A CITY OF GHOSTS
No one has ever satisfactorily explained the existence of ghosts in an
enlightened world, but I have a theory that they survive because they
render a real service. They lend interest to life and at least keep us
from forgetting the super (or sub) natural.
Likewise ruins have high value as a link with the past, and with neither
ruins nor ghosts life would become a very flat affair. And if ever a spot,
by history, tradition, situation, and present condition, was marked for
rendezvous purposes by all the tribe that gibber and squeak and wander at
night in the dark of the moon, that place is Old Panama.
The history of Old Panama has been told, and well told, by other writers.
Read it there, and read it before you see the place. Many pilgrims go out
there, poke about among the ruins for a quarter of an hour, and exclaim,
"Is this all?" Without the story the most appreciative pilgrim will miss
the flavor of the place, but without a little romantic appreciation both
the story and the ruins will fall short of revealing all that the place
has to give.
The old town site was a hopeless jungle until the National Institute,
under the leadership of Dr. Dexter, cleared away the brush and laid bare
the traces of streets and buildings. To-day the place is in good condition
and one may wander about at will and dream to his heart's content. It is
no place for joy rides, and the roadhouse is a blot on the place, but
there are people still who see nothing but a refreshment counter and
worthless stone heaps.
[Illustration: CONVENT GARDEN]
One of the favorite amusements of tourists and other people used to be
that of digging for treasure at Old Panama. No one ever found anything of
value, but it made a fine story to tell upon return to the States. "When I
was digging for treasure in Old Panama"--just say it and see what a flavor
it has. It is most probable that if the ruins were located in a cooler
climate, there would have been a great deal more digging. Under a tropic
sun, however, it takes considerable bait to induce anyone to indulge in
such vigorous exercise.
The treasure idea is easy to locate. Peruvian gold was all brought up to
Panama and stored in warehouses until it could be packed across to Porto
Bello. There were endless fighting and plots and schemes and robberies and
murders connected with the gold trade. Many a man lost his gold, and many
a man his life. And, in consequence, some of the gold was also lost in the
melee. What more natural, then, than to look about for this lost treasure
in the place where most of it was stored?
Now, there may be millions of dollars' worth of old gold somewhere about
Old Panama. The only difficulty is that no one ever yet has been able to
find any of it. The probability is that no gold was ever left there long
enough to be very much lost, and the men who did the fighting 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.
[Illustration: ROMANTIC OLD CONVENTS SURVIVE]
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.
[Illustration: RUINED TOWER AT OLD PANAMA]
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.
[Illustration: COSTA RICA TRAPICHE, OR SUGAR MILL]
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.