The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-08-13


 to the homes of the camp-follOwers and other degraded creatures who bur row in holes in the walls, or grOyel un- der tents made by stretching a rag on two sticks against the side of rock
 Descending from the walls at the Ataranza gate, the seaward entrance to the city, few minutes walk brings you to a place of curiosity to strangers known as Columbus We'll" on the river bank. about a quarter of mile from the Custom House. Whether or not it was dug by the AdmiraFs order do not know, but from earliest times it has been used by vessels taking in fresh water for sea voyages. The well itself is only about three feet deep. with a stone bed, and is set well back on the hillside, covered with substan- tial arched building of succeed brick, about twelve feet by six. In front or 1t is a large stone basin, with condults from within for the water to pass out of the well, and surrounded by low walls which form a sort of court, Judging from these arrangements. It looks as if the we'll must sometime have yielded a higher level of water Nowadays the basin is dry as dust; but the water in the we'll is cool and sweet and particularly refreshing after long tramp. Upon the quays between this we'll and the city walls you may always find large quantities of the rich woods of the country. such as hsnum, fustic, rosewood, ebony, mahogany and various dye-woods, being weighed in huge scales preparatory to shipment The quays are also devoted to whole sale traffic in fruit and vegetables. The country people from far up the Ozama river come down to these landings in their "Canotes," or canoes, hollowed out of big palm trunks. each propelled by one-man power. Perhaps the canote has come forty or fifty miles to bring down Q, couple of hundred bananas, worth fifty cents the hundred; or may be it's owner has brought more val uable freight in the shape of two or three bits of mahogany. or rosewood. The average size of cutting the wood is in pieces three feet long by two feet square each piece worth from eight to ten dollars. Back of the quays is line of rude sheds, where the workmen regale themselves with "San cacho" Ca kind of stew, second cousin to the Mexican chili-con-carnie) rum and cakes.
 Tn plain sight across the river are the remains of the first settlement founded by Columbus, called Ia Murva Isabella. which was destroyed by a hurricane in 1902. It is said that the present city, which Bartholomew Col umbus built at the command of his seafaring brother Christopher; but most persons named Domingo, after their honored father, Domingo Colum- ;, bus: but most persons believe it was called after the canonized parsonage who figures at the head of the long ar ray of patron saints with which Spain is blessed.
 Of course you must visit the Colum- bus church, which has been kept in a fine state of preservation. In front of it is the the quaint but still useful sun dial that the discoverer caused to be built a column of stuccoed brick, twelve feet high, with the dia's so ad- justed as to be seen from the pedestal 1 Think of the eyes that have watched those dials through five hundred lag ging years! Close by is Jesuit col lege, a fine building massive in pro- portion and construction but much out of repair and now used as a theater. i The cathedral we have visited before. but were so engrossed with Columbus bones that we hardly noticed it's other points of interest. It is of Gothic archi- lecture, in solid stone, richly carved. with nave and two wings, and is said to have been modelled after church in Rome. Though worn with hurri- canes, wars and eathquakes, it is stll most imposing. To mount upon tbe roof you ascend by a spiral stone stair case and you wonder how they ever got the cannon up there-as they cer- i tainly did in defense of the town in 1909. By this means they won the day:
 but you may still see a bomb-shell en- | bedded in the broken tower, which the 1 Englishmen fired at the French, who
 were then in possession of Santo Do-
 mingo
 At one time this little island was the
 principal archbishopric in the New 1 World, and possessed an extraordinary
 number of church organizations. When
 the latter were in full blast. so to
 speak, there were no fewer than forty
 churches, a score of monasteries and a
 dozen hospitals in Santo Domingo.
 Many of them. particularly the cathe-
 dral, were enormously rich in gold and
 silver and jewelled ornaments and l decnrat tinns hllt thav have all haeu