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A SOMEWHAT
LONESOME
EXPERIENCE.

We drew to one side of the road and told the others to go ahead. They were reluctant to leave us thus, abandoned near nightfall in the heart of the enemy's country, but there was no help for it. We waved good-by to them and saw them disappear down the road among the trees. Our prog ress continued slowly for several miles farther, during which we did not see a single soldier. Then at the top of a long hill, in spite of our protests, the driver lashed his horses into a run and we went careening down the slope. At the bottom was the longest bridge in Puerto Rico, a stone-arched structure perhaps 300 feet in length, spanning a stream which wandered through the valley nearly a hundred feet below. This splendid piece of masonry, the most difficult of all the military road, was built many years ago and remains in perfect condition. In the middle of the bridge the team came to a dead halt, unable to stagger another step.

"Muy malado, muy infermo," said the driver, shrugging his shoulders, "very bad, very sick." He took the harness off the horses, led them to the end of the bridge, opened a convenient gate that led into the neighboring field and turned them out to graze. We sat on the rail of the bridge and looked into the stream below.

After awhile a little boy came along and the driver gave him some instructions, which started him up the road in the direction we had been traveling.

THE ENEMY PROVES TO BE HARMLESS.

More time passed and we saw two Spanish soldiers coming toward us on the road. They came to the middle of the bridge and halted to question us. One was a corporal, the other a private. They were fine, big fellows, armed with Mausers, and apparently fine soldiers. They ques tioned us closely, extracting no information whatever, for we assumed to be ignorant of a single word of Spanish. We shrugged our shoulders, smiled, looked pleasant and puzzled, but could answer nothing. The driver was evidently scared. The corporal wanted to know who we were, why we were there, and where we were going. He wanted to know when the American general was coming. We were unable to tell him anything.

Finally, Mrs. White noticed that the soldier had a bandage around

his right hand and that his hand was badly swollen. She motioned a question and he unwrapped it, showing a very bad bayonet wound. It was dressed with some green leaves and no other attention had been given it. Mrs. White sought her modest stock of simple remedies, dressed the wound with witch hazel, bound it in clean linen, and gave him the remaining portion of the liniment. There was no further trouble. They bowed their thanks, expressed their gratitude with the utmost politeness and went on their way.

Strangely enough, we heard of this little incident afterward in San Juan. It was circulated there as a subject of interest for gossip among the Spanish forces, and we were told that the soldiers were exceedingly grateful, saying that no Spanish woman would have done for them what the American did.

AT LAST
A TEAM OF
FRESH HORSES.

After a wait of two hours on this lonesome bridge, our driver declared his horses sufficiently recovered to continue. We made slow progress through the dusk, until at last a mile or two before reaching Rio Piedras the youngster who had gone ahead long before met us with a fresh team of horses. To exchange required but a few moments. The exhausted team, according to the practice of drivers, was turned into the adjacent field to graze until their master should pick them up on his return journey a day or two later. It was but a short drive then to Rio Piedras. We stopped at a little hotel to inquire if our companions had gone on to the capital, and, finding no word left for us, we continued toward our destination.

The road was level nearly all the way, so that, although darkness had fallen, there was no cessation of our speed. The nine miles were covered very rapidly and it was only nine o'clock when we clattered along the paved streets of the city in a sudden shower of rain and drew up at the door of Hotel Inglaterra. Prompt inquiry at the hotel office developed two important facts: dinner was not ended and our friends had reserved a room for us. It was the end of our journey across Puerto Rico.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE SUGAR INDUSTRY IN PUERTO RICO.

Similar Agricultural Conditions in All Our Newly Annexed Islands-The Institution of the Sugar "Central"-A Scotchman in Puerto Rico-Heavy Investments by London Financiers-How the "Central" Deals with Each Farmer-Scientific Sugar Cultivation as Contrasted with More Primitive Methods-Plantation Sugar Mills of the West Indies-The Home of a Sugar Planter-Wages of Unskilled Laborers in Puerto Rico-How the Laborers Live and Work.

T MAY simplify the problems of colonial government for the United States to some extent, that all of our experiments are to be tried in island groups of similar climate and agricultural conditions and approximately the same latitude. What one learns about sugar or coffee or tobacco or minor agricultural products of the tropics in one island, may therefore apply with almost equal accuracy to the others, except as modified by peculiar local conditions which must be noted in their proper place. Consequently, although this chapter relates specifically to the cultivation of cane sugar in Puerto Rico, most of the essential facts may be transferred to apply to the same industry in Cuba and the Hawaiian islands, in each of which the cultivation of sugar is the principal industry, as it is in Puerto Rico, and even the Philippines, where the same industry is by no means a minor one. In the chapters on agriculture in the Philippine islands, already I have called attention to the matter following in these pages, and again in the chapter on the same industry in Cuba and the Hawaiian islands, I shall refer back to this chapter for detailed information upon the cultivation and marketing of cane sugar.

In the modern system of sugar cultivation in this island, where that is the greatest of crops, the "central," has been an important factor, and is becoming more important all the time. It is the great

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This beautiful scene in the harbor of San Juan de Puerto Rico shows the numerous craft dressed in the flags of ail nations in honor of the holiday. It was almost the last time that the flags of the United States and Spain floated side by side in amity..

THE GOVERNOR'S PALACE, SAN JUAN DE PUERTO RICO.

In the days of the Spanish regimé this was the captain-general's palace, virtually the colonial capitol building. The wing in the foreground is the public office portion of the building.

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