Plaza

“ In the plaza, amidst the lamentations of all the people, they dressed her in her sacred cotton robes of ceremonial, embroidered elaborately, and adorned her with earrings, bracelets, beads,—many beautiful, precious things. They painted her cheeks with red spots as if for a dance; they made a road of sacred meal toward the Door of the Serpent of the Sea—a distant spring in our land known to this day as the Doorway to the Serpent of the Sea—four steps toward this spring did they mark in sacred terraces on the ground at the western way of the plaza. ”

“ Here, of course, the street broadens and skirts the plaza where the band plays of an evening, and where the town promenades round and round the little square of palms and fountains, under the stars. You may remember that a little farther on, on one side of the plaza, there is the immense church which has been building for a century, more or less, and which is still incomplete.
There were a few miserable-looking soldiers, with shapeless, colorless uniforms, loitering 50 in front of the cuartel as Harboro and Sylvia passed. ”

“ The plaza is hardly less than a thousand feet square. In its centre is a large garden, planted by Carlotta, and well filled with trees and flowers, in full leaf and bloom. On the west and south sides are deep arcades, filled with all manner of knickknacks of much show and little profit. ”

“ There are many spacious squares, an old palace, houses in ruins, empty convents, long streets grass-grown and deserted; in short, all the appearances of a great city fallen into decay. The most beautiful part is the Plaza Mayor, a vast arena, encircled all around by a portico supported by heavy columns of bluish granite, behind which rise houses, all three stories in height. ”

“ Elevated at this height above the plaza, of nearly one hundred and eighty feet, the din of the city reaches our ears,—the hum of myriad voices, the patter of thousands of feet, and the rattle of coach-wheels over the pavements. Yet it is a rather silent crowd that fills the square, composed in great part of idle vagabonds who have no employment, and hence are in no hurry, and create no bustle. Directly beneath us is the great square, with the smaller one, the zocalo, or pleasure garden, in its centre. ”

“ Friday, October 20th.—We went out for a short stroll round the Plaza before breakfast, which meal was scarcely over when Mr. Mackay arrived in a carriage, and took us off to see what there was to see in the town. The Plaza was full of bright-looking flower-beds, in which were superb roses, and many English flowers, shaded by oranges, pomegranates, and deutzias. Each plot belongs to one of the principal families in the town, and great emulation is displayed as to whose little garden shall be in the best order and contain the finest collection of plants and flowers. ”

“ Around the Plaza one sees the American style of architecture and hears the hum of American civilization; but beyond, and outside this pretty park, the streets are narrow, crooked, and have an ancient appearance. ”

“ A better class, or a larger number of a better class, than we had found in any town before, made the streets interesting. The moment the people are lifted into the dignity of self-support, that moment they become joyous and hopeful. We saw new birds in the trees of the plaza; a species of large black crow, with a short but pleasant song. The frescos of the houses were more elaborate and brilliant, the fountains better supplied, the squares enclosed in fine stone balustrades, and the stone seats softly tinted. ”

“ There was no room for reclining, and we were cramped in unnatural positions throughout the long twenty leagues. It was one o'clock in the morning, by the dim light of a waning moon, that we entered the suburbs of the capital, and waked the echoes of the silent streets by driving furiously to the Plaza. ”

“ When he found himself in the Plaza, and saw the black forest of the park billowing away into distance like the gulf of night, he looked towards it as a refuge. If only it were still open at this hour! If only he could get in! ”

“ There are still some of the shop-keepers about that ancient plaza who can recall the thin figure of the poet and dreamer who loafed lazy days in that open space—hobnobbing with sailors and the strange dark-skinned vagabond folk from overseas. There is a single monument in the square today—a smooth monolith upon whose top there rests a ship, its sails full-bellied to the wind but which never reaches a port. ”

“ On the dry barren square of the Plaza wagons were scattered, and to the wagons were tied mules and oxen, that fed and stamped about in the dust. The Plaza was swarmed with men, with groups talking excitedly of real estate, diggings, of the shortage of flour, the rise in pork, the fall in lumber, of Hubert Lee's death—some said 'murder,' others, 'duel.' Men discussed freighting, the heavy play at this or that gambling table, the sale of the Magnolia, the Spanish-looking man who for an hour had bought Washington Hall the night before. ”

“ The Plaza has preserved its old triangular form, two sides straight, and the third curved, with the single broad path that leads to the Alcázar. The shops still run inside the rough arcade that makes the circuit of the place, and loafers and gossips loll upon the stone benches, while water-laden mules amble by, and girls, effective and unimaginably graceful, with well-dressed heads and brilliant eyes, in groups saunter into view, carrying on their hips earthen amphoras, which they have filled at the public fountain. ”

“ The sandy plaza, larger than an American city block, is so densely packed with stolid thick-set men and women in gray felt hats and crude-colored blankets that only by constant struggle can a purchaser thread his way across it. ”

“ Almost above us rise the powerful towers against the clear firmament, and on our left is the palace, filling one whole side of the square with its numberless balconies and windows, while in front spreads the great plaza, glittering with innumerable lights against the shadowy arcades that fill the opposite side. ”

“ At the head of the street the plaza opened upon us on a slight elevation, with groups of Indian women in the centre drawing water from the well, and relieved against a background of green hills rising above the tops of the houses, which, under the reflection of the setting sun, gave a beauty and picturesqueness of aspect that no other village in the country had exhibited. ”

“ At eventide the girls walk on the plaza, their mothers, aunts, or servants following them as closely as their shadows on a sunny afternoon. In quiet streets lovers on both sides of the river talk from a first-floor balcony to the street, or whisper through the window-bars on the ground floor. The little shops under the low arches of the arcaded streets have yellow flannel drawers for men and petticoats of many colours hanging close outside their doors, on whose steps sleep yellow dogs. ”

“ A walled city among the mountains, a fortified place set upon the side of heights so steep that the houses seem to be fastened to the rock rather than resting on it, and that a misstep on the dizzy uppermost level of the narrow, high-pitched streets would precipitate the unlucky one into the midst of some plaza three or four hundred feet below. A lovely, bewildering spot, full of lanes and archways, and winding, twisted market-places ”

“ A half-dozen streets run east and west along the upper edge of the plain; a dozen or two, narrow and dirty, cross them. One-story white and tinted adobe dwellings line these streets. There are no sidewalks. The plaza is without ornament. The cathedral is cheap and frowzy. Every thing is asleep. ”

“ At the center of this great mass of buildings, directly below us, was a great open clearing, or plaza, and it was there that the stairway touched the pit's floor. And from this plaza, clear to the circling walls, nine streets branched out, radiating in every direction like the spokes of a wheel. Along those streets moved great masses of men, and these were the dwellers in the city, the people of the pit. ”

“ Such was the plaza and middle spot of Rivas, a town of some two or three thousand inhabitants, where General Walker stood at bay many weary days against the combined Costa Ricans, Guatemalans, and Chamorristas, and was netted at last. But these observations of the squalid plaza were of another date. At present our eyes and thoughts fasten upon the crowd of melancholy, fever-eaten filibusters, who walk with heavy pace up and down the corridors, and along the paths which cross the grass-grown plaza. ”

“ Perhaps the best example of a square in the whole of the country is the Plaza Mayor. A lofty colonnade runs around the four sides and every evening the beauties and others of Salamanca make it their promenade. The men stroll round in one direction and the women in the opposite. The social life of a Spanish town passed in view before me, with all its fan and language of the eyes, as I sat at one of the small tables of a café and got this cheap and harmless entertainment for one real. ”

“ And the next whistle of the steam-engine, like a fairy horn, called up the pretty village, with its streets and bridges, its one church, and its diminutive Plaza. We walk along the newly paved street, lined with small dwellings built of palm and plaster. The naked children are playing at the doors, the fathers and mothers are making cigars, or smoking them, the soldiers are walking vacantly about, and the small shopkeepers are looking out from behind their dull counters, piled with the refuse of the better markets. ”

“ With our silly American weakness for something foreign, this square is called the Plaza; I believe it is not at all like a Spanish plaza, but the name is its least offense. An irregular space in the centre is planted with trees, in whose shade the broken-kneed [Pg 267] hacks of the public carriages droop their unhappy-heads, without the spirit to bite the flies that trouble their dreams ”

“ A handsome plaza confronts us, with an equestrian [29] statue of Bolivar. The plaza is mosaic-paved, electrically lighted, shaded by trees and, in the evening and on Sunday, the military bands entertain the people after the customary Spanish American method. Some showy public buildings, and a museum with some famous paintings are here; there are pleasing suburbs, luxurious gardens and well laid-out streets, and this high capital takes not unjustifiable pride to itself for its beauty and artistic environment and atmosphere—conditions which deserve a wider fame. ”

“ Madame Calderon describes the appearance of the Plaza on Good-Friday:
"The most beautiful and original scene was presented towards sunset in the great square, and it is doubtful whether any other city in the world could present a coup d'œil of equal brilliancy. The Plaza itself, even on ordinary days, is a noble square, and but for its one fault, a row of shops called the Parian, which breaks its uniformity, would, be nearly unrivalled. Every object is interesting. ”

“ The general effect of this large business square, [Pg 88] with the deep greenery of the plaza in the centre, is extremely attractive. Strolling about it in the intense sunshine are many beggars and grandees; women in bright-colored rebosas; others in rags which do not half cover their nakedness; fair señoritas with tall, red-heeled boots pointed at the toes, and poor girls with bare limbs and feet; cripples and athletes; beauty and deformity; plethoric priests and cadaverous peons. ”

“ Here in the old plaza full of sleepy light, which still retains the indefinable stamp of the people to whom to-morrow was always a better day for doing things, one sighs for the short-sighted self-interest which so wasted the native children of the soil. ”

“ Through the old white plaza, dazzling with color, dividing its lively crowds impartially between the lemonade stand at one end, and the draped altar at the other, we made our way to the old church which looks through an avenue of blossoming cottonwood on to a gentle blue and [Pg 181] green landscape picked out by the meanderings of the Rio Grande. Meanwhile the dance in the Plaza had begun. ”

“ There is no city among the Spanish-speaking peoples but has its restfully attractive plaza, varying in beauty as the wealth of the community permits—a playground and a club-house and a concert-hall in one for all the people. ”

“ About half way down this widened a little, forming a small plaza, or square, where a band played on summer evenings, and people walked round and round, or sat about and listened to the music, and enjoyed also the pleasure of looking at their neighbours. ”

“ A plaza, or market-place, stood in the midst, one side of which is occupied by what is called a palace, a clumsy quadrangular building of two stories, belonging to some noble family, the lords of the neighbouring soil. ”

“ Only one public building, the old Town Hall in the chief plaza, dates from colonial times and has, or seems by its quaintness to have, a sort of artistic quality which is absent from the work, all French rather than Spanish in character, of the last sixty years. The plazas are handsome, well laid out and planted, and the street architecture creditable, with fewer contrasts of meanness and magnificence than one usually sees in the growing cities of North America. ”

“ They listened, then descended to the big open engine-room doors and listened again. From the direction of Market Street came the dull sounds of turmoil, shouting, the growl and roar of many people excited by something. Across the Plaza a man appeared, running. ”