Arizona republican., 1904-01-08


 Sunday at the cathedral. On festal oc- casions they wear colors., but the Pan amend dress ordinarily is dead black and simple, with a dead black shawl for the shoulders. There is something placid and striking. about the way they part their black hair above their black eyes and furl it over their ears into 'a braid that hangs far down their back, rolling from side to side to their long indolent stride
 No young man can call upon young woman until he has declared his desire to marry. He may only see her for moment at a. dance or chat with her through the jalousies. This custom produces what is called 'mariposas' butterflies of young men who are long in settling down to matrimony.
 There is no driving although there are two pretty water fronts The req son is that the streets are almost as bad as Havana's were when the Amer jeans took possession there To put money into public improvements has seemed always a sad waste to Span ish American governments. A little honest repairing would make of the road out to Savannah a tolerable park way.
 The Savannah is the fashionable summer suburb, and a considerate friend took me out there one afternoon ito brighten ourselves up Small wooden metal roofed bungalows stand around a great open space in the bush. each with it's fenced in garden of brill iant Towering trees and plants. It was here on the grassy level that Harry Morgan and his buccaneers almost famished and reduced to eating their leather camp bags, found cattle, and were enabled to continue their great march upon old Panama in 1721. The Cordilleras are in sight; we can dis cern part of those Darien hills from which Balboa discovered the Pacific ocean. Gay plumageds birds fit above us; the little bungalow garden makes spots of brightness; the sky is suave blue. But the place lacks beauty. It is unpleasant. The birds give lone some staccato cries, and the soundless ferest presses nearby, thick, strangling. We are in a kind of vacuity in which the feelings lie motionless and are torpid. There is that in the calm air which seems to threat. a portent of some thing dire. Under or feet the sensitive plant grows densely. and We see it recoil and shiver and shrivel up at the merest touch.
 "'Dead and alive we call that weed" remarks the Jamaican drive; and we step back into the carriage and say: Take us away. from the dead-and- alive"
 As We strike the edge of the city my companion. whose spirits are not buoy ant enough for his country, declares, "a drin Irix ofn hot dirty cafe" The minister of war of the new republic is there, sitting with Admiral Varon. he sold out his ship on the day of the transformation for $25,000; and we take some Amer Picon with gum, because the label says that hours when we reach the Gran Hotel Central. The sky is like a brass bell and a mystic yellow light is over every, thing, touching the forehead ofthe bish- Op as he stands reading in the balcony. this is what the French drink in AL geria and SueZ to steer off the fever It is one of the pleasant quarter His balcony is over the office of the lottery, and if he looked down instead of up he would see he would see the doors of the roulette rooms open, and hear between the strokes of the Angel us the click of the white marble as it tries to find a socket.
 There are no banks as we under stand them in Panama. Two firms do banking. but you can buy of them anything besides money. Brandon sells hats, prunes, cognacss soap, mustard bitters, four, drugs, evaporated cream and is the only house from which you can obtain English cigarettes and pipe tobacco. Ehrman sells drafts on Flu rope, China, South America and the United States but his house also deals in real estate, life and fire insurance steamship tickets, and runs the main hotel. When it comes time to pay your account at. the hotel it is better to go first to the hotel bank to get your gold exchanged for silver; other wise the hotel, though owned and run by this banking house will allow some days, only 2.30, while the bank will all low 2.9o Checks are not inc use If a merchant wants $500 in silver he escribbles a note of request. a memor- andun and sends a messenger. The door of the strong room is unlocked. You see space eight feet by eight feet with shelves piled with gold pieces French, Spanish, American, English, with stacks of Colombian paper (worth one ndII d cent on the QOllar, which the bankers will give you freely if you want for souvenirs), and American greenbacks. Piled on two sides to the height of five feet are bags of silver, bags that hold one-eighth of a barrel Because they have no beveled French plate glass, nor wrought iron grilles, nor fastened cages for clerks you must not infer that these banking houses have no money. The favorite method of preserving their treasure during the buccaneering regime of the Colombia s war governor was for a partner to get himself appointed consul or vice-con- sul of some strong foreign country.
 On the pictorial note paper the hotel looms grandly, and the advertisements offer 'timbres electricos en todos los quartos" and "tOdo el comforto mod erno." Actually, it is q masonry and stucco shell of four stories, one TOW of chambers facing upon the streets, one row within, facing the echoing court yard. The chamber care takers are men, young Spaniards or mestizos, weary emancipated yet faithful beyond all experience. You press an electric button when you want anything, and