ies, are
superstition, black ignorance, and woeful mental retardation. To the
terrified aborigines the boasted Spanish civilization meant little
more than "gold, liquor, and sadness." Small wonder that the simple
Indians, unable to comprehend the Christian's lust for gold, poured
the molten metal down the throats of their captives, crying, "Eat,
Christian, eat!" They had borrowed their ideals from the Christian
Spaniards, who by means of the stake and rack were convincing them
that God was not in this western land until they came, bringing their
debauched concept of Christianity.

And so Cartagena fell, late in the seventeenth century, never to
regain more than a shadow of her former grandeur and prestige. But
again she rose, in a semblance of her martial spirit, when her native
sons, gathering fresh courage and inspiration from the waning powers
of the mother-country in the early years of the century just closed,
organized that federation which, after long years of almost hopeless
struggle, lifted the yoke of Spanish misrule from New Granada and
proclaimed the Republic of Colombia. Cartagena was the first city of
Colombia to declare its independence from Spain. And in the great war
which followed the "Heroic City" passed through terrible vicissitudes,
emerging from it still further depleted and sunken, a shell of massive
walls and battered defenses, with desolated homes and empty streets
echoing the tread of the mendicant _peon_.

As the nineteenth century, so rich in invention, discovery, and
stirring activity in the great States to the north, drew to a close, a
chance visitor to this battle-scarred, mediaeval city would have found
her asleep amid the dreams of her former greatness. Approaching from
the harbor, especially if he arrived in the early hours of morning,
his eyes would have met a view of exquisite beauty. Seen thus, great
moss-grown structures rise from within the lofty encircling walls,
with many a tower and gilded dome glittering in the clear sunlight and
standing out in sharp relief against the green background of
forest-plumed hills and towering mountains. The abysmal blue of the
untainted tropical sky overhead contrasts sharply with the red-tiled
roofs and dazzling white exteriors of the buildings beneath; and the
vivid tints, mingling with the iridescence of the scarcely rippling
waters of the harbor, blend into a color scheme of rarest loveliness
in the clear atmosphere which seems to magnify all