The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1897-06-03

being intense and dust rising in binding
clouds.
The valley of Antigua is much more
fertile and beautiful than that which con-
tans the present capital, for the reason
that the latter is almost entirely sur
rounded by ravines which carry off all the
water, leaving the city and its environs
dry as bone, to be supplied by aqueducts
leading to the fountains In selecting the
site, its founders believed that the ravines
would break the force of an earthquake
and SO save the new city from the fate of
its predecessors Presently we passed a
ruined mill, surrounded by coffee trees,
and then ruins greeted us everywhere.
The road crossed culvert quantity
arched, and then. having become rough
ly paved street, merged into a triangular
plaza. the central feature of every Span
ish-American city, old or new. In the
middle of the plaza rises a once magnificent
but now somewhat dilapidated fountain,
| still squirting up streams of crystal water,
which dance in the sunlight and fall back
/ with merry splashes into a ragged stone
( bowl, Beyond, around, on every side,
I rise broken walls, vine twined columns,
ruined arches, in the midst of which are
lowly. Continuing through the plaza,
the roughly paved street runs on-past
more ruined churches and monasteries,
and palaces, cuuously intermngled with
the adobe, tile-roofed abodes of the pres
eut inhabitants-to the Hotel Concrete,
where We are booked for a week S So
/ journ. How strange and solemn it all is
the ghost of the former Queen of Cen
| trail America, yet with a certain uncanny
gayety, as Of thoughtless children playing
in graveyard. From many t1owery
| patios toated snatches of songs and the
tinkle of guitars, and from the doorways
of chicherias came the resonant notes of
marimbas, and occasionally the patter of
| bare or sandalled feet, dancing landau
| goes and zapeteros. The better class of
citizens We're emerging from the indoors
retirement of the heated hours to vesper
services, or to stroll in the plazas, and
greeting acquaintance in the customary
ELUSIVE manner-the men with an EN-
brace and a resounding kiss upon each
other mouth, the women falling into
one another arms and laying their cheeks
| together, first the left cheek then the
right. Longing idly in the streets were
many Indians from the surrounding pue-
bios, each representing his own class by
| There We're bright crimson skirts, and'
yellow skirts with bands of black, dark
| blue and sombre brown white chemises.
embroidered in colors, displaying arms
and shoulders of polished bronze. and
bolero jackets, trimmed like a bull-h fight
er' 5 with little dancing balls. There We're
men in knee breeches, men in breeches
slit to the thigh. and men in no breeches
to speak of. Some in white shirts, starch
ed stiff as shingles and Worn with the
flaps outside; others in shirts of bright
N"liCp, lttllONt tPlI ftilNt ColtpiiI, lO4N anu
( aft; and others bare from the waist up,
with zarape thrown over one shoulder.
Some Wore long red Romish looking caps;
/ others hats of Panama straw, and the
majority no other head covering than the
Shock Of coarse black hair with which
nature has 50 generously provided the
Indian. All these, of course were los
pobres ('the poor, as the lower classes
/ are indiscrminately designated 10y their
/ betters in a social scale. The naughty
4 hidalgoes of Central America, when not
in the retirement of siesta, seem to be on
perpetual dress parade, in the finest
broadcloth and latest modes of London
and Paris-dress- coats, low-cu vests,
silk hats and shining patent feathers,
supplemented on chilly evenings by that
most graceful garment in the world, the
long, black Spanish cloak.
Previous to its destruction. lin 1918,
there were but two cities on the Ameri-
can hemisphere which compared to this
old town, in population, wealth and mag
nifcence-and these were Lima, Peru
and the City of Mexico. New York was
then commercial infant, Boston mere
village where COWS roamed at will, Chi
cago yet unborn. But here in the heart
of Central America stood the proud city
where centered the ecclesiastical and po-
litical interests of all the surrounding
colonies-where millions of dollars were
spent in erecting churches, converts and
monasteries which covered acres of
ground, and beautiful residences, whose
shattered portals still bear the es-
cutcheons of the noble families who
ruled the region and cultivated the plan
tations of coffee, sugar and cochineal. 1t
was not only the scene of wealth and in
tluence, and the commercial metropolis of
Central America, but the home of the
most learned men on this side of the
world-the seat of great schools of theol-
ogy, science and art; for two hundred
years it was the Athens and Rome of the
western hemisphere, the residence of the