What I saw on the west coast of South and North America, and at the Hawaiian Islands.: By H. Willis Baxley, M.D.

THE CITY OF PANAMA, AND ENVIRONS.
coated, shirt-sleeved, or bare-armed; some wore shoes, the feet
of others rejoiced in the vindication of their naked rights; some
wore caps, some wool slouches, and others slouched wool; but
all boasted of a yellow belt with bayonet, and an old musket
that looked as if it might have long lain in some speculator's
locker, until it found a market in revolutionary New Granada
at two dollars and fifty cents "per barrel," yielding at that a
handsome profit. They were a wretched and forlorn looking
set of warriors as they appeared on parade. Dejection was
written on their faces, and timidity and apprehension characterized their awkward attempts at drill. In one thing these victims of military despotism were alike; with all of them the
lower half of the face was covered, or sprinkled, according to the
fertility of the soil, with dirty wool, of a texture conforming to
the departure from the genuine negro standard. The retention
of this grisly appendage, formidable in filth, is a privilege of degeneracy. The semi-barbarous are prone to imitate the more
vulgar practices of a higher civilization, especially when they
conform to natural indolence or love of the ferocious. On the
ramparts facing the sea, a single cannon on a broken carriage is
all that remains of the formidable battery that bade defiance to
the bold buccaneers, who longed to seize the golden deposits of
which Panama was the custodian. The mongrel descendants
of the stern old conquerors, who once fearlessly looked out on
threatening fleets, are now so destitute of armament as to be unable to interchange a national salute with foreign men-o'-war
entering the harbor.
Around the whole of the city, thus far described, is a strong
stone wall both land and seaward, erected when modern Panama
was founded in the year 1670, in its present site, by special order
of the king of Spain, to protect this depot of colonial treasures
from the marauders who had plundered and burnt the first city
of Panama, founded in 1519, about four miles northeast of the
present location. A wide ditch, the almost obliterated remains
of which only are now visible, also protected the city on the
land side; and two gates on the land, and two on the sea side,
afforded communication with the city; the former have been destroyed, the position of one of them only being recognized by a
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