RUINED TOWER AT OLD PANAMA
Most conspicuous stands the old church tower, splendid and defiant amid the wreckage about its feet. Straight and strong it lifts its lofty head above the treetops, and, viewed from any angle, is a majestic figure. There is no construction in modern Panama to-day that may be compared to the grand dignity of that sentinel tower. Like some old prophet, amid the ruins of a wayward people, the tower raises its head and stands in mute but noble witness to the reality of the things that endure. For the tower was honestly built, and therefore stands. Against its solid walls, builded from their rock foundation straight upward, the ravages of time have made but little impress.
COSTA RICA TRAPICHE, OR SUGAR MILL
The tower was part of the cathedral, and the cathedral was one of three or four great churches.
Of at least two others well-preserved ruins still remain, and are well worth careful study. The reddish-brown coloring of the old walls and the vine-covered stone help furnish endless temptations for the artist, but no one has yet given adequate expression to the splendid possibilities of these ruins.
Still more interesting vistas open to the mind's eye of the student with a constructive imagination. There were churches many and large and beautiful in Old Panama. And there were pirates wild and wicked and hated in Old Panama. Who "ran the town"? The pirates or the priests? What relations existed between the two? And if there were churches of such great beauty and strength, why were there also the terrible pirates? What were the churches doing that they did not bring about a better city?
These are hard questions, but to anyone who knows conditions to-day, and who knows that conditions to-day are better than they were in Old Panama, the answer is not far to seek. The hungry and helpless peons did not give the money to build those costly churches, though they doubtless did the hard work of construction. And if the pirates were good givers—and they doubtless were, under promise and threat—then they also influenced the general scheme of things in Old Panama. In short, the churches of Old Panama did not make a very good town of it.