Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1874-06-06
NO. 1876.
Gales and Skstehes.
VERA CRUZ.

vera CfuZ Is the smallest, cOmpacteSt,
cleanest, and deadliest ofnational seaports.
1t lies in the hollow of your hand. 1t has
practically but two streets, one, going
straight back from the mole to the centre
of the wall that swings like semicircle
around the town the other side is thestring
of this bow, whereof the former is the ar
row. 1t stretches along the diameter the
enormous distance Of a mile. The arrow
is about third that length. Two or three
streets cross this at right angles going
from the Gulf to the wall, and two others
are parallel to Central street, as it is
called, but behind it, and shorter, subtend-
ing acres of lesser area. What makes
the city such victim of the yellow fever
is a question often asked and rarely an
swered. 1t is not its filthiness, for clean
er town one never sees. Its blackstone
pavements are washed nightly, and shine
like Philadelphia door-steps The big
black buzzard acts as scavenger. and
clouds ofthem occupy roof-top and church
cross, dipping into the street for stray
morsels, and in their ravenous hunger
would make nothing of boots and hats and
old clothes, if the people ever had such
articles to cast away. So far as garbage
and dirt are concerned, no city has less
ldull W lIlu Will It's litlerS.
No more is the affluent and decaying
vegetation the cause, or quiet inland wat
ers, such rs lie in lagoons and
semi-waters and r,cl but deadly
deltas about New Orleans. The bluffs
about Vera Cruz are sand, and sand only.
You must 60 miles from the city to reach
fat and fatal lands. The walls are thought
to be the chief source of the evil, for they
shut in the air, and prevent its sweeping
easily through the town. They are twen-
ty feet high, and of no value whatever as
protection. They only increase its per-
ils, for they necessitate bombardment in
all civil wars, which ruins roofs and
churches and destroys lives, while they
do not prevent the capture of the town.
If they also cause the pestilence, then
there is every reason for their removal.
Central street has one characteristic of
Venice. 1t is without carriages. Not
four-wheeled, or a two-wheeled, or even
one-wheeled vehicle did | see in all its
tiny thoroughfares. The horse and its
rider, the donkey and its pack, were the
only representatives of carts and carriag-
cs, except the Indian loaded like his
brother, the ass, with burdens grievous to
be borne. The levees of the great are at
tended by gentlemen and ladies on foot
Even to the Presidential reception, which
flashed with diamonds and grand turn
outs of apparel, every body went afoot.
But Venice is without horse or mule, and
so Vera Cruz hath pre-eminence.
In another thing it surpasses. Without
public or private carriages, strangely
enough it has a horse-car. i shall have to
revise my first statement. This four
wheeled car exists. 1t goes up and down
this single avenue every fifteen minutes,
and will carry you for real (twelve and
Il half cents) the whole distance of mile,
or less. But it carries nobody save driver
and conductor. People have no call to
either extreme, and the shops, cafes, and
churches are all within biscuit-toss OF each
other and of the houses of the gentry, the
very few that have real to spend. The
horse railway, like many Northern steam
road, is simply Il superiluity, no call aris-
ing in either case for the eXtravagant en-
terprise. 1t may by this time have ceased
to be.
The prettiest ride from the city is by
cars to Medelin, some ten miles south, Il
little back from the sea, along the bank of
a muddy and shaded river. This was the
favorite resort of Cortez, and it bears the
name of his birthplace over the sea. We
pass down Gale Centrale by many work
shop and wne-shop. In the former you
see tailors, hatters, cordage-twisters, can
dle-makers, shoe-makers, iron-workers,
each busy at his hot trade this hot Decem-
ber day. There is no privacy. All their
works are manifest TO all passers-by.
The wine and coffee shops are equally
open, and more attractive. Hot to the hot
is the law whether it be delicious coffee
or fiery spirits. Ice-watcr and iced drinks
are things unknown. What the acute
IaZewell, of the Boston Traveller, asserts
should be our law of conforming to nature,
ice-water for winter and tea for summer,
is here carried out, and the heating liquids
refresh heated frames.
a church, well battered by the shot of
Scott, stands near the southern gate, rent
and abandoned. A bridge is just outside
the gate, perhaps thirty feet long. stone,
with low parapet, and benches for
loungers. The broad path to it on either
side for hundred feet, is lined with young
cocoa-nut trees. That bridge was first
built by Cortez for sum so fabulous that
his emperor staggered when the bills came
in. 1t is OF no use except as u lounging-
place, and not much for that, for the trees
are too small, the promenade too short,
and the means of getting to it to scant for
the fashionables to frequent it, even if the
horse-car runs thther; so it is left to dogs
and loungers of the lower sort, or, more
commonly, to silence and emptiness. save
the croaking presence of buzzards. and
the stray foot of the foreigner .'doing" the
town.-Dr. Gilbert Horen, IN Harper's