A Native Village

Pennell, a Philadelphia-born Quaker, spent the first two decades of his career abroad, living primarily in London, where he became a close associate of Whistler. This lithograph was made after the artist toured Panama and looked at the engineering works in progress for the Panama Canal. Of this subject, he wrote, "This lithograph was made on the new line, which discovered to the visitor primitive Panama, its swamps, jungles and native villages; but, owing to Colonel Gorgas, native not longer, as they are odorless and clean; but the natives, with their transformation, seem to prefer to the palm-leaf roof, corrugated iron and tine, and abandoned freight cars to live in. The huts are mostly built on piles near the rivers. In the background can be seen the strange-shaped mountains and strange-shaped trees."