Panama City, Panama

“ There is little interesting about the ruined city except its associations with the past. It is dead, and nature is striving hard to inter it decently beneath a luxuriant pall of green. One can only visit the spot to stir the imagination and call up its wondrous past. On this spot Pizarro banded his followers together, and from the now overgrown harbour walls his little fleet set sail on one of the most momentous voyages on record. The happenings in “old Panama” make the first page in the voluminous history of the great sub-continent. ”

“ The Cathedral Plaza was the chief park of the city. At one side was the great cathedral, with its spires shingled with big slabs of opalescent, iridescent mother-of-pearl. At one end was the Palace of the Archbishop, with the offices of the Panama Lottery on the ground floor. At the other end was the big building of the Canal Administration. But beside these its circumference gave ample room for numerous thirst-destroying establishments, chief among them being the Grand Central Hotel, whose gigantic barroom was sure to be the cynosure of Panama that night of nights. ”

“ But though a wild nature still rules undisturbed over the greater portion of the scene before us, yet man has thrust his so-called civilization upon the scene, and that rusty spot that disturbs the purity of the view is one of his beauty-destroying abodes. Those shabby, tiled buildings, those dirty church-spires, and huts like ant-hills surrounding, are Panama,— while a suburb more important than the parent city is represented by a few black spots upon the water, capacious edifices, that move to and fro with the surplus population of the town. ”

“ Panama was at that time one of the largest and wealthiest cities in America. It contained some seven thousand houses, one-third the number being large and handsome dwellings, many of them strongly built of stone and richly furnished. Walls surrounded the city, which was well prepared for defence. It was the emporium for the precious metals of Peru and Mexico, two thousand mules being kept for the transportation of those rich ores. It was also the seat of a great trade in negro slaves, for the supply of Chili and Peru. ”

“ Panama is served by regular steamers to San Francisco, Yokohama and other Pacific ports. The city is built on a rocky peninsula jutting out to the east, near the mouth of the Rio Grande and at the foot of Mt Ancon (560 ft.) . The harbour is good and is enclosed at the south by several rugged islands, the largest being Perico and Flamenco (belonging to the United States) and Taboga (935 ft.) , which is a place of country residence for wealthy citizens. The main streets run north and south and are cut by the Avenida Central; nearly all the streets are narrow and crooked. ”

“ Accounts of the construction and character of the old city represent it to have been builded with much magnificence. All the woods used in building were of the fine native mahoganies, and there were hangings, tapestries, and paintings in the sumptuous houses of the men who became enormously rich from the traffic of the times. Returning ships from Europe brought luxuries as well as necessities, and the gold trade people maintained regular fleets of ships and put Panama in close touch with the life of the age. ”

“ They are solid, substantial, and will last for centuries yet; but the natural movement of population, especially in view of the enormous rents demanded in Panama, will be to seek the new city which will grow up as a frame town with elements of stability. Much business is certain to drift to the Canal mouth, some of it in American hands. The mercantile community in the days when Colombia controlled the Isthmus was anything but Colombian. It was West Indian, Italian, Chinese, German, French, American, and English. ”

“ For an American not too much spoiled with foreign travel the city of Panama is a most entertaining stopping place for a week or more. In what its charm consists it is hard to say. Foreign it is, of course, a complete change from anything within the borders, or for that matter close to the bounds of the United States. But it is not so thorough a specimen of Latin-American city building as Cartagena, its neighbor. Its architecture is admittedly commonplace, the Cathedral itself being interesting mainly because of its antiquity—and it would be modern in old Spain. ”

“ The first city founded by explorers in the New World, the oldest town in America inhabited by white men, the most conglomerate mixture of humanity on earth are in Panama. The bloodiest tale of modern history, the most romantic story of American exploration, the greatest engineering achievement of man all center in Panama. ”

“ Such are we of the United States in the eyes of our southern friends.
The formalities of social life are of vast importance to the Panamanian, and they are also important to the North American who wishes to transact any sort of business with officials and educated men of any class. Dress suits and high hats are not to be despised if one is to get on in the capital city. Neither are business and politics to be separated if any business is to be done. ”

“ About the middle of the sixteenth century the isthmus of Darien had become the gate-way between the two seas, and Panamá the most important city of America. Situated upon the world's highway and in the very centre of the Spanish colonial possessions, through its portals must flow the treasures of Peru from the south, the products of Mexico, Nicaragua, and Guatemala from the north, and the trans-oceanic traffic of the Spice Islands from the west. Thus Panamá became not only the metropolis of the two Americas, but the half-way house and toll-gate between western Europe and eastern Asia. ”

“ Here the rich citizens of Panama City spend the dry season, in primitive shacks, all doors and no windows, that an American dry-goods clerk would turn up his nose at for a week-end camp. But even the poorest of them has plenty of grounds round it and a more or less elaborate gateway, and if you do not go near enough to notice the sickly chickens peeking round the touring-car in the drive, and the fat women in loose wrappers shading themselves on the veranda, the effect is not so bad. ”

“ PANAMA—CATHEDRAL AND CONVENTS—RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES—AMALGAMATION—FANDANGO.
Panama, under the Spanish dominion, was a city of twelve thousand inhabitants, and was the commercial mart of the Pacific. The old city having been destroyed by buccaneers, the present site was selected. The military strength of the city is a true index to the state of the country at the time of its construction ”

“ The governor of Panama was formerly captain-general of Tierra Firme, and president of a court of royal audience, which has lately been removed to Santa Fé de Bogota. The city of Panama is the see of a bishop, who is subject to the control of the archbishop of Lima; but as he receives no tithes, is paid out of the royal coffers. A municipal council governs the district of the city; a treasury, custom-house, &c. are established there, and when [234] the galleons came from Lima, Panama, and Porto Bello, might be said to have been the Acapulco and Vera Cruz of South America. ”

“ New Panama is about four leagues from the old town, near the side of a river, being a very handsome city, on a spacious bay of the same name, into which many long navigable rivers discharge their waters, some of which have gold in their sands. The country about Panama affords a delightful prospect from the sea, having a great diversity of hills, vallies, groves, and plains. ”

“ The beautiful forest suburbs were being planned and plotted by money-mad schemers who neither pre-visioned, nor cared to, the city of the future which was to be a great gateway of the nation to its Panama world-artery. He knew how to value the force of a man of his kind, with his reputation and influence, and he would gage just what he would be able to do for the city with the municipal backing he could command if he set his shoulder to the wheel.
A talk he had had with the major a day or two ago came back to him. ”

“ Save for these few points where human dwellings are seen,—the little Spanish city below and the offices and warehouses that mark the beginnings of the new commercial port and some houses on the islets in the bay, where the inhabitants of Panama seek in summer13 a cooler air,—it is a lonely landscape, with scarcely a sign of life on land, and as yet few ships flecking the water. The region has always been thinly peopled and its tribes never reached the semi-civilization of the Maya peoples of Yucatan, Honduras, and Guatemala to the north of them, nor of the Chibchas of Bogota to the south. ”

“ But Panama is something vastly more significant than a couple of slow-service, high-priced hotels. The Isthmian Republic is an empire in possibilities, entirely apart from the Canal Zone, though the development of the latent riches of the country is most vitally related to the Canal enterprise. And the rich belt of land that binds together two continents is something very much larger than the interesting little city that bears the name of Panama. ”

“ Probably it is the only treasure that survived the pirates’ raid and still exists, the only remnant of that stupendous store of priceless treasure which made Old Panama famous as the richest city of New Spain.
But aside from this altar, so strangely and romantically saved from the pillage and destruction of Panama, there is much to be seen of the old city laid low by Morgan and his men. By motor-car one may travel easily and quickly to the spot, a scant five miles along the shore from the present city. ”

“ Doctor Echeverría and Señor Arango had planned a trip to the old city of Panama, the old-gold city, founded in 1518 by Don Pedro d’Avila, sacked in 1673 by Sir Henry Morgan, the buccaneer, and rebuilt on its present semi-peninsular site, where it is inaccessible to buccaneers and inconvenient for business. But it was a whole day’s trip and there was no hotel to serve us with a déjeuné à-la-fourchette and a siesta. ”

“ The city of Panama became the commercial metropolis of the western hemisphere. The highway between Porto Bello and old Panama became a road over which there was a constant stream of people traveling. All the merchants, officials and colonists going to Peru, western Mexico, and the Spanish possessions in the East Indies used this route, and there was a steady and constant stream of such people going between the colonies and mother country. ”

“ It was inhabited by the Indians when the city of Panama was first founded by the Spaniards, and the wealthy inhabitants of the city of Panama early made it a resort, as being pleasanter, cooler and more healthy than the mainland. ”

“ Representatives of strong interests on the Isthmus of Panama, who make their headquarters in this city, are considering a plan of action to be undertaken in co-operation with men of similar views in Panama and Colon to bring about a revolution and form an independent government in Panama opposed to that in Bogota. ”

“ The city is inhabited by many merchants from all parts, who trade here and in Nombre de Dios; for there is much traffic, and the place might almost be compared with the city of Venice. Very often ships come to Panama from the South Sea to discharge cargoes of gold and silver; and the number of vessels is very great that arrive at Nombre de Dios, bringing much merchandise, which is transported to Panama by canoes up the river Chagres, and thence over five leagues of road. Near the city the sea forms a large bay, and the vessels come into the port with the tide. ”

“ These twenty district hospitals, by means of hospital trains, fed two base hospitals, situated respectively at the northern and southern end of the Canal, Colon and Panama. The one at the southern end was much our largest hospital, containing at its maximum about fifteen hundred beds.
The city of Panama is situated on a peninsula, stretching into the bay of Panama. Just north of the city rises Ancon mountain, some six hundred and fifty feet in height. This mountain is [Pg 224] only accessible to a pedestrian; the trail is too rough and precipitous for horse or mule. ”

“ Started about 4 o’clock and reached Panama about 12; fell in on the way with a company who had a dog, and about two miles from the city it was taken rabid, but the owner would not consent to have it shot till it had treed us all. The city is a very ancient looking place, the buildings being constructed of stone, the old Spanish style with tiled roofs and surrounded by a wall of great strength, but time is crumbling it in many places. The inhabitants are a mixture of blacks, Indians and Spaniards—an ignorant inoffensive people, all Catholics ”

“ Except for a rough overland trail to Costa Rica, the Canal Zone is virtually an island, surrounded on two sides by water and on the other two by the jungle. Proposals have been made for a railroad to run from Panama City to David, the capital of the Province of Chiriqui, and for another through the San Blas country to South America, but there is small probability of their being built in the immediate future. Any railroad crossing the Canal will have to build an expensive bridge between Gold Hill and Contractor's Hill, high enough to clear the masts of the tallest ships. ”

“ There are fiacres that rattle and roll through the clean but narrow streets behind undersized ponies that always move at a gallop; there are cool, dark shops open to the streets, and hundreds of negroes and Chinese coolies, and a handsome plaza, and some very large municipal [202] buildings of five stories, which appeared to us, after our experience with a dead level of one-story huts, to tower as high as the Auditorium. Panama, as a town, and considered by itself, and not in connection with the canal, reminded me of a Western county-seat after the boom had left it. ”