The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-07-26
ANCIENT HISPANIOLA.
THE TWIN REPUBLICS OF
 HAITI
And sRntO DOmIngo-A Land of Tragedy and Dark Romance-The OIdest City in the New World

Oldest City i'm the New World
 Special Correspondence of the Journal
 and Courier.)
 Santo Domingo, ". l., June 20 1902.
 Coasting along the southern shore of the big island that now comprises the two Republics of Haiti and Santo Do-
 mingo, you see silver beeches fringed
 with the tallest of palms and the green est of mountains rising tier above tier from the bluest water in the world. The
 panorama is not unusual in this lati-
 tude, but here all the cOlors seem in
 tensified and everything on larger
 scale, in proportion to the size of the
 island as compared with the hundreds
 of miniature domains in the great archipelago. Next to Cuba. this is the
 largest island of the West Indies-the
 very same which the early Spaniards
 called Espanola, or Hispaniola. Santo
 Domingo, it's eastern portion, has near
 ly double the area Of Hayti, the west
 ern twin-which, by the way, has drop
 ped the y, since We went to school, and is nowadays properly written Haiti. Of
 ficial figures give to Santo Domingo an
 area of 1S,045 English square miles and
 a population of 610000; and to it's neigh
 Dor 10,204 square miles and dispropor-
 tionate population of 96O,0O0. You cease
 to wonder why the latter is called
 The Black Republic" when you see it's
 crowded towns with hardly white face
 of Ioa
 est dye, with merely a sprinkling of
 mixed Africans.
 Santo Domingo is by far the most in-
 teresting, and certainly more desirable
 as place of residence. if one were compelled to choose between them be- ing mainly inhabited by Spaniards, with few Creoles of mixed Indian and negro blood. The language is Castilian and the ways of the people like those of Cuba and the other Spanish Provinces: while in Haiti the upper classes speak French and they rabble as queer patois, called Creole French, unintelligible to anybody but themselves.
 Columbus found it great green isl and early in his career of discovery; and when his eyes were gladdened by it's beautiful mountains and luxuriant valleys, drained by crystal rivers. he named it ''The New Spain"-Hispaniola Before his return from the second voy- age. he directed his brother Bartholo- new, who came with him. to build a city at certain point which should be the metropolis of the Western World. The chosen site was near the Southeast ern end of the island, where the Ozama comes pouring into the sea, and broad green plain stretches from the small, triangular bay back to the greener mountains. And here it stands to this day--that ancient city of Santo Domin- go, the very oldest on the hemisphere, with it's ruins of churches and antique Casas which Bartholomew Columbus Obediently began to build in the year 1494. Some time before that time, lit tie chapel of coral stone and shell mor- tar had been erected on the other side of the OZama river; and opposite to it Bartholomew commenced operations by building a fort and garrisnning it. and having masses said over nearly every stone that was put into it. As his city grew a high wall was constructed all around it, with square tower guarding which may still be seen. For many years this stately, but now sad old city was the center of what little civiliza- ton the Western hemisphere could boast. To this place Bobadella came from Spain. in the year 1900, to inquire into the alleged misconduct of Colum- bus; and without any semblance of trial or investigation he threw the discover CT into a dungeon of the fortress, and thence took him in chains to Spain. The brave Admiral never returned to enjoy his well earned title of "Viceroy of Hispanolia and the New World; but in 1904 when he came this way on his fourth voyage, he stopped at Santo | Domingo for water and prOviSiOns; and what was his grief to find his former we'll governed city, the pride of his 1 heart and hope of his ambition, a scene of riot and misrule, oyer-run by reck- l less fortune hunters and the resort of 1 free bOOters and criminals of every class. PoWerless to remedy matters by 1 reason of the jealousy of his country | llCii cil4ti tliC NNtlh UL tlIt fNlIS | whom he had so greatly benefited Co., 1 lumbus sailed away in sadness. and
 never again saw his beloved capital
 at least not in the flesh. He died in | Spain, you remember, in the year 1506, leaving a request that his body be | brought to Santo Domingo and buried | in it's cathedral. But his wishes were
 not fulfilled until long afterwards. His 1 tory tells us that he was first inferred l in the monastery of San Francisco. in | Spain and then removed to the Car | thusian monastery. More than a quar- ter of a century later what remained | of his crumbling bones was put into a l leaden case, conveyed across the At