CITIES OF PORTO RICO 179 



tories of chocolate, for local consumption. Sugar, coffee, 

 oranges, pineapples, and cocoanuts are exported largely 

 all, except coffee, principally to the United States. Of 

 sugar, the muscovado goes to the United States and the 

 centrifugal to Spain. Mayaguez is the second port for 

 coffee, the average annual export being one hundred and 

 seventy thousand hundredweights. The quality is of the 

 best, ranging in price with Java and other first-rate brands. 

 The lower grades are sent to Cuba. About fifty thousand 

 bags of flour are imported into this port every year from 

 the United States, out of the one hundred and eighty 

 thousand bags consumed in the whole island. 



The climate is excellent, the temperature never exceed- 

 ing 90 F. The city is connected by tramway with the 

 neighboring town of Aguadilla, and a railroad is being con- 

 structed to Lares, one of the large interior towns. 



Near the city is a beautiful plain watered by the Rio 

 Mayaguez, and which, like the country around San Juan 

 and Ponce, is noted on the island for its fine state of culti- 

 vation. This is said to have been the place of disembarka- 

 tion of Columbus on his second visit to the island in 14!:;. 

 Most of the people are engaged in commerce. 



Aguadilla, founded in 1775 (population five thousand), 

 is the principal town and the port of Aguadilla district, in 

 the northwest portion of the island, and is noted for its 

 fish, cane, sweet oranges, and lemons. The village has 

 beautiful trees surrounded by choice grazing-lands ; it 

 has a pretty plaza divided into four parts, in each of 

 which is a little garden with a statue in its center. The 

 cultivation of sugar-cane, coffee, tobacco, and cocoanuts, 

 and the distillation of rum from molasses, are the indus- 

 tries of the neighborhood. In the town are three estab- 

 lishments for preparing coffee for exportation. The 

 climate is hot, but healthful; yellow fever almost never 

 prevails. 



Arecibo, which is locally known as the most loyal town, 

 was founded in 17SS, and is a thriving place of seven 



