It is a narrow gauge, not more than forty-seven inches wide. The cars are quite diminutive, and do not carry more than ten or twelve people. We can ride the length of the road, about two miles, for five cents.
We see long lines of patient oxen plodding their way to the city, pulling clumsy carts piled high with oranges. Mayaguez is the market to which the best oranges in Puerto Rico come.
Large, sweet, and luscious we find this fruit, the principal food of many of the people.
It grows wild by the roadside, in the valleys, everywhere except on the hillsides. Such quantities of oranges! It seems as if enough of the fruit is grown in Puerto Rico to supply the whole of the United States. Yet very few oranges are sent away from the island. They can not be shipped profitably until good roads are built.
The city of Mayaguez claims a population of 20,000 people. It has, probably, 12,000 to 15,000. It is the great western shipping port, is the third largest city, and the prettiest and most attractive city in Puerto Rico.
Mayaguez is very different in appearance and customs from the other cities. We can scarcely realize that we are on the same island.
The streets are macadamized, wide, shaded by trees, and lined with handsome shops and residences. The sidewalks are narrow,—only two can walk abreast on them.
The town is well provided with public buildings. It has also three hospitals, a home for the destitute, a public library, good waterworks, is lighted by electricity, and possesses the only street-car line on the island. The principal plaza is a park of grand old shade trees. It contains a majestic statue of Columbus.
The citizens are, many of them, coffee planters who have estates near the city. Each family of the better class dwells in a home of its own, instead of living in second stories.
The poor people of the town are not so poor, or unclean, or shiftless, as the poorer classes at the capital.