The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-02-01

Sunday is a holiday; early in the morning
the churches are filed and then the popu-
lation does as it pleases-shopping on the
way home, driving in the afternoon, prone
nading at the concert in the plaza in the
evening, taking ices in the pretty cafes in
the hour before bedtime. In these duties
and diversions the presence of Americans
has caused many, and often undesirable,
notifications The innocent Porto Rican
family party at Cafe Mela, slipping almond
water or fruit ice, looks across with wide
eyes at the gay quartet of tourists who
are ordering their third bottle of cham
payne.
mother to say to her daughter: You are
bad an American girl" and the
daughter would weep. Further acquaint
ance has taught the mother and the daugh-
ter that the American girl is different from
what they were led to believe from her
rainy-day skirt, her strange habit of going
about unattended. or sitting in restaurant
unchaperoned. There remains prejudice
against so much liberty. but whatever dan
gers there might be in ii for the always
clustered Porto Rican girl ii has been OBJ
served that the American girl knows how
TO use the liberty and make 1t respected.
Now, IL a woman walks out without
duenna, or eats alone or with men in
public house, the fact that she Is an Amer
lean makes ii proper enough as to custom.
Porto Rican women have adopted it only
so far as to go sometimes to church or to
the shops unattended.
Fifteen minutes out by electric car from
San Juan is one of the pleasantest suburbs
and hotels in the West Indies. Any one
who is guest at the chief hotel in San
Juan has the privilege, by giving notice at
the office, of spending what time he pleases
there, while still keeping his room in town,
at the same price-that is, without addi-
tional cost he. can breakfast or dine in
town, or breakfast and dine in the country
If the day is warm this is a privilege capa-
BILE OF yielding great delight, for Santurce
is always wholesome and odorous with the
breath of flowers. There are English
parks" botanical gardens, wide verandas,
stables, and drives through a violet land
scape. There is not much to see except
landscape, which is, perhaps, enough for a
jaded New York eye.
Stretching from the north TO the south
coast of the island is the excellent Spanish
military road connecting San Juan with
Ponce. Unless 1t be that new one in Moroc-
co. by which one can so far into the desert
by French automobile, does not know
of a public automobile service which is so
comfortably interesting this. There is
a daily through service, carrying the United
States mail, in each direction. Midway lie
those three hills of Aibonto, which the
Spanish had powerfully fortified, and which
General Wilson was on the point of attack
ing at the very moment that the dispatch
arrived announcing peace" About these
hills the smooth highway. hard as Riverside
drive, winds picturesquely, with the heights
where the most solemn battle OF the war
would have been fought, looking upon II.
When these hills have been left behind
a cennon-shot distance ii Is but a few miles
TO the baths of Coamo, where the Amer
lean officers and correspondents repaired
from the momentary disappointment. Years
ago these baths were the most effective
known in the world for the cures which
require sulphur waters. Tubs are OF dark