assisted by those demure-looking maidens? Region No. 4, on the Pacific side, is for those who are willing to go farther afield, who like beaches and islands, deep-sea fishing, and primitive Indians in the deepest jungle. Here one goes by boat or on foot through the wild-rubber, mahogany, and balsa-wood forests. Little is really known of the Chocó Indians, who wear sarongs and bead girdles, paint their bodies in intricate geometrical designs (the wife's always matches the husband's and only chiefs may use triangles), and build great flat-bottomed canoes called piraguas capable of carrying thirty or forty persons.

Deep-sea fishermen will find the vicinity of the Pearl Islands one of the world's best

fishing grounds. Here Pacific sailfish, giant wahoo, and record black marlin are plentiful from May through November. Fishing has not yet been much commercialized in Panama and it is still difficult to rent launches. However, several local businessmen are considering investing in equipment similar to that used in Florida.

Have you always yearned to live right on a beautiful bathing beach? To fish from native boats? To collect coral and shells? To explore a quaint native village? Taboga, Island of Flowers, 12 miles from Panama City and a popular resort since the 16th century, is the answer. There is a new hotel Paraíso la Restinga-owned by the Panama National Tourist Commission and managed by "Tillie," who has been hostess at Taboga for many years. There is launch service twice daily to and from Balboa and hotel rates are moderate. Chiriquí, the western province bordering Costa Rica, is Region No. 5. It should not be neglected by the traveller. Here headquarters may be made at the new and luxurious Hotel Nacional at David. Owned by the Panamanian government, this hotel is managed by the American Hotels Corporation and is considered one of Central America's finest. David is the center of a rich agricultural area where sugar cane, bananas, rice, and potatoes form the principal sea-level crops, while oranges, limes, pineapples, coffee, and all kinds of flowers are grown on the steep sides of 11,000-foot Volcán Baru. Here are great cattle ranches, tumbling trout streams, fine hunting, and unbelievably beautiful mountain scenery.

Yes, Panama is really a land of contrasts. In this relatively small area you can find things you would otherwise have to travel many miles to see. It is a country well worth your acquaintance and a friendly place where you are always welcome.

PEOPLE in New Orleans were surprised last November when six tons of Honduran culture- plus a violinist were unloaded from a steamer for an eight-day exhibition in the city's International House. They hadn't been thinking of Honduras in just that way. It was still considered-when at all-in terms of bananas, of which indeed it produces plenty, and of revolutions, which in fact it has not had in some fifteen years.

The exhibit was presented by a Honduran cultural mission which had come to New Orleans at the invitation of Mayor DeLesseps S. Morrison, a Latin American enthusiast. Covering floor space which

according to pictures must have been measured in acres, it represented a fair cross section of cultural activity in Honduras. Among other manifestations, it included those archeological specimens that could be readily transported, colonial and contemporary paintings, ancient and modern ceramics, and books and magazines-plus the violinist.

Those who accompanied the exhibit estimate that some 50,000 persons saw it. Whatever the number, the pity is that it was not multiplied by a thousand, that it did not remain in the United States one or two or five years. For this is exactly the sort of activity needed to foment the

type of inter-American understanding we have been talking about for a long time.

But Honduras, a solvent yet not a rich nation, simply cannot think in terms of the expenses a tour of that kind would involve. Suggestions by appreciative observers that the cultural mission proceed to other United States cities were not accompanied by checks to cover expenses, and no angel stepped in to fill the gap. Therefore a return to Honduras was the only possible conclusion.

Nevertheless, the mission left its mark. It demonstrated again that Honduras, if not quite at the relative altitude on the ladder of Western culture reached by its ancestor, the Mayan civilization, is making its own definite and individual contribution to the intellectual pattern of twentiethcentury America.

Fine arts

Appropriately, the cultural mission was headed by Arturo López Rodezno, director of Tegucigalpa's National School of Fine Arts and the Republic's leading graphic artist. Thirty-seven of his paintings, pencil and pen-and-ink drawings, decorated tiles, and other creations composed an important part of the exhibit.

In no field is present-day Honduran cultural activity more pronounced than in the graphic arts. This is due largely to the establishment of the National School of Fine Arts in 1940 and to its outstanding direction under López Rodezno, who combines admirably the esthetic and the practical. He is president of the Tegucigalpa Rotary Club, in which the notion of the cultural mission was born. Paris-trained, López Rodezno is intensely New World in

expression, and is grouped more readily with Rivera and Orozco than with modern Europeans. The themes of his finest productions-mural paintings in the School and in the Duncan Mayan Tavern in Tegucigalpa are Mayan.

To the National School of Fine Arts come each year approximately seventy Honduran youngsters and a few from neighboring Central American republics. All social classes are represented; some of the School's best work is produced by students from poor homes. Occasionally United States citizens, principally the wives of diplomatic or commercial representatives stationed in the capital, also attend. No tuition is charged and no scholastic regimentation is imposed.

López Rodezno himself directs the School's painting courses. He is assisted by Maximiliano Euceda, another contemporary Honduran painter of distinction. Samuel Salgado directs the sculpture classes. To indicate that art instruction in Honduras transcends provincialism, it appears appropriate to add that the two latter artists were also trained in Europe in Madrid and Rome, respectively.

Other departments offer instruction in wood-carving and ceramics, and produce work of a high order. After viewing the pottery on display at the New Orleans exhibit, a Kansas City banker offered to contract for the entire ceramics production of Honduras.

This is one phase of the school's work in which the United States is making a contribution. Instruction in ceramics is being given in the 1947-1948 school year by J. J. Marek, a teacher, consultant, and technician originally from Czechoslovakia but now a United States citizen, for many years a resident of Indiana. He was preceded in 1945-46 by Kenneth Smith, borrowed from the faculty of Newcomb

College in New Orleans. These men were sent on State Department grants, with the Honduran Government contributing approximately half of their salaries and expenses. In view of the country's limited resources and the visitor's higher compensation compared to that given locally employed instructors, the Honduran contribution is proportionately much greater.

Though architecture is not taught in Honduras, that lack has not prevented the infiltration of modernism in the country's present building boom. A purist, noting the colonial charm of quaint Tegucigalpa, which is sometimes compared to Taxco in Mexico, might regret this. But since there is no likelihood of a campaign to preserve the capital as a national monument, one can be thankful that for the most part modern construction here is both tasteful and practical. The incon

gruity of streamlined commercial and residential buildings a stone's throw from such colonial treasures as Tegucigalpa's cathedral must be accepted as an inevitable.

Landscape architecture, too, has undergone a renaissance in recent years. Notable examples are Concordia Park in Tegucigalpa and the United Nations Park on imposing Picacho, a mountain overlooking the capital from a thousand feet above. The design of both parks, the work of the Mexican landscape architect Augusto Morales y Sánchez, is based on Mayan motifs. Concordia contains smallscale reproductions of some of the Copán ruins. Picacho, which includes picnic grounds complete with baseball diamond, barbecue pits, and amphitheater, presents an admirable fusion of the useful with the beautiful.

Music

Now a word about the violinist. Humberto Cano came pretty close to being Honduras' man-of-the-year in 1946. He

returned in March after some twenty years' residence in Europe (his long voluntary exile forgiven through genera appreciation of the lack of fertile musical soil in Honduras), and was elevated to the position of the nation's favorite wandering boy. "Boy," incidentally, isn't very inaccurate; he is still under forty. After a series of concerts, press and public, with not exactly objective criticism, reached the garment-kissing stage. Cano, a sincere, modest, hard-working musician with a pronounced although as yet improperly evaluated genius, would probably have preferred a more sober reception, including a constructive suggestion or two.

His two concerts in New Orleans were also well received. But most encouraging to Cano was the enthusiasm, in private conversation, of some of the city's musical leaders. Wishing to continue as a soloist, he declined an invitation to join the New Orleans symphony orchestra and returned to Honduras to commence planning future operations. Remember the name, Humberto Cano; you might be seeing it again.