The Republican journal., 1903-01-01

the North, in high attitudes of the far
south soon find themselves mere bun
dies of nerves, strung to such tension
as to induce excessive irritibility, in
somnia and mental exhaustion, even
without special strain, mental or ply
steal
Though in land where all things are
quaint as was Egypt in the days OF
Moses, this old Bogota presents an ap-
pearance of unusual picturesqueness.
Its narrow and crooked streets, wind
ing up hill and down, and paved with
the smallest and sharpest of ''cobbles"
set on end; and in the middle of each
street is cut a deep ditch, through which
the melted SHOWS of the nearby noun
tains dance in noisy rivulets. The city
has population slightly exceeding one
hundred thousand, and in many respects
is quite modern-in others fully two
hundred years behind the times. Its
white walled houses are mostly of one
story, with projecting roofs of red tiles
and windows with green painted lat
tees in lieu of glass. between whose
bars the beautiful dark eyes of Colon
bian women peer out with wondering
curiosity at ''las estrangeras Ameri-
canas." Though built of adobe and un-
prepossessing in outside appearance,
there are many elegant homes in Co.
lombia'S capital spacious and well fur
nished. OF course the prevailing archi-
lecture is that which the Moors be-
queathed to the early paniards-ev
house like a fort, its bare, blank walls
flush with the pavement, carefully con-
the passerby: while within are bloom
and beauty, sunlight and cheerfulness.
These more modern casaS that eXult in
the luxury of q second story-and there
are more of them in Bogota than one
often finds in a Spanish city
have no windows at all on the ground
floor, the rooms fronting the street be-
ing used for shops, warehouses and
stables, the proprietors and their fami-
lies preferring to live above. Even the
biggest and grandeSt of these houses
have never more than one entrance,
and that consists of pair of enormous
double doors, often deliberately carved
and surmounted by a coat-of- arms, open
ing into a narrow passage, paved like
the street, which leads into the central
courtyard. Through this one entrance,
not only the family and their guests
must come and go, but carriages drive
in and donkeys laden with charcoal,
sacks of grain for the animals stabbed
somewhere within, and provisions for
the larder. The handsome residences,
including all the two-storied ones, have
wide corridors surrounding their court
yards above and below, into which every
room opens. The court, open overhead
to the sky, is beautiful with shrubs and
flo wers, central fountain, and often
statuary; and the corridors are shaded
by curtains of striped canvas, arranged
on rollers, so that they can be raised
and lowered, according to the position
of the sun. Trailing vines overrun the
corridors, singing birds in cages abound,
and hammocks are swung in shaded
hooks. Here the mistress of the man.
sion brings her books, embroidery or
guitar; here the children play, and the
master smokes his eternal cigarros. In
short, the family life practically goes
on out of doors, but in strictest privacy,
so far as the outer world of the street
is concerned.
The city is constructed after no regu-
lar plan, but struggles down "a gently
sloping hillside, with three considerable
streams running through it. Its streets
are named after the Saints, famous
public men, or the dates of decisive
battles; as, for example, the Gale,
May street. A distinctive feature of
Bogota is its eucalyptus tree, of the
globuous variety, which, interspersed
with few sickly willows, shade every
avenue. The first eucalyptus trees were
introduced here about thirty years ago,
under the impression that they would
ward off mountain fevers; now there
are thousands of those scraggy, worm
breeding, melancholy looking trees.
FANNIE B. WARD.