"One of the most interesting relics of Old Panama is the watch-tower of San Jerome, which is said to have been built only six years before the city's capture and destruction. It is a square tower, and we estimated its height to be about eighty feet; it is covered with mosses and vines, and there are trees and bushes growing on its top. The staircase on the inside has been thrown down by the roots of the trees, as far as we could judge from the position of the stones, though it may have been destroyed by the famous buccaneer. The whole of the inside space was full of roots, and we could not have climbed to the top even if the stairs had remained. "The tower was intended as a signal-station, from which vessels approaching Panama could be descried, and tradition says a light was burned there at night. It is now the only visible part of the old city as you look from the beach or from a boat on the water; everything else is covered up with the tropical forest, which has been undisturbed for two hundred years. The only way to see the ruins is by clambering through the mass of vegetation; we did so, and were thoroughly wearied with our exertions, though amply repaid for them. "Not the least interesting part of the sights were the fantastic shapes which the trees and vines had taken; in some places the trees were on the tops of walls thirty or forty feet high, and had thrown down roots on each side reaching into the ground. At every crevice in the walls little twigs were thrown off to hold the roots in place, and it almost seemed as though these vegetable growths had been endowed with human intelligence. Two or three times we were deceived by the appearance of the roots, and mistook them for snakes. Even when assured of their harmless character, Frank paused and deliberated before moving nearer, and I'm free to confess that I followed his example. [Illustration: A HERMIT AT HOME.]