In preference to the more direct German line, the visitor should by all means make the trip northward by a “west coaster,” that cross between an Atlantic liner and a river steamboat which meanders leisurely in and out among the Pacific ports and carries a conglomerate of all types of the genus Latin American, and of all the products of his infinitely varied soil. As one writer whimsically describes it, it has all the characteristics of a house-boat, freight carrier, village gossip and market gardener. With no cause to fear rain or rough weather, the ocean here being truly “pacific,” the builders of these boats have placed all cabins on deck, and even thus they seem superfluous except as lockers for luggage, for the heat keeps one always in the open. Here the newcomer to these shores talks politics or crops or railroad concessions with the substantial _hacendado_ returning to his plantation, or haggles interminably with the _cholo_ woman who offers for sale woven hats of _jipi-japa_ straw (known commercially as Panamas), little golden images unearthed from Inca ruins, or imitations of them fashioned from vegetable ivory, great white-pulped, juicy pineapples, leather belts of exquisite workmanship, brilliantly colored ponchos, and the inevitable convent embroideries and laces. These women spend much of their lives on board, traveling back and forth between Valparaiso and Panamá, and in their allotted corners sell everything from candied sugar cane wrapped in banana leaves to emerald necklaces. It is said that one old woman on a recent trip actually had hoisted aboard a live cow, which she would have sold piecemeal, in steaks, if the long-suffering captain had not protested that his ship was no slaughter-house. And, besides the surfeit of “local color” one gets on the ship, the traveler has an excellent opportunity to study that vague institution known as international trade, at a familiarly close range. The terms “exports” and “imports” mean little to him until he sees huge cases of sewing machines marked “Hamburg—fragile,” or sections of milling machinery from Chicago, or something of the sort, swung over the side into the lighters, and later sees other lighters towed from shore laden with curious little bales of Panama hats, or cotton, or casks of rum, and all the, to him, exotic products of a different world.