The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-07-10
OLD CAMAGUEY.
A Survival of the Centuries in Inter-
 for Cuba.

A Survival of the Centuries in Inter-
 for Cuba.
 Camaguey, quaintest and least known of Cuban cities, is a store house of delight to the casual visitor and a source of undying joy to the man be- hind the camera, for in Cannaguey the sixteenth century. clasps hands with the twentieth, across streets so marrow that each carriage driver should pos sess pilots license to navigate them in safety. ,-.-.;
 The Spaniards who built the town were influenced by the Moors in their architecture and domestic art, the Gu bans who added to 1t were influenced by both, and during the American oe- cupation still another National intiu- cnee has been added to the cosmopoli- tan tangle.
 Until recently Camaguey was so iso- lated and its accomodations for trav- elers were so unique in their disconl- forts that it remained well-nigh un- explored. Even today 1t is unknown to the average winter visitor, though 1t is easily reached from Havana or Santiago by way of the Cuban Rail- road. which has its chief offices in this least of modern towns. A large and comfortable hotel has recently been opened for tourists, and soon the me- | diaeval streets will resound with the voices of American visitors, enjoying the picturesqueness which has hith- erto been the privilege of the few who braved the unknown horrors of the small Cuban hotel in search of the | new and the quaint.
 As yet the city is Americanized only in It's greater civic cleanliness ita | paved streets and the bringing in ot the telephone and electric light. | The traveller may rummage in l quaint, dark shops for souvenirs of the old Spanish regime, and add a wholly novel series of figures, vehicles and landmarks to the camera record of his winter tripi he may see a cock fight, party of Cuban boys playing 1 what they fondly imagine Is base ball, and number of washerwomen cleaning the family linen in stream and drying 1t upon adjacent bushes. | And these are but few of the daily scenes which will help to gaily furnish forth his letter home.
 And so Camaguey, queer tumble of | all of the centuries from the sixteenth to the twentieth, will remain to many a distant picture long after the en- croachments of the new have forced the old into the remote country dis- tricts. .s < .. ''
 The town was moved inland to its present location early in the sixteenth | century, that its inhabitants might es- cape the visits of the pirates who in- ! fested the coast. It is still frequently known by its ancient name of Puerto Principe which it bore when 1t stood | upon the site of the scarcely less me- | diaeval town of Nuevitas, some 50 miles away.
 The date of the founding of the town is unknown; certain 1t is, however. that it was among the first settlements of note in Cuba, and the gray old cathedral is said to have been erect ed in 1530-two years before Havana was declared the capital of the island,
 The history of the Cuban town is al- | ways written in the church and other religious buildings, and no town has a more interesting one than this. The cathedral has, ere now, served as a fort; from its square tower a cannon has belched forth; soldiers have slept and fought where, now the congregation prays, and it's huge, heavy wooden doors show the marks of bullets
 Perhaps more interesting yet is the Church of the Mercedes, built in 174s 1 by the monks of the order. The altar is richly and quaintly decorated in sil- yer, which produces beautiful effect under the light of the candles in the arched gloom of the church. Here, as elsewhere, the women form the bulk of the congregation, but across the threshold of the monastry,5 next the church, no female foot may step. The order was founded centuries ago for the purpose" of of2eonvertinE the Moors to Christianity, but, its useful.