Page:Panama-past-present-Bishop.djvu/48

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28
Panama Past and Present

the Chucunaques. Both pride themselves on keeping their race pure, despise the mongrel, half-breed Panamanians, and forbid white men to settle in their country. People who complain that the San Blas and the Chucunaques are "treacherous," and "inhospitable" forget that they are the survivors of a race once hunted down

SAN BLAS INDIAN SQUAWS.

Sitting with American canal employees on a dug-out canoe in a San Blas coast town.
White men are not allowed ashore after sundown.


by the white men with fire and sword and bloodhounds for their gold. In appearance, the San Blas are short, stocky, little fellows, many of them looking remarkably like Japanese.

The narrowest part of the Isthmus is in the San Blas country, and has long been a favorite among the many proposed routes for an interoceanic canal. To give anything like a complete list of the various canal routes would be to review most of the history of the discovery