CHAPTER XIX

PANAMA NEW AND OLD

The Panama which Sharp and his men approached in their bobbing little canoes after that memorable trip across Darien, was the same city which still looks forth across the Pacific from the shadow of Ancon Hill. But it has altered greatly since the time when the pirates, knives in teeth, swarmed over the taffrails of the Spanish ships and in hand-to-hand battle won the day. And yet in many ways the description given of the town by Ringrose would serve as well for the present town. He says:

It stands in a deep bay and in form is round, excepting only that part where it runs along the sea side. Formerly it stood four miles to the east where it was taken by Sir Henry Morgan but then being burnt they removed it to the place where it now stands. This new city of which I speak is much bigger than the old one and is built for the most part of brick, the rest being of stone and tiled. The churches (not yet finished) are eight in number, whereof the chief is called Santa Maria. The extent of the city comprehends better than a mile in breadth and a mile and a half in length. The houses for the most part are three stories high. It is well walled round about with two gates belonging thereto, excepting only where a creek comes into the city, the which, at high water, lets in barks, to furnish the inhabitants with all sorts of necessities.... Round about the city for the space of seven leagues, more or less, all the country is savanna. Only here and there is to be seen a spot of woody land.

There the similarity of Ringrose’s description to the present city ceases, for he goes on to say:

The ground whereon the city stands is very damp and moist, which renders the place of bad repute for the concern of health. The water is also very full of worms. Here, one night after our arrival, we found worms three quarters of an inch in length both in our bed clothes and other apparel.

Of very “bad repute” for the “concern of health” was Panama, not only in the buccaneers’ days, but up to the time when Yankee engineers and Yankee energy and brains took charge and transformed the place from a pest-hole into a clean and sanitary city, wherein the death-rate is now as low as in the best of Northern cities. But no one except Ringrose has ever called attention to the “worms,” though no doubt even to-day he or any one else would find numerous other detestable creatures both in his “bed clothes and other apparel” after a night spent in a native Panamanian hotel or on a Panamanian ship in the offing.

Unquestionably, could Ringrose and his comrades look upon Panama from the sea to-day they would recognize it, and could point out many a familiar landmark, for outwardly the town has altered little. The walls “round about” have disappeared in places, the “creek” is now dry land, and where it was are buildings and streets; and the eight churches, and more, have been finished, and many of them have crumbled to ruin in the long years since Sharp’s literary pilot wrote his description. But the town is still “round” except where it “runs along the sea side.” Its houses are still mainly of brick and stone and tiles, and are mostly two or three stories in height, and about it still stretch the savannas with their spots of “woody land.”

But if the meticulous Ringrose could but step into Panama to-day he would find it a very different city from the one he knew. Along the smooth asphalt streets pass scores of jitneys, motor-cars, and rumbling trolley-cars. Busy shops and great stores line the narrow sidewalks, electric lights blaze everywhere at night, people of every color and nationality throng the thoroughfares; motor-driven fire-engines, glorious in red and gold, dash clangingly to infrequent fires. There are ice-plants and breweries, great power-plants and saw-mills, cabarets and motion-picture theaters; a splendid, white concrete railway station and even electric signs. In other words, Panama to-day is thoroughly up-to-date, a modern, clean, busy, and attractive town, externally unaltered but internally completely transformed, while even more modern and typically American, in sharp contrast to the typically Spanish Panama, Ancon and Balboa rise upon the slopes of the hills behind the old city that Ringrose and Sharp looked upon. But despite its modernity in innumerable ways, Panama is still a bit of the Old World, a bit of old Spain, a city of Spanish architecture and Spanish plazas, with many a narrow, quaintly steep, and out-of-the-way street, where the jutting balconies and grilled windows almost meet above one’s head; with many a spot where time seems to have stood still while the rest of the city went on, and with many a relic, many a survival of the Panama of three centuries ago.

At the tip-end of the city is the old fortress of Chiriqui and the Bovedas,—now used as a prison but still reminiscent of buccaneer days,—a rambling structure partly above and partly under ground, with low, broad walls and outstanding sentry-boxes, mellow with age and unchanged from the day when it was built for the purpose of keeping the dreaded and hated pirates from this treasure-house of Spain.

Along Avenue A, at the corner of Ninth Street, is the Herera Plaza, now a children’s playground, the spot where the creek came into the city which at high water let in barks. And a few steps up the hill on Ninth Street, at the corner of Avenida Central, is the Piza Piza store, which was once the Hotel Aspinwall, and which, not so long ago, was at the waterfront of the same creek which Ringrose mentioned. Farther along Avenue A, fragments of that massive wall “round about the city with two gates” may be seen half concealed by houses and shops and partly in ruins but still frowning and grim wherever it stands, while on Eleventh Street it borders one side of the thoroughfare for nearly an entire block. This, in the days of Ringrose, was the limit of the city to the west, for Panama was by no means as large as he thought, but as it has grown it has overflowed the old walls and has left them isolated in the heart of the town like forgotten tombstones.

Some of the churches of which the pirate historian wrote are still to be seen, though mostly in ruins, for in the fire which swept the city in 1756 many of them were destroyed, and few were rebuilt. Santa Maria, the “chief” one mentioned by Ringrose, has been superseded by the cathedral with its pearl-shell-studded towers. San Francisco, on Bolivar Plaza, has been modernized, externally at least, until it is no longer recognizable, although its massive iron-studded portals with their gigantic knockers a dozen feet above the street are still there. Las Mercedes, at Avenida Central and occupying the block from Eighth to Ninth Street, and Santa Ana on Santa Ana Plaza have been kept in repair and remodeled. San Domingo, on Avenue A at Third Street, with its celebrated flat arch, is scarcely more than a ruin, and crumbling walls and falling masonry mark many another, while San Felipe de Neri, at Avenue B and Fourth Street, remains as it was in Ringrose’s day. Doubtless the chronicler often looked upon its great walls, with stagings and ladders against them, and artisans at work, for San Felipe was being built at the time of the buccaneers’ visit and was completed in 1688.

These old churches are very interesting, even those in ruins; veritable architectural curiosities, marvelous in their construction, for they were built of the wreckage salvaged from the ruins of Old Panama. Brick, cut stone, rubble, bits of ornately carved stone, odds and ends—a hodgepodge of material forms their walls, and often, amid the crumbling heterogeneous masonry, one may see some beautifully decorated niche with its carven saint still intact and with its paint-work and colored plaster as fresh and bright as though the rains and storms of centuries had not beaten upon it.

But the most interesting church of all, the most interesting spot in the whole of Panama City, is modest little San José at Eighth Street and Avenue A, a plain white building, bare-walled and unimpressive externally, but containing within the most gloriously dazzling sight in all the republic—the golden altar of San José, whose history reads like a romance and links the time of Morgan with the present. When the pirates took old San Lorenzo, at the mouth of the Chagres, and word was carried to Panama that the dreaded freebooters were on Panamanian soil and making for the city, the terrified inhabitants rushed madly to secrete and safeguard what treasures they possessed. The churches were filled with a wealth of gold and silver vessels, jeweled chalices and crucifixes, vestments heavy with gems and gold: and in San José, richest of all the houses of God in the treasure-filled town, was the famous, priceless altar of solid gold. Formed from the tithe of all gold that came to Panama which was paid the church, this marvelous structure was of plates of beaten metal beautifully chased, delicately fashioned—a masterpiece of art worth a fabulous sum for the metal alone.

Hastily the priests and monks gathered together their treasures, and the Fathers of San José dismantled their altar and, stripping their church, loaded their precious cargo on a waiting ship and put to sea, along with many another craft bearing wealth untold. When the pirates arrived, they found little in the way of ecclesiastical riches, and ships were seized and sent in chase of the vessels, for by means of torture Morgan had learned of their departure. But, though some were overhauled and their treasures looted, the craft bearing the golden altar of San José was never found.

Many of the ships that fled from the threatened city were never heard from; no one knows their fate. Some no doubt were wrecked on uninhabited parts of the coast, as befell on the shores of Darien. On others, perchance, the crews mutinied and, killing their officers, made off with the cargo, while rumor has it that much of the salvaged treasure was buried on outlying islets and cays to keep it secure from future pirate raids. But at any rate, chaos reigned after the destruction of the city, and when the Spaniards moved from the scene of slaughter and pillage and founded the new town the priests of San José built themselves a church on Avenue A, a severely plain little building close to the city walls and near that creek that Ringrose mentions. And within their church, in place of the wondrous thing of gleaming gold, the priests erected an insignificant white altar. Through fire and flood, through lean and prosperous years, the little church and its modest altar passed in safety. Dread of pirates troubled the Fathers of San José not at all. They had nothing to tempt robbers, and gradually, as the years passed, the famous altar and its story were forgotten. But at last came a time when there was no longer fear of buccaneers, when the despotic rule of Spain was ended, when revolutions were no more, and when, under the protection of Uncle Sam, the new republic was sure of a peaceful and stable future.

Then, for a time, the Fathers of San José worked quietly and in secret; the little white altar was scraped and cleaned; and lo, the covering of paint removed, the golden altar once more blazed forth in all its long-forgotten glory!

There in the unimposing little church it stands, beneath a great window of rich stained-glass through which the sun beats down in dazzling radiance upon the burnished surface of the mass of gold. Unchanged in all its delicate chasing and engraving, as beautiful and wonderful as when it shone in its brilliancy in old Panama, the altar of San José has endured through the centuries, unsuspected, a secret known only to the Fathers of the church, to burst from its chrysalis of white paint when the time was ripe. Probably it is the only treasure that survived the pirates’ raid and still exists, the only remnant of that stupendous store of priceless treasure which made Old Panama famous as the richest city of New Spain.

But aside from this altar, so strangely and romantically saved from the pillage and destruction of Panama, there is much to be seen of the old city laid low by Morgan and his men. By motor-car one may travel easily and quickly to the spot, a scant five miles along the shore from the present city.

First of the ruins to be seen is the low, arched bridge of stone, partly fallen but still spanning a little tidal stream—the very bridge across which Morgan and his pirates swarmed on that fateful day in 1671. Beyond and to the left is the still massive ruin of a great building; to the right are others; and standing, still majestic, above all, is the tower of the old cathedral, all that remains of St. Anastasio. In its roofless aisles great trees have grown; from crevices and chinks in the masonry, plants, bushes, and vines have sprung; but still the tower stands intact, the same “beautiful building whereof makes a fair show at a distance like that of St. Paul’s in London,” as Ringrose described it.

But it took a homesick seaman who had been long absent from London Town, and had, perchance, dim memories of St. Paul’s, to see the similarity between that mighty pile and St. Anastasio’s lonely tower. Still, it is impressive as it stands there, a vivid reminder of the pirates’ ruthlessness, a fitting monument to the countless innocent people who died within its shadow and whose bones have long since crumbled to dust among the undergrowth of this forsaken spot.

Close to the old church and at the very edge of the sea, still stands a remnant of the city wall and the forts at the harbor mouth, and scattered about among the underbrush are many other walls and ruins.

Unappreciative of such matters, though ever boastful of the ruins, the Panamanians have allowed the site of Old Panama to be defiled by a disreputable cantina or drinking- and dance-hall; and they have neglected the place until, for the most part, it is a mere tangle, a miniature jungle of weeds, bushes, and trees.

Dr. Dexter, while superintendent of the schools of Panama, devoted a great deal of time to a thorough investigation of the ruins; and with the aid of natives, supplied by the Government, the place was cleaned of brush, and careful measurements and plans were made. From these Dr. Dexter modeled a reproduction of the ruins of accurate scale, and then secured from the archives of Seville copies of the original reports and descriptions of Panama as it was in Morgan’s day.

From these data we know that the city was very different from the generally accepted ideas of that “goode and statelye city” which Esquemelling described as having “two thousand houses of magnificent and prodigeous building, being all or the greatest part inhabited by merchants of that country, who are vastly rich. For the rest of the inhabitants of lesser quality and tradesmen, this city contained five thousand houses more.” If by “magnificent and prodigeous building” the chronicler of the raid meant stone or brick buildings, then he was utterly at fault, for the official records show that there were few buildings of stone or of note, and that the majority of the houses, as well as some of the public buildings, were of wattled cane, wood, and adobe thatched with palm. Moreover, the bulk of these were little more than huts, and in the official description of the town the dwellings were divided into two classes,—those with floors and those without,—and those minus flooring were greatly in the majority.

But there is no reason to think that Esquemelling meant that the “magnificent and prodigeous building” or the lesser houses were of stone. Indeed, he specifically says: “All the houses of this city were built with cedar, being of a very curious and magnificent structure.” Had the town been of solid stone and masonry, as has been assumed (although the buccaneers’ accounts do not state this), it would have been a difficult matter to burn it to the ground, whereas we can readily understand how the conflagration swept the hundreds of flimsy wooden and cane structures before it and left only the indestructible stone walls and buildings standing.

Unquestionably, in comparison with other cities of its day Panama was a “goode and statelye” town, for it contained the massive St. Anastasio Cathedral, seven monasteries, and two nunneries; at least four churches, a hospital, a great number of stables wherein were kept the horses and mules used in transporting treasure and merchandise over the Gold Road; a huge public market; a “statelye and magnificent house belonging to the Genoese for their trade and commerce in negroes”; a number of big warehouses; barracks; a governor’s house; a vault wherein were stored the treasures to be transported; and several forts, most of which were of massive stone construction. The ruins of all of these may still be traced, although the greater portion of the ruined churches, monasteries, and other buildings were torn down and the material carried to the new city of Panama, where it was used in constructing the buildings.

In clearing up the ruins, Dr. Dexter also secured an enormous collection of odds and ends, many of which were of great historical interest. There were bottles and glassware; crockery; buttons; coins; remains of daggers, guns, and pistols; sword hilts; locks; household utensils, et cetera. Some of them were in a good state of preservation, but most of them had been partly melted by the flames and illustrated graphically the terrific heat of the fire which Esquemelling tells us “continued for four weeks after the day it began.”

Never in the history of piracy has there been such wanton destruction. Not only was the city burned, but, out of pure villainy, Morgan set the torch to two hundred warehouses in which the pirate chief had placed “great numbers of slaves together with an infinite number of sacks of meal.”

There has been much confusion as to the origin of the fire, and it has been contended that it was accidental, or that the residents started the blaze in order to keep the pirates from occupying the town. But there is not the least question that it was the deliberate act of Morgan, who was in a frenzy of demoniacal rage when he found that after his hard battle and heavy losses the bulk of the valuables had been “transported to remote and occult places.” Esquemelling, who was present at the sack of the town and who should know the truth, states particularly:

The same day about noon [the day the town was taken] he caused certain men privately to set fire to several great edifices of the city, nobody knowing whence the fire proceeded nor who were the authors thereof, much less what motives persuaded Captain Morgan thereto, which are as yet unknown to this day.

But he goes on to say:

Captain Morgan endeavored to make the public believe the Spaniards had been the cause thereof, which suspicions he surmised among his own people, perceiving they reflected upon him for that action.

That the houses were, as I have said, of flimsy construction is evident from Esquemelling’s statement that “in less than half an hour the fire consumed a whole street”; and later he says, speaking of the Genoese slave market: “This building likewise was commanded by Captain Morgan to be set on fire; whereby it was burnt to the ground.”

Doubtless the villainous Morgan, finding his own men demurred at thus destroying a city without cause (and perhaps realizing that by so doing he could not demand the usual ransom), endeavored to put the blame on the unfortunate inhabitants, as Esquemelling says, but he was a ready liar, an utterly unprincipled scoundrel, and time and again betrayed the trust his men placed in him. So there is no use in trying to lessen the blackness of his character by endeavoring to absolve him of the crime of burning old Panama or of cremating the helpless slaves.

The taking of the city was the most noteworthy exploit ever performed by the buccaneers; in accomplishing it they displayed unparalleled bravery; they endured untold hardships and sufferings; they conquered against overwhelming odds, and with a scant one thousand men Morgan achieved what many a general with an army at his back would have hesitated to undertake. But he spoiled all by his execrable cruelty and by wanton, ruthless destruction, and to the end of time the sack of Panama will remain as the most utterly disgraceful and detestable crime of the British buccaneers. As long as the crumbling stones of Old Panama stand they will remain mute testimonials of the most despicable act of that most despicable rascal, Sir Henry Morgan.