice-scented dock is technically called a “cargo of black ivory,” made up of negroes sailing for Colon to work on the “big job.” Good-natured, grinning negroes these, though I have heard that, on the smaller ships that carry them by hundreds for the 500 miles for five dollars each, they sometimes riot and make trouble. With us they were inoffensive, though it is perhaps as well that the passenger quarters are to windward of them. The religious sentiment is strong upon them and as the sun goes down in the waste of waters the wail of hymn tunes sung to the accompaniment of a fiddle and divers mouth organs rises over the whistle of the wind and the rumble of the machinery. One can but reflect that ten years ago, before the coming of Col. Gorgas and his sanitation system, three out of five of these happy, cheerful blacks would never return alive from the Canal Zone. Today they invite no more risk than a business man in Chicago going to his office, and when their service is ended the United States government is obligated to return them to Jamaica where for a time their money will make them the idols of the markets, lanes and yards. CHAPTER II CRISTOBAL-COLON; AND THE PANAMA RAILROAD