Weekly Arizona journal-miner. [volume] (Prescott, Ariz.) 1903-1908, 1903-12-09
NEWSY LETTER
FROM PANAMA
By a Former Prescott
Young Man.
Sampson Harris, an Electrician on
the Wyoming, Writes Interest
ingly of Events There.

lngly OF Events There.
The following letter was received
yesterday by Mrs. Addie Harris in this
city, from her son, Sampson Harris,
who is will known here, having work
ed for the Prescott Electric company
for two or three years, but who is at
present an electrician on the coast de-
Tense monitor, Wyoming, which is
part of the U. S. feet at Panama:
"We lett San Francisco on the after
noon of the 22d of October, bound
for Acapulco, Mexico. The feet con-
sisted of the Marblehead, Concord and
Wyoming. Nothing worthy of men
ton happened on the trip. We had
the regular drill that a feet always
has on a sea trip-that is we had
general quarters, which is the sta
tions the men take in case of action,
and we also had fire quarters, CO.
hesion drill, abandon ship, etc. My
station is in charge of four iGch am
munition hoist. We proceeded along
at the rate of ten knots all hour which
is equal to IL IA miles an hour for
nine days arriving in Acapulco on Oc-
tober 81, where we remained for five
days, and coaled the ship.
Acapulco is an old Mexican sea-
port. 1t is the port where Mexico used
to export all her stuff to China. The
city is built at the base of hill and
has no streets, all the buildings be-
ing one story high. This is on ac-
count of earthquakes. By the way, |
forgot to tell you about the volcano
we saw about a hundred miles above
Acapulco. 1t was near COloma, an
active volcano, of which there are a
great many along this coast, but this
one erupted just as We were passing
by and it was a great sight. A great
cloud of smoke shot up in the air for
hundreds of feet and it looked as if
the whole top of the mountain was on
fire.
1.-THE city of Acapulco has a popu-
lation of about 5000 people, and there
is a Mexican fort there which was
bombarded by the U. S. S. Independ-
ence, now the receiving ship at Mare
Island, during the Mexican war, and
you can see where the shells hit the
rocks and tore them up. 1t is a very
poor fort and is used now as a prison
for government prisoners. They stow
them away in dark dungeons, some of
them for life, which don't seem to me
could last long in that place.
"All around the town is confu-
sion of vegetation of all kinds-cocoa-
nut, bananas and lime trees all grow
ing wild. All kinds OF monkeys and
parrots can be seen in these trees. |
climbed one of the cOcOanut trees and
got some nuts. 1t is pretty hard to
get them, the trees are so slender and
there are no limbs, there being only
little bunch of leaves at the top and
the nuts are clustered in these leaves.
"Here we got orders to go to Pan
anna and the feet started to coal.
The Marblebea3 and Concord left the
third of Novem Der and we waited for
the mail and left on the fifth full
speed for Panama. We did not know
that anything was wrong at the time.
Nothing happened until on the
night of the 18th, when about eleven
O'Clock we sighted two ships. They
failed to answer our signals and we
turned the search lights on them and
they proceeded to get away as fast as
possible. We did not follow them as
we did not know what was up. When
we got into Panama on the 18th we
found out. On the third day of No
vember, the state of Panama, Republic !
of Colombia, declared itself to be a |
free and independent country and !
was Immediately recognized as re-
public By the United States and later
by England, Germany and other coun-
tries. At the time of the declaration
there we're three Colombian men of
war in the harbor, and British man of /
war. Two of the Colombian ships |
hoisted the Panama flag and the other
whereupon the first two open
ed fire on it and chased it out of the
harbor That night it and another
boat tried to return and open fire on
the town but were soon driven back,
only one Chinaman being killed. The
Boston and Concord gave chase but
owing to the number of islands they
got away and were still going when
We met them, for they we're the two
ships we met, and had We known
what they we're we would have soon
stopped them.
Five hundred spies were sent into
Panama by Colombia few days ago
% kill the leaders of the Panama rev.
,lution, but it leaked out and they
we're all captured and are now being
leld.
Panama's forces consist of 10000
veil armed men and the east coast is
icing patrolled by American men of
var, aud we are on the west side so
hink that Panama will have very lit
lie trouble maintaining her independ-
nee and then all trouble about the
'anama canal will be over.
This country is certainly one of
evolutions, as they have one every
corning before breakfast, Just by way
# pastime.
We are anchored along side of an
Id Colombian war ship that was sunk
-