ALLIGATORS.
Panama, New Granada, }
Jan. 7, 1849. }
James Gordon Bennett,
Editor of the N. Y. Herald:
When three miles from Panama, I saw two spires of the largest and most imposing cathedrals here—larger than any church in America. On either side I beheld the Cordileras and the Andes, towering high up towards the glorious sun—the Cordileras connecting the Andes with the Rocky Mountains. As you near the city, you are gradually lead upon a beautifully paved road—paved by Pizzaro, the fiend, under whose superintendence the path from there to Cruces was made, through which Pizzaro, with his terrible banditti, often passed. On entering the city, the natives outside the gates were singing and dancing merrily in honor of some festival. Boys were flying their kites on the road, which they seemed to enjoy like the youth of all countries. There kites were made in the form of a coffin, and fringed on the sides with a very curious tail, partially resembling a rattlesnake. The more genteel natives wore white dresses and Panama hats. These hats are not made in Panama, but at St. Helena, and other places on the coast, which was news for me. Panama contains an impoverished population, whose leading maintenance is a few merchants of very little energy, who deal in British drillings and manufactures of various kinds. There are some choice relics of the old Castilians who are never seen in the streets by day, but who walk in their rear balconies in the evening to inhale the tropic air. The female Castilians are as beautiful as the Georgians or Circassians, and will not recognize the common natives, nor even the English or Americans, nor the aristocracy or nobility of any country as their equals. I had the fortune, through influential letters to a large mercantile house here, to get an introduction to a Castilian family, and I was invited to a rural gathering of the friends and relatives of this family. The loveliest girl I ever saw is the daughter of the gentleman who is at the head of the family. To attempt a description of her accomplishments and extraordinary personal fascinations, would be as impossible as to describe the horrors of a trip up the Chagres, and especially the defile from this to Cruces, which still haunts, and will haunt me for a long period. The best description I can convey to my countrymen of the river Chagres, is its comparison with the river Styx, and you can form a slight conception of the defile between this and Cruces by its comparison with purgatory, as described by an illiterate and boisterous parson; and you can appreciate the loveliness of this Castilian female, by fancying that she is the very prototype of the unearthly Cleopatra, the accomplished and captivating queen of ancient Egypt, who was familiar with all the dialects of the East (thirty in number), whose glowing eloquence and brilliant eye, and majestic form, and perfect symmetry of mind and body and feature, only could have allured the eloquent, rich, and noble Anthony from his ambition of military glory and his love of his native country. The Cathedral is dingy and very gloomy. All the bells are cracked, and their doleful tones thrill the senses. I saw the leading priest to-day, who seems very old and infirm. In front of the Cathedral, are the Twelve Apostles, with the Saviour. The spires are adorned with pearls, with which the coast abounds. I have visited the temples, jails, walls, churches, old governors’ palaces and trenches, and my heart was filled with pensive emotions, as I gazed on these crumbling ruins of other generations. The best idea I can give about this place, is its comparison with New York, after the great fires of 1835 and ’46. The tortures and mode of life here are very peculiar. I slept on a bare cot, and with only one sheet over me—sweat like blazes. The meats and cooking are extremely novel. Lizzards, spiders, musquitoes, galinippers and ants, crawl around and over me, and often penetrate the ears and nose. Some lizzards gathered around my head the other night and awoke me, which I scattered very quick. I think they were preparing to play some trick on me, and perhaps even contemplated the decapitation of my beloved proboscis, as one of the rascals was smelling around my nostrils when I suddenly awoke. I hate lizzards, but I can stand spiders and alligators, and the other animalculae of the country tolerably well. A girl only ten years of age was married to-day. This seems incredible, but you may repose implicit confidence in its truth. Females mature more rapidly here than in any other part of the earth. At eight and nine there is often every indication of puberty. I saw the young “lady” of ten, who was married to-day. I was utterly astonished at her prodigious maturity. She was extremely beautiful, and her glances were bewitching, and she seemed very devoted to her young and enthusiastic lover. It rains or pours in these latitudes ten months in the year, which the natives call the wet season. The other two months are called the dry season, when it only rains about twelve times a day. The lightning is sometimes incessant, and the thunder is terrific and makes the alligators look glassy about the eye. We had a shock of an earthquake last night which lasted some seconds. It created quite a sensation among the emigrants, but it did not terrify the natives, as they are used to earthquakes. A small lizzard crawled into the ear of an emigrant, who lives near the shore, which nearly killed him. I attended the Cathedral this morning, and the music and ceremonies were grateful to my heart. After the solemn scenes of last week, and the death of a beloved friend on Tuesday last. The attendance was not large. Youth, age, decrepitude, competence, affluence, penury and utter rags, all knelt side by side. Six priests of various grades were present. As I gazed on these splendid ruins, at the images, paintings and costly decorations, and grasped a retrospect of the long line of generations of Spanish nobility who had worshipped in its sacred aisles, and gazed down to the sepulchres of their fathers, contrasting this dismal structure with its tottering walls and spires, with its ancient glory, and as I gazed on its wildness and dilapidated magnificence, I was impressed with the most solemn and overwhelming emotions. Last evening I visited the ramparts, that encircle a portion of the city. The work is truly beautiful and exhilarating at early twilight, when the burning sun is gone, and when, as in last evening, the full moon was emerging with uncommon splendor from the far horizon of a tranquil sea. A group of lovely children just passed my window, followed by their slaves, with gorgeous turbans clad in red, white and blue. A passenger just entered my apartment and informs me that while dozing in his canoe on the banks of the Chagres, he was suddenly aroused from his slumber and saw an enormous alligator crawling over the base of his canoe, when he sprang and leaped to the shore and ran for his life up the embankment with the alligator in hot pursuit, which nearly caught him by the tail of his coat. He rushed into the hut of a friendly native, and closed and barred the door, and flew to the roof, where he found piles of stones for defensive operations, and immediately opened a battery of flying stones at the alligator, causing him to retreat and disappear beneath the waters of the Chagres. There are turkey buzzards in countless thousands hovering over the city, which greatly alarm the natives. Such flocks were never seen before. The timid and superstitious natives predict the most awful visitations from the sudden appearance of so many buzzards, which darken the air like a cloud with their hideous presence. Some of the natives prognosticate a famine, or others fatal convulsions of nature. My chum predicts extraordinary heat (theremometer now about 100 in the shade), and a shower of rain (only rained six times to-day,) and other calamities. But I do not fear these terrible disasters from the advent of large flocks of turkey buzzards, as I have been taught to scout every thing in the form of representation.
Stephen H. Branch.
AN IMMORTAL PETITION.
The Wise Peter Cooper, and his most extraordinary proposal of a Tank on the summit of the City Hall, for the extinguishment of disastrous conflagrations.
[Document No. 13.]
Board of Aldermen, }
February 6, 1854. }
The following petition of Peter Cooper, in relation to the prevention and extinguishing of fire, and to give greater efficiency to the Police Department, was received and laid on the table and ordered to be printed.
D. T. Valentine,
Clerk.
To the Hon. the Mayor and Common Council of the city of New York.
The subscriber takes this method to present to your Hon. Body, certain improvements for the prevention and extinguishing of fires, to give greater efficiency to the police and greatly lessen the labors of the Fire Department, and at the same time give greater security to life and property, and the government of our city.
Your subscriber is of the opinion, that these improvements will, if adopted, result in great benefit to the City, State and Nation.
A good government in this city, like the heart of a great body, will make itself felt throughout our State, our Nation, and to some extent throughout the world. Desiring greatly to secure for my native city, the inestimable blessings of good government I have ventured to propose and urgently recommend, to the serious consideration of your Hon. body, a plan founded on a principle, that I believe will do more to bring about security, order and good government, than any and all other measures, that are within the range of our municipal powers, to adopt. The plan and principle to which I allude, will make it directly the dollar and cent interest, of some three-quarters of all the officers in the employ of the city government to faithfully perform their duty.
If this can be shown to be conveniently practicable, it must be admitted that it would bring about greater efficiency in the execution of all useful laws and ordinances, than any other means which have ever been applied to the government of our city.
Before I attempt a description of this plan, I will state that it will require greater conveniences for the extinguishment of fires than those now provided by our present arrangement.
The necessary facilities for conveniently putting out fires, can be arranged in a short time and at comparatively small expense, by placing a boiler-iron tank of some thirty feet in height, on the top of the present reservoir on Murray Hill. This tank to be filled and kept full of water by a small steam engine provided for that purpose.
And as an additional security I would propose that the present City Hall be raised an additional story, and covered with an iron tank that would hold some ten feet of water. The outside of this tank to be made to represent a cornice around the building.
If an additional building should be put up, to take the place of the one lately destroyed by fire, it should be so formed as to be in harmony with the present City Hall, and covered with a similar tank, and corniced to correspond. With this greater head and supply of water always at command, and ready for connection with the present street mains, the moment the signal is given from any Police Station, it will be apparent that all the hydrants will be made efficient to raise water over the tops of the highest houses in the city.
I would, in addition propose, that there should be placed at convenient distances in every street, a small cart containing some three hundred feet of hose. These carts should be so light that one man could draw them to the nearest hydrant to the fire, and bring the water on the fire in the shortest possible time. With this arrangement, I propose to make it the interest of every man in the police, to watch against incendiaries and thieves, and to use every possible effort to extinguish fires as soon as they occur. To make it the interest for the police to perform their duty faithfully, I propose that the Corporation should set apart as a fund, two shillings per day, in addition to the wages of each man, to be held by the Corporation to the end of each year, and when it shall be ascertained that the loss and damage by fire, and the loss of property stolen, shall have been reduced below the average of the last ten years, then this fund of two shillings per day, in addition to their former wages, shall be equally divided between the men forming the Police Department.
In addition to this I propose that the Corporation should request all the Insurance Companies interested in the property of this city to bid or offer the largest per centage that they are willing to give on all, that the loss and damage by fire can be reduced below the average agreed upon.
This fund to be added to the Corporation fund of two shillings per day, and to be equally divided with the men forming the City Police.
This would enable every one of the members of the police to secure for himself sufficient to pay his rent every year over and above his present wages. They would also have the elevating satisfaction of knowing that while they are saving one dollar for themselves they are saving fifty dollars for the community, and in addition saving thousands of individuals from that wretchedness and misery annually produced by the desolating ravages of fire.
A police appointed for and during good behavior, with the liberal salary they now receive, and with the additional privilege of securing to themselves annually so large an amount over and above their regular salaries might always be relied on to forward every measure that would tend to secure order and good government. A department so formed, whose duty it would be to traverse every street of the city by day and night, would find it their interest as well as duty to watch against incendiaries, and when a fire was discovered they would instantly signal for as many hose carts as desirable, with directions for every next man to double his walk. When such men come to a fire they would all be armed with police powers to protect property, and to bring and use the carts with hose on the fire, until the general alarm became necessary to summon the firemen to the charge, which would seldom happen with such facilities and such an interest to extinguish fires. One of the best features in this arrangement will be the constant tendency and interest there will be to draw into the department good men and crowd out bad men. They find it their interest to have every man turned out who is either drunken, idle or dishonest, and to have in their place those that are sober, honest and efficient. They find it their interest to close every rum shop that is selling without license, and they will not be long in finding out that a large part of the fires arise from drunkenness and the degradation and carelessness that are the natural results of dissipation.
[Conclusion in our next.]
☞ Owing to an unusual amount of matter in this number, we have omitted our advertisements. They will be inserted in next issue.