Churches in Panama, or the ruins of them, are many, and while not beautiful are interesting. Everybody goes to see the famous flat arch of the San Domingo Church, and its disappearance will be a sore blow to guides and post-card dealers. Aside from its curious architectural quality the arch derives interest from a legend of its construction by a pious monk. Twice it fell before the mortar had time to set. The third time its designer brought a stool and sat himself down below the heavy keystone. “If it falls”, he said, “I go with it”. But that time the arch stood firm, and it has withstood the assaults of centuries to come at last to the ignoble end of incorporation in a tenement house. The arch, which certainly looks unstable, is often pointed to as an evidence of the slight peril on the Isthmus from earthquake shocks. Such convulsions of nature are indeed not unknown but are usually feeble. That great shock that overthrew San Francisco was not even registered by the seismograph on the Canal zone.
IN A PANAMA PARK
Practically all the churches are of the same plan—two towers at the front corners with the façade built between. The towers of the Cathedral rise high above the roof and the tapering steeples are covered with slabs of mother-of-pearl, which make a brave spectacle from the bay when the rosy rays of the setting sun play upon them. Within all the churches are poor and barren of ornament. They have been stripped of their funds by various authorities beginning with Spain itself, one of the Spanish generals in the revolutionary days having seized all the available funds to pay for transportation for his army. Perhaps the church resented this, for in later days it voluntarily contributed largely out of its remaining treasure to the revolutionary cause. Later still its gold and silver ornaments and altar pieces were confiscated by some faction temporarily in power. Indeed the church has been the football of politics, always entangled with the State and thus far suffering in prestige and pocket by the association.
SALVATION ARMY IN PANAMA
The Cathedral owes its completion to a negro bishop, the son of a charcoal burner who had determined that his boy should rise to higher station. By hard study the lad secured admittance to the priesthood and ultimately rose to be Bishop of Panama, the first native to fill that post. Out of his own salary he paid much of the cost of building the great church, the corner-stone of which had been laid when the city was founded, and by his zeal in soliciting funds secured its completion.
A systematic tour of the churches of Panama is well worth the visitor’s time. More that is curious will be found than there is of the beautiful, and to the former class I am inclined to consign a much begrimed painting in the Cathedral which tradition declares to be a Murillo. Perhaps more interesting than the Cathedral is the Church of San Francisco, in the Plaza Bolivar. The present structure dates back only to 1785, two former edifices on the same site having been burned. The ruins of the beautiful cloister of the Franciscan convent adjoin it, but are concealed from view by an unsightly board fence which the tourist, not having a guide, will not think of passing through. The ruins, however, are well worth seeing.
COSTUME DE RIGUEUR FOR FEBRUARY