difficult for Europeans to accustom themselves to it.  The largest island is nearly 500 miles long and 125 miles wide, while others are more than half as large.  It must be remembered that the interior of these great islands, and the whole of hundreds of the smaller ones, are unexplored and almost unvisited by travelers from civilized lands, as Spanish exploration has been of little practical value to the rest of the world or to science.

Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico, the smaller of the two islands which Spain held in the West Indies, was discovered by Columbus in 1493 and occupied by soldiers under Ponce de Leon early in the sixteenth century.  It lies well outside the Caribbean sea, in the open Atlantic, and for this reason it is not at all affected climatically, as Cuba is, by proximity to the continent.  Its climate is determined mostly by the ocean, whose breezes sweep constantly over the entire island, tempering deliciously the tropical heat, of the sun.

The surface of the island is equally favorable to excellent climatic conditions.  It has no mountains, but it has hills that extend from end to end of it and form a perfect watershed and afford drainage for plains and valleys.  Thirteen hundred rivers, forty-seven of them navigable, drain 3,500 square miles of territory, a territory as large as the state of Delaware.  All over its extent are, besides the principal range of hills that are by some called mountains, round-topped hills of finest soil, which are nearly every one cultivated.  In summer the heat is not excessive in the valleys and in winter ice never forms oil the hills.  It is a purely agricultural country and the great majority of the natives are farmers.  In the population of 810,000 are 300,000 negroes, who are now free, and since their freedom have gone into the towns and cities and found work in the sugar mills and at similar employments.

The native Puerto Ricans adhere to the soil.  Their labors are not severe where the soil is loose and rich, as it is every where except near the seashore, and for reasons already stated the climate is very favorable to a comfortable existence.  The only drawback perhaps to this comfort for dwellers on the island is lack of substantial bridges over the many streams and the absence of good roads.

There are a number of extensive forests on the island, and while they resemble in their main outlines those of the other West India islands, certain varieties of trees and shrubs exist there that are not seen elsewhere.  Baron Eggers, who in 1883 had a coffee farm of 2,000 acres just coming into bearing, found leisure from his other employments to explore some of the forests and—­he being an authority on the subject—­the facts he discovered and reported have been regarded of interest by travelers and students.  He found palms and a strange variety of orchid, but the palms were not so lofty, nor the orchids so rich as they both are on the Caribbean islands.  But he found trees of great beauty and great utility in manufactures that are not abundant on the other islands, if, indeed, they are ever found on any of them.