The fortifications which surround the city of San Juan are, like the Spanish pedigrees, ancient, flamboyant, beautiful to look at, but as worthless withal.  This city of about 25,000 inhabitants is completely inclosed within imposing walls of stone and hardened mortar from 50 to 100 feet in height.  They have picturesque gates and drawbridges, portcullises and demilunes, quaint old sentry boxes projecting into the sea, frowning battlements, and all that; but most of their cannon date back from the last century.

In ancient times the chief fort or castle was called the “morro,” or Moorish tower, because it was generally round; and San Juan, like Havana, has its Morro as the most prominent point of its fortifications.  It stands on a bluff jutting out from the city walls and has a lighthouse immediately in the rear of it.  Against the seaward front of the massive walls the ocean pounds and thunders, but the landward harbor is quiet and safe for any craft.  A broad parade ground is inclosed within the walls, westward from the citadel, and not far off is the oldest house in the city, no less a structure than the ancient castle of Ponce de Leon, one-time governor here and discoverer of Florida.  His ashes are also kept here, in a leaden case, for Ponce the Lion-Hearted was a great man in his day and cleaned out the Indians of this island with a thoroughness that earned him an exceeding great reward.

Just under the northern wall of the castle is the public cemetery, the gate to it overhung by an ornate sentry box, and the bones of evicted tenants of graves whose terms of rental have expired, are piled in the corners of the inclosure.  The prevailing winds by day are from the sea landward; by night, from the inland mountains toward the coast.  Far inland rises the conical summit of the great Luquillo, a mountain about 4,000 feet in height, and from whose sides descend streams that fertilize the island.

It is about ninety miles from San Juan to Ponce, the southern port, by a fine road diagonally across the island.  The Spaniards generally are poor road-builders, but in this island they have done better than in Cuba, and one may travel here with a fair amount of comfort to the mile.  There are several lines of railroads building, a system being projected around the island 340 miles in length.

The city of Ponce is the largest, with a population of about 38,000 and an export trade of vast extent.  It is the chief sugar-shipping point, though it has no good harbor, and lies nearly three miles from the sea.  It is a rather fine city, with a pretty plaza and a grand cathedral, and its houses, like those of San Juan, are all built of stone.

Other harbors are:  On the east coast, Fajardo and Humacao; on the north, besides San Juan, Arrecibo; on the west, Aguadilla. and Mayaguez, at the former of which Columbus watered his caravels in 1493, and where the original spring still gushes forth.