They
then proceeded to erect massive walls and ramparts round their new
settlement, and most of these ramparts are surviving to-day. We, in
true British haphazard style, did not build for posterity, but allowed
ramshackle towns to spring up anyhow without any attempt at design or
plan. There are many things we could learn from the Spanish. Their
solid, dignified cities of massive stone houses with deep, heavy
arcades into which the sun never penetrates; their broad plazas where
cool fountains spout under great shade-trees; their imposing
over-ornate churches, their general look of solid permanence, put to
shame our flimsy, ephemeral, planless British West Indian towns of
match-boarding and white paint. We seldom look ahead: they always did.
Added to which it would be, of course, too much trouble to lay out
towns after definite designs; it is much easier to let them grow up
anyhow. On the other hand, the British colonial towns have all good
water supplies, and efficient systems of sewerage, which atones in
some degree for their architectural shortcomings; whilst the Spaniard
would never dream of bothering his head about sanitation, and would be
content with a very inadequate water supply. Provided that he had
sufficient water for the public fountains, the Spaniard would not
trouble about a domestic supply.
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