We came out on the nose of the fort bluff and had before and below us and underfoot all the old famous scene, for centuries the beginning of all trans-Isthmian travel,—­the scalloped surf-washed shore with its dwindling palm groves curving away into the west, the Chagres pushing off into the jungled land.  We descended to the beach of the outer bay and swam in the salt sea, and the policeman, scorning the launch party, squatted a long hour in the shade of a tree above in tropical patience.  Then with “sour” oranges for thirst and nothing for hunger—­for Lorenzo has no restaurant—­we turned to paddle our way homeward up the Chagres, that bears the salt taste of the sea clear to the Spillway.  Whence one verse only of a stanza by the late bard of the Isthmus struck a false note on our ears;

    Then go away if you have to,
    Then go away if you will! 
    To again return you will always yearn
    While the lamp is burning still. 
    You’ve drunk the Chagres water
    And the mango eaten free,
    And, strange though it seems,
    It will haunt your dreams
    This Land of the Cocoanut Tree.

No catastrophe had befallen during my absence.  The same peaceful sunny Sunday reigned in Gatun; new-laundered laborers were still lolling in the shade of the camps, West Indians were still batting at interminable balls with their elongated paddles in the faint hope of deciding the national game before darkness settled down.  Then twilight fell and I set off through the rambling town already boisterous with church services.  Before the little sub-station a swarm of negroes was pounding tamborines and bawling lustily: 

    Oh, yo mus’ be a lover of de Lard
    Or yo cahn’t go t’ Heaven when yo di-ie.

Further on a lady who would have made ebony seem light-gray bowed over an organ, while a burly Jamaican blacker than the night outside stood in the vestments of the Church of England, telling his version of the case in a voice that echoed back from the town across the gully, as if he would drown out all rival sects and arguments by volume of sound.  The meeting-house on the next corner was thronged with a singing multitude, tamborines scattered among them and all clapping hands to keep time, even to the pastor, who let the momentum carry on and on into verse after verse as if he had not the self-sacrifice to stop it, while outside in the warm night another crowd was gathered at the edge of the shadows gazing as at a vaudeville performance.  How well-fitted are the various brands of Christianity to the particular likings of their “flocks.”  The strongest outward manifestation of the religion of the West Indian black is this boisterous singing.  All over town were dusky throngs exercising their strong untrained voices “in de Lard’s sarvice”; though the West Indian is not noted as being musical.  Here a preacher wanting suddenly to emphasize a point or clinch an argument swung an arm like a college cheer leader and the entire congregation roared forth with him some well-known hymn that settled the question for all time.