The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1907-05-04
LOCAL MANS IDEA
Of PORTO RICO ISLE
Makes a Graphic Pen-Picture
That Is Anything but
AIIuring.

The following extracts are from a
letter written by an ex-Honoluian' now
in Guanica, Porto Rico, to W. H.
Stroud, of this city:
| I left New York on the fifth of last
November for this fragment of the uni
verse, and after madly rushing through
the Woody Atlantic at a maddening
pace that required six days to compass
/ $50 knots, landed in San Juan, and
| thereby found fulfilled to the last note,
my impressions of Spanish cities CLEAN
ed from the Biographies I used to alb
serb when I was young and void OF
hirsute adornment. To save time, look
into any geography of the vintage OF
the '7O's and you have it. San Juan
is an unpleasantly hot place to live in.
The principal sights include bullock
carts, of the make of 1892, and the in
sular police. The chief products of the
country are f1eas, coffee, tobacco and
sugar.
The national characteristics of the
happy jewellers of this isle are lux
urious filth and stupendous incidence
Imagine a place where the leading no.
tel bids for custom on the strength of
its possessing a bath tub! Tradition
records that each one is bathed imme-
dfately after birth, but until I can per-
sonally witness the operation, 1 shall
think that some one was joshing the
authority for this statement, for every
kid 1 have seen seems TO have faith
fully inherited the accumulated filth OF
a long and distinguished ancestry of
the unwashed. AS a substitute for the
bath, young and ancient of each sex
are habituated to the use of face pow
der and audible perfumes, of which
musk and new-mown garbage seem the |
favorites.
Both sexes smoke cigars, and with |
joyous impartiality paint their noses
a permanent rose tint with rum, of |
which a quart beer bottle can be OBJ |
tanned for thirty cents. The country |
is uproariously musical, being in the |
throes of After the Bali and "Hia-
watha.' If anyone ever tells you |
about the gay cavalier chasing along |
the moonlit streets singing sweet love
ditties to his amorita to the soft struni-
ming of the musical guitar, tell him
that he has been reading something he
should have left in the library. The
guitar is, of course, in quite general
lse but the national instrument is the
which for unalloyed melody
runs the bagpipes a thrilling second
This unpronounceable weapon is made
rom a long gourd, having several holes
cut in the under side, while the top is
;errated with transverse ridges. The
yirtuoso places the south end of the
instrument against his wish bone,
md rubs an implement made of three
tiff wires bound into handle, across
he ridges, producing a soothing, rasp-
ng sound not unlike the saving of
Inotty board. I have seen a band,
qually divided between these devilish
,ontrivances and guitars, parading the
plantation Streets the guitars play
ng nothing but accompaniment, while
he other eace-breakers contributed
agtirne 1ourishes. At a dance, con-
eded by all present to be highly sue
essful, the music was furnished by an
sthmatic bass viol, which marked
ime" while couple Of the other things
furnished the after-beatI Shades of
Berger, avaunti
I did see a stunning good baseball
,ame in San Juan, one team whose
lame 1 forgot before I ever figured it
ut, beating another whose name new
r did get, in a really snappy game in
he regular league series. I also had
ny first lesson in Spanish in San Juan,
he ponderous walls of ancestral cas-
les being literally placarded: 'Schlitz
Il