For those who will exert themselves, even in the tropics, there is a splendid view of all Cartagena from La Popa, a hill standing forth Gibraltar-like above the inner harbor, on its nose a massive old church and fortress combined. From it the cruder details of the town, the startling pink and sky-blue of newer walls and balconies, fade to the general inconspicuousness of the more age-mellowed houses. The ancient red-tile roofs blend artistically into the patches of greensward and the light pink of royal poinciana trees; the whole city, edged by the landward-leaning cocoanut palms, is framed by a sea stretching away on either hand to the world’s end.
The half-grown Colombian of forty in charge of La Popa and the telescope and telephone by which incoming ships are reported, changed gradually from canny distrust to garrulous curiosity and invited us to inspect his entire domain. The purely academic dislike of Americans we soon found was overcome with little effort by those who addressed men of his class in their own tongue. Conversation at length drifted to sanitation in Panama, Colombia’s “rebel province,” as he called it. The fort-keeper listened to our tales in loose-jawed wonder and summed up his opinions of such gringo superstitions with:
“But here we do none of those things, señores! The mosquitos prick us every day, yet we are well.”
Our strange notion that disease could be carried by a mere insect was as absurd to him as was to us his own habit of relying for health on the plaster saint in the vaulted fortress church.
Even in Panama information on travel in Colombia had been almost as lacking as trustworthy reports on the interior conditions of Mars. Only once in my five months on the Canal Zone had I run across even an ostensible source of knowledge. He was a native of Cali, and his answers had been distinctly Latin-American.
“Does it rain much in your country?” I had asked him.
“Sí, señor, when it rains it is wet. When it doesn’t it is dry.”
“Is it cold?”
“Sí, señor, in the cold places it is cold, and in the hot places it is hot. No hay reglas fixas—there are no fixed rules.”
“How far is it from Cali to Popayán?”