Dioramas: Building the Hill Station

5.

Chartered City, stamped 
crisply on the diagrammed map. 

Sepia pictures capture the sweep
of the newly assembling city—

A greenway. Main thoroughfare,
the halls of government. The post

office at one end, the market at 
the other. And branching out, plots 

for residences. On market day, carts 
and baskets piled high with cabbages, 

beans, kamote; bananas, wild rice. 
Sacks of highland coffee. Natives

wearing the novelty of an Americana
over g-strings. Frost in September.