“Do you think the professor knows about the money?”
“I guess not. Glummy never shows his wad when the professor is around. But he loves to shove it under our noses,” added Mark.
All were thoroughly tired when Coamo was reached and after supper were glad enough to retire. They slept soundly, although Darry afterward declared that he had been bitten almost to death by fleas.
“Yes, Porto Rico has its full share of those pests,” said Professor Strong, when told of this. “I felt them myself. It is too bad, but there seems to be no help for it. The natives will have to fight them long and hard if they ever wish to get totally rid of the pests.”
There was not much to see in Coamo outside of the church and one or two small public buildings, and some odd looking fishing smacks on the river, and shortly after breakfast they started on the last stage of their journey across the island. Their course was now westward, through Juan Diaz, where they stopped for another day, and towns of lesser importance. For the greater portion of the distance, the road here is not more than five miles from the sea, and at certain high points they could catch glimpses of the rolling Caribbean, flashing brightly in the sunlight. They crossed half a dozen streams, and at last turned down the slope leading into the outskirts of Ponce, named after the well-known discoverer, Ponce de Leon.
“It’s certainly been a delightful trip,” was Sam’s comment. “And we have seen a good deal of native life. Much more than a fellow could see by rushing past in a train—if there was a railroad.”
Ponce is situated about three miles north of the harbor, in a wide plain surrounded by numerous gardens and plantations. The boys could see numerous churches and public buildings, and as they came closer saw several fine hotels which have been erected within the past two years.
“This is something like it,” said Darry, as he smiled at the scene. “Is Ponce a very large place?”
“It has a population of about thirty thousand,” answered the professor, “although newcomers are drifting in from the States by every steamer. It is a great shipping point for all islands south of this, and, as you know, the terminus of one of the three railroads of Porto Rico.”
Half an hour saw them in the center of the city, at the hotel the professor had selected, a hostelry very much like that they had stopped at in Havana. The street was filled with people coming and going, and venders were pushing their way this direction and that, each with a wide board balanced on his head, containing fruits, candies, or pastries. Around at the side door of the hotel were several mules, each carrying two trunks, strapped together and hung over the beast’s sides. And over all a little native boy was running along with a bundle of newspapers under his arm shrieking at the top of his lungs: “Americano news! Who buy de papair? Americano newspapair!”