This disease from which they were suffering we found to be not yellow fever, but pneumonia. While ashore, we had noticed a Jamaican negro paddling around in a dugout. Upon inquiry, we were told that he was our professional rival prescribing various patent medicines for the Indians. A short time after our return to Colon I was told that the custom among the San Blas Indians was to execute the doctor whenever his patient died, and that our unfortunate rival, the Jamaican negro, had been executed for this cause a few days after we left. We had prescribed for one or two patients in the last stages of consumption who evidently had not many days to live. We have, therefore, been very chary about returning to the San Blas country, and strongly suspect that we are marked in the national archives for execution under the San Blas law for the practice of medicine. The San Blas Indian was very independent in all his ideas, and considered his government as the political equal of the Canal Government, the United States, or any other government. In looking about for a place in which to get sand to make concrete for the Gatun locks, Colonel Sibert, with a party of engineers, visited this same Chief. They found here what they considered suitable sand, and tried to purchase from the old Chief the right to use it. He was, however, very short with them; told them that the San Blas Indians had need of all the sand the Almighty had given them and hinted very broadly that it would be healthy for Colonel Sibert and his party to return to their boats and leave the country. CHAPTER XIII NOMBRE DE DIOS Another sanitary district had to be established about twenty miles east of Porto Bello, at Nombre de Dios. Here we had a force of some two hundred men who dredged the sand that was used in making concrete for the locks at Gatun. The conditions were very much the same as at Porto Bello. There was a small native town of not more than one hundred people, on the old site of Nombre de Dios, and we found that to protect our own force we had to take charge of these natives, just as we did at Porto Bello. Nombre de Dios has even a more romantic history than Porto Bello, and the name of Nombre de Dios is even better known in the wild history of the Spanish Main than is that of Porto Bello. It was founded about 1520, soon after the settlement of old Panama, and became the northern terminus of the paved royal highway leading from Panama. Afterwards, when Porto Bello was built, the highway forked about thirty miles south of Nombre de Dios, one branch leading to Porto Bello, and the other to Nombre de Dios.