The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-02-28
COLON OR kSPINWALL.
DISTANCE LENDS ENCHANTEENT
 TO IT.
The Native Quarter Picturesque Panama Ditch-A Mel anchoiy Story

1 Panama Dich-A Mel anchOiy Story l Special Correspondence of the Journal | and CourIer.)
 l Colon. Colombia, Jan. 27, 1903.
 This noted town is one of the many to whose attractions distance lends en- chantment''-a the greater the dis tance the better your opinion will re- main. Viewed from the harbor, as most visitors approach it, you see little but foreground of immense, ugly sheds of wood and corrugated iron, be- longing to the Isthmian Railway Com pany, backed by ragged looking cocoa
 trees and q few towering royal palms, the perspective ending in dim wilder ness of tropical verdure. This is the celebrated harbor which Columbus dis covered on his third voyage, and htnce the ancient name of it's port,-Cristoval Colon, according to the Spanish rem dering of the word. It was not much of discovery after all, so far as val
 uable harbor is concerned, being eX- posed to every wind that blows, and it's dangerously shallow water barely cov ering the scattered coral reefs.
 To bring a vessel up to the dock at Colon is a slow and serious matter, &C., complished by a gang of negroes run ming around and around a big wooden
 wheel, whose revolutions shorten the cable inch by inch. The wharf is more than thousand feet long. resting upon a solid foundation of coral reef. All its l with copper to resist the ravages of that destructive little creature, the ship worrn." through whose insidious agency thousands of human lives and millions of dollars have been lost.
 In most of the so-called harbors of Central and South America steamers are compelled to anchor mile or two from port and send passengers ashore | in row-boats and lighters; but at Co., I Ion. after carefully feeling their way among the reefs, they come pumping up against the dock and you walk ashore over gang-plank. Passing over the long, covered wharf, with it's chaos of bales and boxes and it's wide cracks in the floor through which you get 1 glimpses of coral snags below pounded l by surf and encrusted with strange forms of marine life, animal and vege- 1 table, you emerge into the main street 1 of the town. The first step finds you over shoe in the muds if after the rainy I season, or ankle deep in sand at other l times of the year. In either case you are instantly besieged by crowd of 1 darkies, with rickety carriages and horses in various stages of decrepitude, clamoring to show you roun'" Hav- ing selected the vehicle that looks most 1 likely to hold together another half hour, drawn by the horse or mule that harrows your feelings least by display ing the fewest fostering sores, you pro- ceed to haggle with it's driver. At first | he will demand not less than five dol l lars an hour: maybe more. if you look unusually unsophisticated; but when he l discovers that you are not so verdant as appearances may indicate, he comes down with celerity to one dollar which is the recognized tariff.
 As all the world is aware, Colon oc
 cupies the small island of Manzanillo, only three miles long by mile wide, it's northeastern side washed by Navy l Day 1t 'llcS dDUuI itlluWdy bek"Ecll Porto Bello and Chagres-the former town famous in the days os the bucca- neers as the grand emporium of Amer
 ican trade, and the latter, at the mouth of the river of the same name, as the place of disembarkation before the rise of Colon. Both are now almost desert ed, wretched beyond description, the lairs of leDrosy and levers. Until leased by the Colombian government to | the Panama Railway Company, in 1854, 1 Manzanillo island was nothing but series of mud flats and salt marshes. The railroad. managers forthwith hitched it to the main land of the 18th mus near Fox river, filled up a consid- erable portion of the mud flats and es
 tablished their headquarters at either end. They sub-leased the rest of the island to capitalists for building pur- poses and a mushroom town at once sprang up. Being constructed with to- tai disregard for all sanitary regula- tions, malignant diseases soon gave it a most unenviable reputation. Commerce fourished, notwithstanding deaths har- vests, and Colon became a popular re- sort for fortune seekers, especially when the opening of the canal work put millions of dollars into circulation and gave mighty impetus to Isthmian trade. The Colombian revolution of 1885 was a turning point in the history of the town. In March of that year it was invaded by General Prestan, and was finally destroyed by fire. No soon- CT was order restored (Prestan being executed in August of the same year), l than the rebuilding of Colon began. The location was the same, but an inn
 mense improvement was made over the old town, some of the streets being mazadamized and pavements of plank and concrete occupying the swampy highways that before reeked with hu
 man cess and decaying animal and vegetable matter. One long street, with wooden houses facing the sea, to-day ! comprises nearly the whole of Colon; i but it is divided into quarters" almost as distinct from one another as if they ! were separate towns That nearest to