Prowling about Panama. George A. Miller
also took care of the gold. But that does not prevent any one from "digging for treasure in Old Panama" if he wants to do so.
Nevertheless, there is treasure in Old Panama, and it is to be had for the digging. But the digging will be, not amid the rocks, but into the history of the place. And the digger will find rare nuggets for his pains. Balboa, Pizarro, Pedrarias laid out this town, and set the pace for the wild and unprincipled years that followed. And Henry Morgan, adventurer, pirate, and general rascal, ended the story as it was begun—in crime and blood.
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. There are described two large churches, a cathedral, a "hospital," over two thousand large houses, and several very large establishments for the care of the great number of pack animals used on the trail. Large quantities of gold, silver, pearls, and gems of various sorts were in evidence. In the day of its glory Panama was a veritable Arabian Nights city, with some two hundred warehouses for the storing of stolen treasure.
The story of the destruction of the old city is one of shocking cruelty and lust, and merely furnishes the last chapter of the same tale of crime that marks the history of the Isthmus from the finding of the Peruvian gold to the days when the murderous pillages of rival pirates finally destroyed the commerce of the Isthmus and left Panama little more than a memory of former glories. The burning of Old Panama marks the turning point in Isthmian history and closes forever the days of conquest. About this time the vast supply of Peruvian gold became exhausted, and between the failure of loot and the destruction of trade by brigandage the Isthmus fell into neglect and was nearly lost sight of by the world for two hundred years.
Anyone who knows the story of the place will find the ruins fascinating because they show a construction of the days when men built strong walls because nothing else would stand the strain of the lives they lived. Some of the walls stand as firm and strong to-day as they did three and a half centuries ago, and unless removed by the hand of man they will stand here a thousand years hence. And when a wall stands for centuries in this tropic climate of disintegration it is a wall to remember.
Most conspicuous stands the old church tower, splendid and defiant amid the wreckage about its feet. Straight and strong it lifts its lofty head above the treetops, and, viewed from any angle, is a majestic figure. There is no construction in modern Panama to-day that may be compared to the grand dignity of that sentinel tower. Like some old prophet, amid the ruins of a wayward people, the tower raises its head and stands in mute but noble witness to the reality of the things that endure. For the tower was honestly built, and therefore stands. Against its solid walls, builded from their rock foundation straight upward, the ravages of time have made but little impress.
The tower was part of the cathedral, and the cathedral was one of three or four great churches.
Of at least two others well-preserved ruins still remain, and are well worth careful study. The reddish-brown coloring of the old walls and the vine-covered stone help furnish endless temptations for the artist, but no one has yet given adequate expression to the splendid possibilities of these ruins.
Still more interesting vistas open to the mind's eye of the student with a constructive imagination. There were churches many and large and beautiful in Old Panama. And there were pirates wild and wicked and hated in Old Panama. Who "ran the town"? The pirates or the priests? What relations existed between the two? And if there were churches of such great beauty and strength, why were there also the terrible pirates? What were the churches doing that they did not bring about a better city?
These are hard questions, but to anyone who knows conditions to-day, and who knows that conditions to-day are better than they were in Old Panama, the answer is not far to seek. The hungry and helpless peons did not give the money to build those costly churches, though they doubtless did the hard work of construction. And if the pirates were good givers—and they doubtless were, under promise and threat—then they also influenced the general scheme of things in Old Panama. In short, the churches of Old Panama did not make a very good town of it.
What a story Jack London could have written here! It is too bad that he did not find Old Panama before it was too late. Not only the ruins, but the vista of royal palms along the beach, with the little red-white-and-blue crabs scurrying about at high tide, unite to raise a sense of romance that starts the wheels of fancy revolving in one's brain. All one needs is a "long, low, rakish black craft in the offing,"—there it is now, the very thing, a big chinga, fifty feet long with four sails and twenty-five men on board, luffing and tacking about into the little bay just around the point. Pirates or fishermen—don't inquire too closely; either will do, and both are useful in romance.
In one of the churches are some old graves, where some natives have been buried, partly for convenience and perhaps partly from sentiment. Fine old walls stand earthquake-cracked, but still strong. Of roofs there are, of course, none. And back of the church are still intact the foundations of a house said to have been the house of the governor, and the vaulted arches of the old cellar storehouse are still intact. A native lives in a shanty near by, and he greets the visitor, not with the information that might make him useful and get him a tip, but with the vacant optimism of those who feel that somehow something is coming to them whether they earn it or not.
As for the natives, none of them know anything about the place. The few that live there are of the sort that would camp under the nose of the sphinx and never look up into his face. But the reader of this can well spend a half day amid the most fruitful prowling anywhere in Panama. He may gaze at the splendid tower till the broken walls about it rise again, and the old tiled roof once more covers the worshiping congregations within, and the drone of mass and the fragrance of incense again ascend before the high altar. And down the old street, with its one-story houses, once more wind the pack trains and muleteers and men and women and children. There is excitement everywhere, and commotion and cursing, and everybody runs down to the beach. And if you will turn about and gaze out to sea, you will see there a curious craft with freakish sails, and when it drops anchor and the boat pulls ashore, you will see old Almagro himself step out on the sands sword in hand, and with rough and profane commands, take charge of the unloading of his golden cargo. There will be wild times in Old Panama to-night, for the pack trains have returned from Porto Bello with a cargo of rum, and the sailors from Peru have been long at sea, detained by unfavorable winds, and, like sailors of other times and climes, they are thirsty. Out from the church door comes the tonsured priest; he shakes his head, shrugs his shoulders, and makes his way down to where the great Almagro stands, a commanding figure amid the confusion. For the commander has the gold, and, like all explorers of his time, he will be in need of a proper blessing by the priest; and the padre, being human, can use a little of the gold.
But while you gaze and dream, "dear reader," the vision fades and "the tumult and the shouting dies," and there stand the ruins, and there swings the sweep of the tropic sea, and you are again in the twentieth century, a little richer in mental imagery for your short excursion back into the sixteenth.
Which is to say that dreaming is easy at Old Panama. Try it yourself.
CHAPTER V
THE SPELL OF THE JUNGLE