itation Panama hats are imported to sell to the tourists. The finest and softest of the so-called "Panama" hats—the kind you can fold up and put in an envelope without cracking them—are made in Ecuador, and a coarser sort in Peru. No Panama hats are made in Panama. In fact, there are no manufactures there of any sort, and therefore, as everything must be imported, there is only a low tariff. As a result, you can sometimes buy Chinese silks or European novelties for less than you would pay in the United States, and there are one or two little shops where genuine Ecuador hats are sold for a quarter of what they would bring in New York. Or, if you are very lucky, you may be able to pick up a necklace of old Spanish goldsmith's work, but there are not many of those left. Most of the things that are shown you on the Isthmus as "old Spanish" are about as genuine as the "old Spanish gun" on that part of the sea-wall called Las Bovedas, not far from where the fishermen beach their boats at low tide, and the townspeople walk out and hold a market on the sea-bottom. This cannon—which they will tell you was used against the bucaneers—is a Parrott rifle of the type used in our Civil War, and has stamped on one of its trunnions the date "1864."
From the founding of the city to the present day, the heart and soul of Panama has been the Cathedral Plaza. Here the Isthmus declared its independence from Spain, and, later, from Colombia. After the latter event, an attempt was made to change the name of the square to "Independence Plaza," but the new name has failed to stick. The cathedral was built about the middle of the eighteenth century by a negro, who, though born the son
