Plazas are small, but parked and well kept, and they are used as only Latin-Americans know how to use a plaza. The little ones are garden-spot oases in the deserts of bare walls and wide eaves. Santa Ana Plaza is the heart of the city, and there is no hour of the day or night that there are not people there. If you really wish to see the world go by, sit on the stone bench at Santa Ana Plaza and look about you. If you stay long enough, you may see anybody, from the latest naked brown baby to the last chosen president of any country you may name. Sitting in the plaza is a business by itself in this country. The North American uses a park as a short cut, cross-corners, to get somewhere. But with the tropic citizen, the plaza is an end in itself. He is not going anywhere, he is just sitting in the plaza. He may not even be called a bench-warmer--the bench is already warm. He is sitting in the plaza--that is all. The band-night parade in Santa Ana Plaza is an institution. Around the central garden they saunter, to the swing of the very good music from the central pavilion. The outer walk is wide, and so is the parade. Clockwise walks the inner circle, three abreast, all young men. In the opposite direction saunter the young women, also in threes. 'Round and 'round they go, talking, laughing, listening, looking, lingering, while the band plays on. It is a good band too. And not the least of the exhibit is the clothes the women wear. In matter of graceful and apparently comfortable costumes the Panamanian girls need apologize to none of their northern sisters. Who is to blame the boys if they keep on walking around for the sake of seeing the seeable, especially when she may be quite worth watching? Every added turn means one look more. It is all very dignified and proper, but human nature is the same old composition in every land, and the blood in the heart runs red, no matter what the tint or tan without. In a land where the customs of chaperonage are exceeding strict, and no young woman is supposed to be left alone with any young man for the briefest moment, it is easy to see why the band nights in the plaza are popular. Ostensibly the young women, after the manner of their kind, have no interest in the young men, but just the same, their soft brown eyes have the same old way of wandering at the right moment; it is the same old trick and it works in the same old way.