How long will even that ruined Past endure? The somnolent quiet of the old streets is being already broken by the energetic bustle of American commerce; the Northern Thor is already threatening the picturesque town with iconoclastic hammer. Colossal capital advances menacingly from the southern side, showing the sheet-lightning of its gold. One huge firm has already devoured a whole square, and extended itself into four streets at once, cruciform-wise, like a Greek basilica. Even the old Napoleon First furniture sets, the massive four-pillared beds, the ponderous cabinets curiously carved, the luxuriant fauteuils, the triple-footed tables,--all these solid household gods which stood upon eagle feet of gilded brass,--are being bought up by shrewd speculators and sent North, to fetch prices which no one here would dream of paying. Perhaps the antique life will make its last rally about the old Place d'Armes (_Plaza de Armas,_) in the vicinity of the quaint cathedral, under the shadow of those towers whose bells for a hundred years have rung diurnally for the repose of the soul of _Don_ _André Almonaster Roxas_, _Knight of the Royal and Distinguished Spanish Order of Charles III., Regidor and Alferez-Real of His Most Catholic Majesty_. So long as the iron tongues of those bells can speak, so long as the iron heart of the great tower-clock shall beat, something of the old life and the old faith must live in the creole quarter. Long after most of the quaint architecture shall have disappeared I fancy those two massive Spanish edifices, the old Cabildo and Casa Curial, will still remain standing upon either side of the cathedral, like grim soldiery guarding a commissary of the Holy Inquisition. The Spaniard builded well: after the lapse of nearly a hundred years, those rugged edifices testify grandly to the solid Roman character of their creators. The plaster may peel from the stout pillars of their arcades; but dilapidation only adds nobility to their quaintness; they are dignified by the scars of their battle with Time; they are imposing without loftiness; they are superb without artifice--deep-shouldered, thick-set, broad-backed, firm upon their feet, like veteran troops, like the splendid Spanish infantry of three hundred years ago. CREOLE WOMEN IN THE FRENCH WEST INDIES I