Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1915-10-09
TRAVELETTE
BY NIKSAH.
Nombre de Dios.
BY Webster.


The Isthmus of Panama has been for
over four centuries the object of mans
greatest dreams and boldest projects.
There are number of places along the
pretty isthmian coastline where first
the Spaniards landed in their exp1ora-
ton and conquest; then came the Eng
fish buccaneers in search of gold and
dominion of the seas. and last the Amer
lean canal-diggers, bent on no less a
task than cutting the isthmus in two.
And there have been no more heroic
passages in history than these.
Nombre de Dios is now little ma
tive town at the northern terminus of
the Old Royal road from Panama. some
twenty miles up the coast north of the
city. Here in the seventeenth century
the Spaniards piled up gold and silver
in heavy bars. The place was not SO
well defended as most of the Spanish
strongholds, and hence it was more
than once the prey of buccaneers.
Drake once landed here when he knew
ga. ,l;o.. VAS small, bringing a
hundred men to the beach in small
boats. He rushed the town and took
every stronghold but the governor
palace. There the governor, with a
handful of men. refused to surrender.
struck In the head with a bullet and
fell, stunned. His men, thinking he
was dead, seized his body and ran for
their boats. when the fortress might
have been in their hands in another
ten minutes. Drake was even able to
describe the great pile of silver bars
within the palace. which was the cause
of the raid. He declares that it was
eighty feet long and higher than a
mans head.
Time has somewhat rubbed the gla-
mour of romance from No.nbre de Dios.
During canal construction days 1t
served the prosaic purpose of sand
pit, where mat erial for the concrete of
Gatun dam was dug. One day the la
borers there struck the stout wooden
frame of great sailing ship buried
deep in the sand-one of the Spanish
caravels. 1t was as though the con-
querors Of today had reached back
through the centuries and touched
Minneapolis.
Nicollet avenue. in Minneapolis, the
chief shopping street of that thrifty
city. makes it's first impression on the
visitor because of the absence of any
street car tracks Minneapolis has
succeeded in getting her people to do
thing that has. rarely been done else
where-shop on street that is away
from such traffic.
Then there are the flower boxes
around the street lamps in Minneapo-
lis which one begins to notice. Having
seen them few times, he begins to
realize their invariable presence. They
are like the white doorsteps of Balti-
more. a part of every house. There
are window boxes also. up the first,
second, third-at all the stories. All
these boxes f1aunt geraniums to the
breeze. 1t is popularity of the city.
1t is particularly effective in those
long. light summer evenings. for Min
neapolis is far north. and real dark
ness does not come until ~ o'clock
One becomes interested in knowing
roomy city, and eventually finds his
way to the Falls of ST. Anthony 1t is
hard to reach them. for great flour
mills have fenced them in and have
harnessed their power that the nation
may be supplied with its bread The
building of mills at this waterfall of
the upper Mississippi first started the
metropolis on it's way.
But the glory of Minneapolis is her
natural parks and the lakes that are
scattered among them. In Hennepin
county there are 200 lakes, tucked
away in natural landscapes and hidden
by trees. Chief among these is Lake
Minnetonka, where Indian councils met
In those days when the trappers first
came this way. The romance of Hia-
watha was laid in what are now the
city limits of Minneapolis.
by the number of stalwart. upright
women he sees. with great braids of
molasses -colored hair-such women as
he meets once in six months in the
east. 1t is the outcropping of the old
Morse blood of the settlers of this
great state, for Scandinavia has left
Strong mark upon the whole population