The negro laborers at first were obtained by recruiting agents at work in the various West Indian Islands, principally Jamaica and Barbados. The recruiting service carried about 30,000 to the Isthmus, of whom 20,000 were from Barbados and 6,000 from Jamaica. It was not more than a year or two, however, after the work got under way, until there was little occasion for recruiting. Every ship that went back to Barbados or to Jamaica carried with it some who had made what they considered a sufficient fortune. Every community possessed those who had gone to Panama with only the clothes on their backs, a small tin trunk, a dollar canvas steamer chair and, mayhap, a few chickens; and who had come back with savings enough to set them up for life. This fired dozens from each of those same communities with the desire to go and do likewise. The result was that the canal employment lists were kept full by those who came on their own initiative. The terms of entrance to the Canal Zone were easy, the steerage fares were low, and as a result the excess of arrivals over departures sometimes amounted to 20,000 in a single year. The steamship companies had to keep careful and persistent watch to prevent stowaways. Even at that there were hundreds who sought to reach the Isthmus in this way in spite of the fact that they were usually carried back without being permitted to land at Colon. There was little or no friction between the whites and the blacks on the Canal Zone. This immunity from racial clashes resulted from two causes--one was the incomparable courtesy of the West Indian negro and the other his knowledge that he could expect good treatment only so long as he kept out of trouble. Few of them, indeed, were ever inclined to be offensive. They are usually educated in the three "R's," and are also very polite. Ask one a question and the answer will be: "Oh, yes, Sir," or "Oh, no, Sir," or if he has not understood, "Beg pardon, Sir." He would no more omit the honorific than a Japanese maiden addressing her father would forget to call him "Honorable." The different types of West Indian negroes found on the Canal Zone constituted an endless study in human characteristics. They were all great lovers of travel, and no regular train ever made a trip without from two to half a dozen coaches filled with them. After pay day practically every negro on the Zone was wont to get out and get a glimpse of the country.