taken over the construction tracks in one of the division superintendent's cars. There is no lack of guides to point out the particularly interesting spots and explain the character of the work, for every train carries a number of employes, going from one to another of the many stations on business.

A short distance out of Colon, the train enters the famous " Black Swamp," in connection with which many sensational stories are told. This stretch of deep bog broke the hearts and the purses of the first railroad contractors. In places they failed to find bottom at two hundred feet. Tons upon tons of trees and rock were thrown into the fearful quagmire before a stable basis for a roadbed could be made. Even at that it was not permanently stable, for many times since then the ground has caved in. It is said that within the past three years, one hundred and fifty feet of track, with some rolling stock upon it, fell through and disappeared within a few hours.

In places the road runs through dense jungle, where the vegetation maintains an incessant struggle to reach the light and air. Here and there a pathway has been cut and, looking up the dark lane thus formed, one may catch a

glimpse of a shack standing in the most unhealthful situation imaginable. Here some negro, tired of work, has located with his family and abandoned himself to a life of solitude and sweet do nothing. Strangely enough, people who settle in the dark, damp, misty depths of the jungle appear to enjoy fairly good health, and no doubt this is due to the fact that they have been accustomed to similar surroundings in their own country.

At frequent intervals lengths of rusty track and long since abandoned machinery will be discerned beneath their covering of weeds. Heaps of stone or brick mark the remains of old French buildings, and here and there, in out of the way spots, small wooden crosses denote the burial places of former Canal laborers. The frequency with which these graves were encountered before the extension of our work necessitated the clearing away of most of them, would give the impression that under the French many of the dead must have been buried where they dropped.

A fine view of the works at Gatun can be had from the train. The passenger looks over the lake site and passes close to the dam and locks, which are progressing so rapidly that the scene