The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-10-21
IN PORTO RICO.

| Porto Rico.
 | Special Correspondence of the Journal and Courier)
 Ponce, Porto Rico, Sept. 2O,-Al- though you may now make the circuit of this island by railway and visit seve- ! ral interior towns in parlor car, it is infinitely pleasanter, if time is not pressing. to travel over these tropical countries on horseback or en coche wherever practicable. Nothing more delightful can be imagined than sad- ale journey from San Juan to Ponce, the capital, distance of thirty miles as the crow flies, but nearer fifty by the windings of the old camino real, or 'royaP' road, built by the early Span- iards almost four centuries ago. The interior of Porto Rico is extremely fer tile and so we'll titled that the entire island looks like one continuous gar den. It is remarkably well supplied with towns and villages, there being no fewer than seventy three with upwards of thousand population, besides innu- merable hamlets of grass-covered huts surrounding some tile-roofed church or bodega. All the towns are connected by good highways, with many trans verse roads; and the railways, begun in 1893, follows the irregular shore-line some three hundred miles and already sends several short branches into the interior. When fully completed-as 1t | is likely soon to be under energetic American nagement-Porto Rico's railway system will include five lines with twelve sections, about five hun dred miles all told; not a bad showing for the little three -cornered island which is only about one-thirtieth the size of the state of Michigan, or some where about ninety-six miles long by thirty-six miles wide in it's longest and widest part. Before the war there were four hundred and seventy-five miles of telegraph in operation in Porto Rico and a deep-sea cable connecting it with the United states, Europe and the other Antilles. It had also well established banking institution, whose headquarters were in San Juan. with branches extending throughout the is- land; and in 1890 charter was extend
 
 privilege of a note issue the original capital being 100000 pesos. Though Porto Rico is only twelfth the size of Cuba, it contains fully half as many people, the larger island having so much waste land, while every acre of the smaller is occupied and cultivated. The comparatively level strip between the highlands and the sea is filled with | ,ioA ox,I to bacco. Then comes a mass of irregu- lar hills, apparently piled hap hazard, around cloud-capped Yunque, their up- per heights yet covered with the mag nifcent forests which Columbus so much admired F'lourishing planta- ticns extend long way up the sloping hill-sides and down into the green val leys that lie between while in hundreds of narrow canyons grass grows and flocks and herds find rich pasturage. Porto Rico is famous for it's excellent cattle, and for a particularly fine breed of horses from it's mountain districts. Though the methods of farming are naturally most primitive and the lazy people invariably put off until to-mor- row everything which should be done to-day, less than quarter of the crors | HOW TdlSeQ Dy lfle present. Slp-SIlOu methods are needed for the support of the population. Never was there a small country better equipped for sus- taining itself, independent of the out side world, than Porto Rico. On the higher grounds European corn and veg ! etables are cultivated to perfection; and between the coffee, cotton and su- gar plantations and the sturdy line of ancient trees, which stand out in the landscape like a ruff around the necks of the topnost peaks, rice is grown of a peculiar mountain variety, which does not require flooding and constitutes the staff of life for the laboring classes.
 There are said to be something over five hundred varieties of native trees on the island, and in the loftier alti- tudes apples pears and other northern fruits might be successfully grown. Every wall and hedgerow is overrun with vines and blossoming craepers, and every spot not devoted to artificial crops is covered with natural fruit bearing trees. or teeming with flowers, such as are carefully tended in our northern conservatories, here sprinsing in wild and odorous profusion.
 When the discoverers named this is- land the Rich Port they believed it to contain incalculable mineral riches. Gold, copper, iron, zinc, coal are known to e&iGt in several places, but no seri- ous attempt has ever been made to de- velop these resources. Possibly under American management they may come to the front in the near future, partic- ularly the iron and coal, which in this locality would prove more valuable if found in considerable quantities than most gold mines. The only industry in this line which has been pursued to any extent here are the salt mines at Sali- mas on the south coast and at Cape Roio on the west The sponge fields, too are practically inexhaustable and have hardly been touched; and there are extensive quarries of beautiful white stone granite and marble, which have been entirely neglected for lack of | capital, but in Yankee hands would pay well.
 A good many Americans are already here to look up the prospects for in- vestment of capital and the business chances for men of smaller means. They represent every element profes- l sional commercial, manufacturing and industrial life; and it is safe to say that they are a shrewd lot, who will make searching and conclusive investiga-