IN SOUTH AMERICA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13875, 8 October 1908, Page 7

IN SOUTH AMERICA.

■ A PRIEST-RIDDEN TOWN. South America :is tho least known of any of the Continents, but Colombia, in. the north-western corner, with an ami six times as large as Now Zealand, is not tinimportant in the world's commerce, and is fairly thickly-populated, In a letter received from Mr. Gore Adams, formerly the* director of the Thames School of Mines, some interesting particular's of the country are furnished. Mr. Adams hud been engaged in mining near Medellin, which lies several hundred miles inland, and only recently left Colombia for England. "Medellin," ho writes; "is a city-of 60,000 inhabitants, aud is situated in a great valley,, 5000 ft above tlio sea, the surrounding hills ' rising to a height of 2000 ft above the town. It, is* a clean citythe only clean city to be found in any Spanish country in the world, i am told. In the centre is the pi ami, or square, which characterises all Spanish towns, and the streets are very narrow. The footpaths are wide enough few? one person only. There are lots of churches, and all of them axe in various stages of building. In fact I have never yet seen a completed Spanish church. If by any chance a. church should bo finished it is at one pulled down and a larger one started. Very few of the churches h#.ve any ; —everyone brings his or her camp stool 'and removes it after the service. The bells never stop jangling, and it is a strange , tiling that all their bells are unpleasant. They clang insistently and annoyingly. Colombia is very priest-ridden. In Medellin there are 500 priests and hundreds of nuns. Not long ago," continues Mr. Adams, "an epidemic b&ke out in Medellin. The Colombians called it ' pestej as they call all epidemics. To cure this peste there were three processions on three different . days of hundreds Of priests. This wag certainly' quite as effective a cure as the visit of a Colombian doctor.' The illness was caused by a bad water supply, but no Colombian would ever dream of altering it. It is much easier to / pray, and also cheaper." Medellin is very inaccessible, and describing the journey to the port 600 miles away Mr. Adams says the road : is, such that it would cause a New Zealand backblocks settler to faint on seeing it. ■" It leads up mountains and down valleys, knee deep in mud," he says, " and this is the entrance to the second largest city in Colombia." Writing of Kingston, . the capital of Jamaica, Mr. Adams states that eighteen months after the' earthquake the city was still for the most part in ruins. "There is, apparently, no money to rebuild, as the insurance companies did not pay - up. It is, indeed, a mournful eight," he adds.