Excerpt from A Traveler in Northern Colombia

As cities go in the Western Hemisphere, Cartagena is ancient. It was founded by Don Pedro de Heredia, in 1533, 243 years before the United States of America signed its Declaration of Independence. Philip II, history records, commanded that the city be made impregnable to assault and vast sums were expended upon its fortifications. Soon it became a repository of the treasure collected throughout the Andes and Central America to await shipment to Spain in proud galleons convoyed thither by heavily armed frigates. It was a lure to freebooters. In 1585 Cartagena was sacked by Sir Francis Drake who, under threat of firing the city, extorted a heavy ransom. It resisted an assault by combined British land and sea forces in 1741. It was captured, however, by the Spanish, during the War of Independence in 1815. But it was retaken by the patriots in 1821.

To-day Cartagena is, emphatically, a city of the present. Trading schooners, steam launches, and long, narrow craft with picturesque lateen sails, crowd the magnificent yacht harbor outside the city walls. Just beyond the fine escarpment rising from the water the beautiful plaza or prado, a park and boulevard combined, ornamented by many commanding sculptures, is at all times crowded by vehicles and motor cars. The market place next to the prado and separated from the city by the yacht harbor is a hive of industry. Through the mighty arched gates of the walled city, and across the prado, run crowded automobile busses to the newer suburbs near the base of La Popa. A contrast between ancient and modern is given by the steel freight cars lying on tracks close to the massive walls built more than three centuries ago.

The scenes inside the city walls abound in interest for the lover of the beautiful and quaint. Cartagena has no rival in its architecture, to my mind, among any of the old Spanish cities I have known in Latin-America or the Orient. It has splendid examples of the ecclesiastical architecture of the Spanish renaissance, tinged with the picturesque Mooresque blendings that bespeak the influence of the Crescent in Spanish architecture. The close block grouping of the buildings gives the city the appearance of singular massiveness and solidarity. The imposing cathedral and monastery, the fine churches, the densely shaded parks with their statues and tropical shrubbery, the streets with their overhanging balustrades, and the shops displaying the finest wares of North American, European, and local manufacture are worth a visit of many days. Nor must one forget the university, for Cartagena has long been recognized as a seat of learning. Indeed, the city is held to rank as an educational center second only to Bogota, the capital.

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