PEERLESS CHARACTERISTICS. 
189 
own wife and children, is awarding him, comparatively, a very 
high degree of attainment. Pass and inspect the ruins of a 
monastery or other edifice, and ask the first person you meet 
what it is, and what the cause of its destruction ? the invariable 
reply is, “ no sobio , Senor .” In passing along near the head of 
“ Cable San Juan de Dio” my attention was attracted by the 
movements of a little girl who, with a lighted taper in her hand, 
passed rapidly along to an elbow in the main wall of the city, 
and leaving her light hastily retreated. Upon inspecting the 
spot, I discovered that part of the wall was laid up of human 
skulls, and removing a stone which closed up an aperture, I saw 
a burning taper which is kept here as ah 11 eternal light.” I 
stepped into a small store near and inquired the history of this 
catacomb; the response was, “no sabi Senor.” My solution was 
that they were the bones of heroes who had fallen in the de¬ 
fence of the city. 
When speaking of the ignorance of the people, I wish to be 
understood as alluding to the mass, for, in Panama, there are 
ladies and gentlemen of the highest cultivation and attainments, 
those who are endowed in the highest degree with those peerless 
qualities which are so pre-eminently characteristic of the Castil¬ 
ian race. The stranger’s friend, and friend’s protector; life itself 
is not a sacrifice when lost in the protection of that of a friend. 
The ignorance of the mass, as in all the departments of Spanish. 
America, arises from a want of noble incentives; the entire 
mind being enslaved and controlled by the church. 
