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Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 5946, 26 September 1890, Page 2

A long line of houses, some of them detached, most of them built of wood, twostoried, wish balconies, the sea in front, a swamp jungle behind, a railway running in front of the buildings down tLe middle of the road from whence wharves pushed out into the deep, calm, nud almost tideless water. The town was built on a point of land oa the sea level, and round the head of the point the jungle went down to the edge of a narrow shelly beach. Visitors were warned not to trust themselves too far along tlw beach, for the playful jaguar laid in wait for the unwary. Such was Colon twenty years ago. It was not a largo place in those days, but what it lacked in sizo and population it made up in wickedness. The inhabitants were of all colors, from the diminutive black-haired brick-red-skinned Indians, to the polished black nigger; from tho chocolate colored quadroon to the white-fuued Yankee. Gambling, drinking, smoking, nud fighting were the occupations of the idlers, and escopt the ..iggers employed on tho wharves and railway lino, nobody hud anything to do. Quarrels were of almost momentary occurrence; out of one gambling hell, or pushed out of a drink shop, would coma a couple of half-drunken brutes, quarter-bred negroes with a touch of Indian, and in the middle of the road would settle their differences with knives. Nobody would take any notice of thorn; it was a good riddance if they killed each other. The Panama canal works havo probably increased the size of the town, but the cablegram stating that the place has boon almost totally destroyed by firo makes ouo wonder why its destruction has been so long doferrod.