Accounts of the construction and character of the old city represent it to have been builded with much magnificence. All the woods used in building were of the fine native mahoganies, and there were hangings, tapestries, and paintings in the sumptuous houses of the men who became enormously rich from the traffic of the times. Returning ships from Europe brought luxuries as well as necessities, and the gold trade people maintained regular fleets of ships and put Panama in close touch with the life of the age. There are described two large churches, a cathedral, a "hospital," over two thousand large houses, and several very large establishments for the care of the great number of pack animals used on the trail. Large quantities of gold, silver, pearls, and gems of various sorts were in evidence. In the day of its glory Panama was a veritable Arabian Nights city, with some two hundred warehouses for the storing of stolen treasure. The story of the destruction of the old city is one of shocking cruelty and lust, and merely furnishes the last chapter of the same tale of crime that marks the history of the Isthmus from the finding of the Peruvian gold to the days when the murderous pillages of rival pirates finally destroyed the commerce of the Isthmus and left Panama little more than a memory of former glories. The burning of Old Panama marks the turning point in Isthmian history and closes forever the days of conquest. About this time the vast supply of Peruvian gold became exhausted, and between the failure of loot and the destruction of trade by brigandage the Isthmus fell into neglect and was nearly lost sight of by the world for two hundred years. Anyone who knows the story of the place will find the ruins fascinating because they show a construction of the days when men built strong walls because nothing else would stand the strain of the lives they lived. Some of the walls stand as firm and strong to-day as they did three and a half centuries ago, and unless removed by the hand of man they will stand here a thousand years hence. And when a wall stands for centuries in this tropic climate of disintegration it is a wall to remember. [Illustration: RUINED TOWER AT OLD PANAMA] Most conspicuous stands the old church tower, splendid and defiant amid the wreckage about its feet. Straight and strong it lifts its lofty head above the treetops, and, viewed from any angle, is a majestic figure. There is no construction in modern Panama to-day that may be compared to the grand dignity of that sentinel tower. Like some old prophet, amid the ruins of a wayward people, the tower raises its head and stands in mute but noble witness to the reality of the things that endure. For the tower was honestly built, and therefore stands. Against its solid walls, builded from their rock foundation straight upward, the ravages of time have made but little impress.