gena. Through this _dique_ the city's merchant vessels passed to
the great arterial stream beyond, and thence some thousand miles south
into the heart of the rich and little known regions of upper Colombia.
To-day, like the grass-grown streets of the ancient city, this canal,
choked with weeds and _debris_, is but a green and turbid pool, but
yet a reminder of the faded glory of the famous old town which played
such a dramatic _role_ in that age of desperate courage.

In the finished town of Cartagena Spain's dreams of imperial pomp and
magnificence were externalized. In her history the tragedy of the
New World drama has been preserved. To-day, sunk in decadence,
surrounded by the old mediaeval flavor, and steeped in the romance of
an age of chivalry forever past, her muniments and donjons, her
gray, crenelated walls and time-defying structures continue to express
that dogged tenacity of belief and stern defiance of unorthodox
opinion which for two hundred years maintained the Inquisition
within her gates and sacrificed her fair sons and daughters to an
undemonstrable creed. The heavy air of ecclesiasticism still hangs
over her. The priests and monks who accompanied every sanguinary
expedition of the _Conquistadores_, ready at all times to absolve
any desperado who might slay a harmless Indian in the name of Christ,
have their successors to-day in the astute and untiring sons of
Rome, who conserve the interests of Holy Church within these
battered walls and guard their portals against the entrance of radical
thought. Heredia had scarcely founded the city when King Philip sent
it a Bishop. And less than a decade later the Cathedral, which to-day
stands as the center of the episcopal See, was begun.

The Cathedral, though less imposing than the church of San Juan de
Dios, is a fine example of the ecclesiastical architecture of the
colonial era. Occupying a central position in the city, its
ever-open doors invite rich and poor alike, citizen and stranger,
to enter and linger in the refreshing atmosphere within, where the
subdued light and cool shadows of the great nave and chapels afford a
grateful respite from the glare and heat of the streets without.
Massive in exterior appearance, and not beautiful within, the
Cathedral nevertheless exhibits a construction which is at once
broad, simple and harmonious. The nave is more than usually wide
between its main piers, and its rounded arches are lofty and well
proportioned. E