At the foot of the house of Columbus is part of the old city wall erected in 1537 and of which numerous portions remain intact, though all traces of the moat have disappeared. The old city was in the form of a trapezium occupying an area of a caballeria or about 200 acres, and the wall on the north side, provided with numerous redoubts and watch towers, was much the longest, the western wall being the shortest. Santo Domingo is one of the cities of the Spanish main which lay claim to the story that when the accounts for the city's walls were laid before the king of Spain, he went, to the window and gazed at the horizon, saying he was "looking for the reflection of those walls, for they must be built of gold, they cost so much." Judging by the relative size of the walls, the story should rather be awarded to Cartagena, in Colombia, or possibly to another city, but Santo Domingo's walls are massive enough to have justified the Spanish king in squinting at the horizon, at least. The ancient gates which were formerly closed from sunset to sunrise, still remain, but no longer afford the only means of ingress and egress as breaches have been made in the walls at most street terminations. The most famous of the old gates is the "Puerta del Conde," "Gate of the Count," so called because it was constructed by the Count of Peñalva, Governor of Santo Domingo, about 1655, though the bastion through which it leads is as old as the city wall. It was here that the cry of independence was raised on February 27, 1844, and it is therefore regarded as the cradle of Dominican independence and its official name is "Bulwark of the twenty-seventh of February." Another important gate is the "Gate of San Diego," also called "Gate of the Admiral," near the ruins of Diego Columbus' house and affording communication with the wharves on the Ozama River. It is one of the original three gates of the city. Up the river, near the lumber market, is a very old ceiba tree to which it is claimed Columbus once tied up his vessel. Still further up the river is a spring the enclosure about which is said to have been built by Diego Columbus.

"La Fuerza," the fort and barracks, is situated at the southeast corner of the city. According to an inscription over the gate it was built in the year 1783. Within its enclosure on a bluff at the place where the Ozama empties into the sea, rises the ancient citadel, the "Torre del Homenaje," "Tower of Homage" the enormously thick walls of which were erected not later than 1504. There are many who affirm that it was built before 1500, although the town was then situated on the other side of the river, and a cell with a small barred window is pointed out as the cell in which Bobadilla imprisoned Columbus before sending him to Spain in chains. Others claim that recently-discovered old foundation-walls on the east side of the river were the foundations of the building in which Columbus was confined. "In that case," Dominican wags observe, "the Tower of Homage is the place where he would have been confined if it had then been erected." In any event the tower and the terraces below it are the oldest fortifications constructed by white men in America. Cortez and Pizarro, Velazquez, Ponce de Leon, Narvaez and many others passed out of the Ozama River under the shadow of this building, full of hope for the future. Within its somber walls have been immured many an Indian chief in the time of the conquest and many a revolutionist in later days. The tower proper has been for years a political prison, while around the courtyard at its base on the riverside, is the common jail.

The churches form an important connecting link between old and new Santo Domingo. Of these the most beautiful and imposing is the cathedral, built in what may be called Ibero-Romanesque style. As early as 1506 Ferdinand and Isabella ordered its erection, in 1512 a grant of revenue was made and two years later the work of construction was begun. In one of the chapels is a large rough-hewn mahogany cross on which is painted the legend: "This is the first sign planted in the center of this field to mark the beginning of this magnificent temple in the year MDXIV." The work progressed slowly; an inscription in the doorway leading to the plaza states that the church was completed to that point in 1527 and another inscription in the old choir, torn down in 1877, stated that the building was finished in 1540. It is probable that the original plans called for an even loftier building. One of the towers first projected was begun, but it was never concluded and the belfry is still a temporary one. Of late years there have been attempts to provide for the completion of this tower by popular subscription. The building has been damaged repeatedly by earthquakes and the repairs made have changed its original outer appearance on the plaza side. In its roof there is still lodged a cannon-ball fired into the city by a Spanish battery during the siege of 1809.

In the interior, great pillars of a soft dark-red tint support the high groined arches and the effect is severe and impressive. The altar at the head of the nave is beautifully inlaid with wrought silver and is surmounted by the coat of arms of Spain placed there by order of Charles V, a relic of Spanish days which was hidden away while the Haitians were in possession of the city. On the altar platform a marble slab indicates the place where the bones of Columbus were found in 1877, another slab the former location of the remains taken to Cuba in 1795 as the remains of Columbus, and still another the resting place of Louis Columbus, the grandson of the Discoverer. At the end of the nave, near the entrance door, is the airy marble monument beneath which is guarded the casket that contains the remains of the Discoverer of America.

The cathedral like the other churches is made more interesting by the ancient epitaphs on slabs in the pavement and walls, marking the burial places of persons famous in the history of the island. In one of the lateral chapels, which belonged to the Bastidas family, the resting place of Bishop Bastidas, who in the early days was bishop in Venezuela, Porto Rico and Santo Domingo, is marked by a large marble recumbant figure of a bishop and the chapel is therefore known as "the chapel of the stone bishop." Nearby is the tomb of his father, that Rodrigo de Bastidas who was imprisoned by Bobadilla, and an epitaph full of abbreviations which reads:

"Here lies the very magnificent Sir Don Rodrigo de Bastidas, first Adelantado and Governor and Captain-General of Santa Marta, who in the year 1502 discovered Terra-firma by order of the Catholic Sovereigns from Cape Vela to Darien: he died March 28, 1527."

Close by is another epitaph:

"Here lies the virtuous, Christian and religious lady Doña Isabel Rodrigo de Romera, native of the noble town of Carmona, who was wife of the Adelantado Don Rodrigo de Bastidas and mother of the most reverend Bishop of San Juan, Don Rodrigo de Bastidas. She died September 15, 1533. May she rest in peace."

And in Latin:

"I believe that my Redeemer lived and that on the judgment day I shall be resurrected."