Panama Interior, 1941

[Music] when you hear the word Panama you'll form a picture automatically from the big canal and of the army that defends it the Panama Canal is one of the greatest engineering works ever conceived by man great ships of peace or war are lifted 85 feet so that they may sail over the top of the Continental Divide and are then lowered to the level of the opposite ocean a vessel goes from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean sailed southeast if you don't believe it look this up on a large-scale map the Canal Zone occupies only a small fraction of the territory of the Republic of Panama we are now flying in a United States Navy plane over a few of the countless islands that dot the ocean blue we are asked for a visit to one of the most interesting of the Native American peoples the san blas indians they are friendly welcome to the american plane discounts the legend of their sufferings hatred for all white men they did show fierce hatred to the Spanish invaders who try to enslave and rob them but we can hardly blame them for their the San Blas are a pleasant different people their color is there of a good deep Sun tear the sprinting of Alvino the Magnum explains the mistaken notion that they are a tribe of white Indians they are short in stature a woman will wear a small ring in her nose and necklace of gold coins and sometimes larger Police Service earrings the dresses are brightly colored lavishly embroidered by hand of course with a unique sort of applique work it is a women who really ruled the roost here and the family tree is placed on the mothers not the father side missionaries here have barely scratched the surface one was a good doctor when he died they set up his image in work so that he could continue healing their sick they live largely from the products of the front will have only very primitive tools there is a mill for extracting the juice of the sugar cane part of their foods also comes from the sea for the word Panama means abundance the fish in this easy living there and the animals too changed very little they have survived for ages because they found their own peculiar means of defense against their enemies the iguana for instance is one of the oldest forms of animal life a tough survivor of the long-gone age of reptiles he's still here fighting with his long sharp pointed tail another battler who fights with his tail is obstructive he arches his presence finger up over his back and his inventive enemy the tarantula he tries to close in it's a fight to a finish sometimes one poison expert dies sometimes the other the tarantula is a giant spider with body as big as a full-grown Mouse in thirty legs that cause your skin to brittle if he walks over you he has poisoned things about the size of those of a young rattled me this giant toad weighs over a pound his protection consists of poison attacks in his shoulder another unpleasant customer is the vampire bat with teeth and claws so sharp that he can be handled only with thick leather glove one of the deadliest snakes in the world is a fer-de-lance few people ever survive his bite only an expert there handle him yet he is no match for the mr. Rana who is the enemy of all poisonous snake and he is so gentle he can be handled and petted here he is in a few moments you will see him having his lunch - now there's one less poisonous snake in Panama some animals escaped death by fighting others by running away the plumed lizard - the champion runner and if his flight is barred by water he runs so fast that he goes over the surface he doesn't have webbed feet either here comes his enemy a giant quake and there goes the lizard right over the top of the water he went so fast that we wonder if he even get his feet wet the snake hunts delivered and the man hunts the snake he seizes it with his bare hands but if you watch closely you will see him fit right in the leg and in the hand now some exploring back to new dense jungle foliage comes right down to the water's edge and we're constantly on the lookout for animals very little is to be seen this way however for wild animals stay wild and alive chiefly by staying out of sight most of our pictures were therefore arranged with the help of a man who makes the business of hunting animals to do here is the white collared peccary harmless looking enough he seems just ready to make a nice pork roast yes he is one of the most dangerous spiders in the jungle a raccoon absorbed in his favorite dish a method live crab and he doesn't take any chance of losing his dinner either by stopping to wash them first there is another specialist mr. bandura an anteater his long snout and tongue are just the thing to dig out his favorite food another species of ant eater who prefers to live in trees as a silky anteater he doesn't mind visitors at all he's quite willing to Kingdom and if it did especially since he has learned that this generally means another animal that stays alive by keeping out of danger up in the treetops is the opossum this variety is known as DOM is really opossum the mother of talking to the nice coat of long wooly hair for the young to hang on as she climbs through the trees with the greatest of ease she goes about her family business without too much thought for her Osprey but Nature has equipped them with a really good grip on the text of life right from the start thus we see how animals are fitted for their struggle to survive yeah seems to be an exception surely these clothes are too slow either to fight or to run but put them up in the tree and you can see how they manage to survive through the ages they can really take care of themselves just as still there off the ground there's two principle types of clothes in Panama they are distinguished by the number of toes they have the three-toed variety as a good-natured gentle fellow who doesn't mind being handled but he is a homebody who thrives only on the food he gets close to home though he cannot be shipped satisfactorily to our Zoo his two Toads customers a cranky cantankerous individual with none of the nice properties of the three-toed speeches but he can and does eat anything and so he is a cat you see in your zoo yes that the captain is round but it's not a wild cat it's a young ultimate a pet and not a very safe one the prize of all petals of monkey always playful friendly Taveras competed kindly and as full of trick monkey this one tries to comb the young visitors here so the children cut prettiest on the way back with those handsome Navy friars are canoes to bring us back to the flying boat and our cameras and film run those it carefully so that all our friends will be able to share the strange sites that we have seen and through we are flying back to Panama City unlovely cleaning cool modern city has many medical yes miracles for here it is summer all the year round and the Sun rises in the Pacific Ocean except in the Atlantic there are many other miracles too but we'll have to save some of them for you to discover the Oscars when you read about Panama [Music]