The mirror., 1920-01-08
POR TO RICO
Columbus It's Popular Hero with Dis
Automobile
By Leroy L. Little, in Outing

E& AI automobiles and at least one-third
that number of the widest drivers in the
world. If you wish to see Porto Rico, plan
to do it by automobile.
In the little city of Barranquitas, high
in the mountains is the grave of late popu-
lar hero, Luis Mu or Rivera, and Luis
Munoz Rivera is the name of at least one
street in every hamlet however humble--and
many of them are humble, plus. But at the
grave of Senor Luis Mu or Rivera the
Revered, there stands the dismantled chassis
of an automobile which carried his remains
to this last resting place and was then dedi-
Gated to his memory. Such is the spirit with
which Porto Rico looks both upon the past
and the future.
Rivera typifes the old order which
hated the United States and all its cohorts;
the automobile represents the progress which
unfolds before one, be he casual visitor or
student. Rivera led the most powerful SEN
timent of the Island, but he travelled to the
stumped the Island in order to admit his for.
mer wrong and to swing the populace into
line as favoring the United States and all it
stood for. In visiting Porto Rico, use an
automobile and have as open mind as did
good old Luis.
In order to learn about the Island be-
fore going, do not go to q. S. Government
publications. Such titles as "Brachyma and
Macrura of Porto Rico" or "Cirripedia Col
lected near Porto Rico" will not help. Bet
ter 60 uniformed but with your pockets well
lined against for gasoline: something more
than fifty cents per gallon.
A little place named Aguada, not far
from San Juan, has Columbus Springs, in
memory of the inlet where Columbus put
in for water. Ponce, the chief southern
port, has frehouse gaudily painted in
rainbow colors, initiating burning build
ing. Mayaguez, the western metropolis,
once had very good agricultural college
and other claims to the tourist, but the earth
quakes of late 1918 and serious fire in the
June just passed levelled one-half of the
buildings and killed more than 200 inhabi-
tants of the city. Only the sordily curious
will find it interesting until it can recover.
And San Juan, the chief port, on the North
has, lying out in the Patio of Casa Blanca,
rude bath tub reputed to have been brought
hx, 10 7 of
Porto Rico. Possibly in that tub lies the
final solution of Ponce's worldwide search
for the Fountain of Youth. (Unless you are
to live at one of the better hotels, you will
have need of it.)
Let not pleasantly, however, be all
that Porto Rico inspires. 1t has been called
"The Last American Frontier" 1t does
have the glamor of the past with some throb
of the present. There are beautiful lace
mantillas and wondrous fans opening and
closing as in the Spanish tales we read as
children. San Juan hotels show these, and
yet, as the Island goes, San Juan is modern.
Ponce, next in size, is far more Spanish, with
large homes surrounding exclusive patios in
old-world Spanish style. Small hamlets
easily reached by motor, have all the squalid-
ity and color ever pictured as belonging to
the tropics.
The highways present the poorer classes
afoot or astride their very small Porto Rican
ponies, and, when mounted, nearly alway:
atop pannier baskets of vegetables or hand
work on the way to cities. Alongside are
plodding oxen of small stature, being prod
ded upon their laborious way by sullen dri
vers. In the same breath, you will meet {
motor truck carrying tobacco or sugar across
the Island, or gaudy red Pierce Arrow
skdding madly around curve built two
centuries ago or more, and never mean
for hgh-speed traffic. In the meantime, yo,
will have to dodge three or four Fords. Ant
there you are in the midst of the old-worlt
way and people, with the present centur!
rushing madly in trying to crowd the OLE
away.