The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-10-12
A FLYING VISIT TO PORTO RICO.


 How it Feels to Have the Calentura-
 The Beauties of Cuba's Twin-Sister-
 The Old City of Saint John the Bap-
 tist.
 Especial Correspondence of the Journal and Courier.)
 San Juan Bautista, Porto Rico, Sept.
 15.-Nobody can stay long in southern
 Cuba at this time of the year and hope
 to entirely escape the climate. After
 several weeks of roughing it in Santia-
 go, regardless of sun and rain and un-
 accustomed food, and disease and death on every hand, even your robust
 correspondent began to experience what our soldiers call "the jim -jams." Said the doctor, If you don't get out
 of this P. D. O. we will have to carry you out in a box" But I am firm be- liever in the efficacy of self-forgetful-
 ness in warding off most bodily ills and
 had no idea of abandoning my post.
 The premonitory symptoms of calen-
 tura are sudden chills, chasing each
 other up and down the spinal column, alternating in irregular succession with
 fierce heats which seem to scorch the flesh, and cold sweats that drench the 1ctim like a plunge into ice-water; a head which appears to need hopping,
 and strange giddiness, as if the solid earth were billoWing beneath the feet, and one grasps at nearby objects as the drowning clutch at straws. One morning when came to breakfast the
 marble floor rose up to meet me, the
 faces of the family blended in shadowy
 composit, and voices sounded afar off, as though a trumpet. The table had become a gigantic spinning top, and when my customary place at the head of it came round, I sank into the chair and attempted to serve the coffee, too stupid to realize that somebody had al-
 ready performed that duty. There
 seemed to be many cups before me Gin
 reality there was only one), and in my
 efforts to brace up and hit the first of
 the imaginary row, I poured the coffee, with usual dignity, on the cloth. Still firm in the faith-cure I started on the daily round to office warehouse and | hospital; but at every step encountered IIlt SdlIlS SlllDttll ciSSlllS ol objects. The narrow, down-hill street of San Geronimo converged a dozen different ways, like the spokes in a
 wheel, and it's time wrinkled, century,
 old casas danced an uncanny witches | jig.
 Although so much is being done for our sick soldiers in Santiago, there is
 no place in the hospitals for women, and none of our over worked force have any time to devote to one another. So I reluctantly consented to a compro- mise-not to leave Cuba flor good" but to try the benefit of sea air in a little trip among the neighboring islands. It happened, by good fortune, that
 coaster was leaving that day bound for Porto Rico. Somebody piloted me aboard, kindly hands packed a few ne- cessary belongings, and in less time than it takes to tell it, Santiago with all it's horrors was left behind and I
 was sailing the tranquil Spanish Main. The first day were total blank. We touched at Jamaica, Cape Haytian,
 Santo Domingo and possibly other places; and by the time our destination
 was reached rest and quinine had wrought perfect work Next to old fashioned Michigan fever r-and-ague,
 Cuban calentura is perhaps the mean
 est illness on the face of the earth. However, if seized by the throat at once and throttled with heroic doses, accompanied by change of air, it gene
 rally runs a sharp, swift course, leav- ing it's victim weak and yellow, but with the seven devils" cast out of him. How beautiful Cubas twin sister looked in the twilight of the morning
 when we dropped anchor in the historic bay which the early Spaniards so pom
 pously named "The rich port of Sant
 John the Baptist" As the sun rose
 and our new possession stood confessed
 in all it's glory, I thought l had never
 seen so entrancing a pictufe-of green
 hilI-spurs trepding down to the sea, | and on their gentle slopes, silhouetted against background of darker heights, the quaint red roofs of the town, with here and there stately palm lifting it's plumed head head be- tween; the broad bay, crowded with transports, war vessels and craft of all description, mirroring the surrounding | greenery along its edges. This is the same seltered harbor which Columbus named Fl Aguadilla, -"The watering i place"-because he went ashore and | filled his casks before sailing to Santo | Domingo, sixty miles away. It was on | his second voyage to the new world l that the great admiral and his crew, | sailing in a south westerly direction | from the Caribbean, sighted this larger and lovelier island before the group of 1 Virgins had fairly faded from view-