PORTO RICO 



65 



rounded does tlie city itself become fully 

 visible, for it is built on the landward side 

 of the sandstone ridge which bounds the 

 bay on the north. Elsewhere, for the 

 most part, ships must lie in open road- 

 steads; only at Guanica, Guayanilla, 



with the mainland; there are plazas 

 and open spaces, but these seem only 

 to accentuate the concentration of living 

 quarters. As one travels about, the 

 same feature becomes more prominent, 

 for on the open plain, in a valley near 



In the limestone regions, hundreds of large and small caverns have been excavated by underground streams. 

 This cave mouth near Gorozal is reached by a forty-foot climb up the face of the cliff. Once it is gained, the down- 

 ward view is a striking and characteristic panorama of hill and field and stream 



and one or two other places is there 

 anything that approaches a protected 

 harbor like that of San Juan. 



At first view, the city is impressive 

 by its extent, the close construction of 

 its ancient and modern buildings, and 

 by the delicate pastel shades of its 

 tinted whitewashed walls. More than 

 fifty thousand people are crowded in 

 dense areas, on the narrow rock mass 

 that extends eastward from El Morro for 

 two and a half miles to its connection 



the coast, or in remote and unlikely 

 hollows of the hills, one encounters town 

 after town of more than ten thousand or 

 fifteen thousand inhabitants. Natur- 

 ally the problems of public health are 

 of the highest importance, and of neces- 

 sity they received the immediate atten- 

 tion of the Americans when they came 

 into control of Porto Rico in 1898. Old 

 methods of water distribution by casks 

 have been extensively replaced by a sys- 

 tem which brings water through lines of 



