

BARBADOS-ANTIGUA EXPEDITION 293 
on short allowance; while in an American city only a few hun- 
dred miles from New York there were mountains of sugar! 
Never before had we realized that the problem was not so much 
one of production as of distribution. There was probably at 
that time more sugar in the world than ever before and still the 
world was starving for sugar. It was hard, moreover, to inhibit 
the idea that a slow merchant ship loaded down with sugar 
would be a toothsome morsel for an enterprising U-boat captain. 
In such a brief visit as ours nothing but the most general 
impression can be secured. The city seemed quite metropolitan 
in comparison with those of the Lesser Antilles. Many of the 
buildings are architecturally imposing, having been built since 
the island became American territory. The old part of the city 
is characteristically Spanish with narrow streets and the little 
iron balconies so familiar in Havana, for instance. There is an 
excellent electric railway system with up-to-date equipment and 
service and we saw several fine plazas such as Plaza Colon with 
a statue of the great discoverer after which it was named, the 
Plaza San José with a huge statute of Ponce de Leon, and a beau- 
tiful park with a long walk fronting the sea and under an 
avenue of palms. In one respect the city is far from typically 
Spanish, and that is in its sanitary arrangements, street clean- 
ing and water supply, all of which accord with the most mod- 
ern ideas; and the fine public school buildings are such as I 
never saw in a really Spanish city. 
The thing that strikes the visitor most forcibly, however, is 
the little impression made by almost twenty years of American 
occupancy on the language and customs of the people. Of 
course one expects the Spanish tongue to preponderate, but he 
also expects, and not unreasonably, that the public official 
should have some knowledge of English. The customs officer 
who remained on board the ‘‘Parima,’’ a British vessel bound 
to New York, did not seem to know a word of English, and the 
same is true of the uniformed police and street car conductors. 
Some of the younger members of our party found compensa- 
tion in the way of the discovery of real American soda foun- 
tains and that idol of our national youth, ice-cream soda! After 
having been deprived of this beloved beverage for some months, 
they rushed for these refreshments and fairly revelled in long- 
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