.MTIwNg.OTMxMDI

36 It was a pleasure to me to walk about these walls - pass through the gates of which there were three - and note the embrasures - the sentry bells. The grim defences of early days - when seiges - and assualts tried the soldiers skill and courage - when draw bridge and porticullers shelt all within. My imagination peopled these ruined battlements again - and the excitements of assault and repulse. Strategy and defeat - mine and countermine were shadowed out. But Panama at the present day is eminently a city of ruins. The mould of decay and the tooth of envious Time - have made sad havoc in her streets. Every house bears marks of age - and most of her churches - are heaps of heterogeneous ruins. She has outlived the times and the causes which created and made her a city. Spain her foster mother has fallen - her commerce gone - her people enervated - her colonies urested from her - the enterprize of the world has passed into their hands and into their channels - and with her has Panama fallen - possibly never to be resuscitated. It is this ruined and old appearance of the city that first arrests the traveller. He finds himself in a stagnated place. The streets are regular - but narrow - rough and paved with small stone. The houses are built of stones - and plastered smooth on the outside. A heavy piazza or balcony is affixed to the second floor. The roofs are of tile. The lower story is used only for stores - shops &c. The doorways are large. The second floor is the living part. The rooms are large - the roof serves for a ceiling and huge white washed partitions divide the apartments. The windows open on the balcony. The stair cases are stone - and the lower hall wide and roomy - generally opening into a court. There are no fire places. Cooking is done in the courts. Here a box filled with earth and raised on legs - serves to sustain the neccessary fire. Very little cooking is done in tropical climates. Prof Leibey would account for this by stating people in hot climates need but little carbon. The houses are build with reference to the heat. The rooms are large and spacious - and placed on the second floor to get all the circulation possible. Sashes are not used at all. The windows on the ground floor are usualy grated. Without the walls - the buildings are principally the bamboo huts. The general appearance of the houses is clumsy and cumbersome. The principal street of the city - the Calle de San Antonio - runs direct from the gate of entrance - to the opposite side - and ends by a gate upon the beach. The principal plaza is upon this street - as also the Hotel Americano and th Hotel Franicais. The noblest part of Panama is the garrison at the angle of the wall - facing the sea. Here the wall is well gravelled - and affords a