“Only in the old part.”
The houses were of stone and brick, painted various colors. The majority were of the old Spanish style of architecture, with small windows and flat roofs. Here and there was a new building, looking strangely out of place, with its wide windows and broad balconies.
Professor Strong had a friend in the hotel business in San Juan, and to his place, called the Randall House, they made their way. It proved to be a comfortable hostelry, and they were assigned three spacious rooms on the second floor. From the roof of the hotel a splendid view of the entire city could be obtained, and here the boys spent some time, while the professor and the hotel proprietor pointed out various points of interest to them.
CHAPTER XX
AN ADVENTURE IN THE MOUNTAINS
Three days passed swiftly by. There was much to be seen in San Juan, and the boys were out most of the time, only resting during the middle of the day, when the heat was too much for them.
During these days they visited various public buildings and also the main college and two of the principal churches. They learned that the city had seven parks, and in one, the Plazuela de Santiago, they saw a life-like statue of Columbus. They also visited the governor’s palace, built by Ponce de Leon, and the Santa Catalina fortifications. But what interested them more than anything was the small, huddled up native shops, with their quaint keepers and their grand mixture of merchandise, and the still more strange markets, with many vegetables and fruits new to them. To these shops came the native ladies, but they never dismounted from their carriages but made the shop-keepers bring out everything to them.
“They try to live as lazy and easy a life as they can,” was Mark’s comment. “How American energy must open their eyes.”
“The professor told me that San Juan used to be an awfully dirty town,” said Sam. “But as soon as our soldiers took hold they made the citizens clean up, and the place has been kept clean ever since. That helps to lessen disease and is certainly a blessing.”
During the stay in San Juan all the boys received letters from home, and one which Hockley got contained a money order which pleased him greatly. He had written that he must have money, that Professor Strong would allow him next to nothing, and his over-indulgent father had relented and sent him two hundred dollars.
“Now I’ll have some good times,” the bully told himself. “And the rest of the fellows can go to grass.”