walls and fortifications. The Cathedral and the church of San Juan
de Dios, the latter the most conspicuous structure in the city, with
its double towers and its immense monastery adjoining, became the
special recipients of the liberal outpourings of a community rich not
only in material wealth, but in culture and refinement as well. The
latter church in particular was the object of veneration of the
patrons of America's only Saint, the beneficent Pedro Claver, whose
whitened bones now repose in a wonderful glass coffin bound with
strips of gold beneath its magnificent marble altar. In the central
_plaza_ of the city still stands the building erected to house the
Holy Inquisition, so well preserved that it yet serves as a dwelling.
Adjacent to it, and lining the _plaza_, are spacious colonial
edifices, once the homes of wealth and culture, each shaded by
graceful palms and each enclosing its inner garden, or patio, where
tropical plants and aromatic shrubs riot in richest color and
fragrance throughout the year.

In the halcyon days of Cartagena's greatness, when, under the
protection of the powerful mother-country, her commerce extended to
the confines of the known world, her streets and markets presented a
scene of industry and activity wholly foreign to her in these latter
days of her decadence. From her port the rich traffic which once
centered in this thriving city moved, in constantly swelling volume,
in every direction. In her marts were formulated those audacious plans
which later took shape in ever-memorable expeditions up the Magdalena
and Cauca rivers in search of gold, or to establish new colonies and
extend the city's sphere of influence. From her gates were launched
those projects which had for their object the discovery of the
mysterious regions where rivers were said to flow over sands of pure
gold and silver, or the kingdom of El Dorado, where native potentates
sprinkled their bodies with gold dust before bathing in the streams
sacred to their deities. From this city the bold Quesada set out on
the exploits of discovery and conquest which opened to the world the
rich plateau of Bogota, and ranked him among the greatest of the
_Conquistadores_. In those days a canal had been cut through the
swamps and dense coast lowlands to the majestic Magdalena river, some
sixty-five miles distant, where a riverine town was founded and given
the name of Calamar, the name Pedro de Heredia had first bestowed upon
Carta