There are officers of the line, usually in light or indigo blue, sometimes with broad stripes along the trousers and with cuffs and facings of green, red, blue or black, according to the branch of the service, their rank indicated by gold and silver stars on the sleeve above the cuff. These wear tall white caps, with gilt bands. There are naval officers, in dark blue uniforms of distinctly seafaring cut and without colored facings.
All the officers wear some kind of sword invariably, usually during the day the regulation sabre, and at night substituting a slender rapier with a cross hilt. They also carry walking sticks with silver and gold heads, according to rank.
As they mingle with the crowd, walking together in groups, now bowing to some passing female acquaintance or turning to promenade with her, they unconsciously dominate the entire assemblage and give to it an indelible imprint of Spain. Plainly they are favorites with the women, who receive their polite attentions graciously.
And the women. They are out in force, dressed in the latest fashions of Madrid and Paris. Here and there some gentleman walks with his wife and family, but usually the women promenade alone until joined by male acquaintances. A group of girls will be accompanied by a duenna, who keeps discreetly in the background if any men approach. Often, however, two or more senoritas will promenade entirely alone, with a freedom which would be considered unbecoming in the United States.
This is one of the occasions when rigorous Spanish etiquette is somewhat relaxed and the unmarried women enjoy a fleeting glimpse of social freedom. So the crowd, constantly swelling, until progress is almost impossible, moves in a circle back and forth along the length of the plaza. Mingling with it are scores of police, in their bright uniforms, who seem to have no business there except to accentuate the crush, and hundreds of civilians in their best dress. And so it goes, until the concert ends. The band, preceded by an escort of cavalry, marches away to a wonderfully quick quickstep, the lights fade and slowly the crowd disperses through the shadowy streets.
Not all San Juan, however, is to be seen in the grand plaza. Only fashionable and official life centralizes there. In other sections of the city the evenings pass differently. Take a stroll from the brilliantly lighted plaza into the eastern part of the town, near the barracks.
There the whole lower strata will be found in the narrow, badly lighted streets, or in the plaza Cristobal Colon and the smaller breathing places of the densely populated city.
Here hand organs and dirty wandering minstrels, who perform semi-barbaric music upon cracked guitars and raspy mandolins, accompanied by the "guero"—a native instrument made of a gourd—furnish the music.
Venders of dulce squat beside their trays of sweetmeat, dolorously crying their wares. Non-commissioned officers and privates mingle with the people and chat with the women. Everybody smokes cigarettes, even children hardly able to toddle. The shops and meaner cafés are open and crowded.
Further no one can wander through streets more narrow and darker than alleys to where the massive gray battlements of the ancient city walls lift their sombre, jagged towers to greet the moon.