We started with a young crescent moon, and she grew to the full with us over the still ocean. The stars seemed to wave, and our mainmast jagging to and fro seemed intent on sighting and taking aim at the loveliness in the sky. We are escaping; we are going away; we are doing what they did; we are shooting the moon.
All the Cubans and Porto Ricans and Haitians seem to take on more life, become more vivacious. There is no mistaking it, they are nearing their homes. They have been as homesick for the Indies as the mariners were homesick for Spain. It's all in reverse order. "You'd like Habana—it's bigger and better than Barcelona," I am told; "yes, better than Madrid."
The ship comes into more humid airs, and in the evening all the passengers begin to croon Spanish songs. They are all together and happy, men, women, and children, and they feel they are getting near their blessed islands. It infects the crew, infects every one, like an extra idleness, till we come at last one night to a balmy and dreaming coast, where the coconut palms like cobweb dusters rise up to the low clouds of the sky, and the full moon through the mists shines in silver—from the waves to the shore. We are there at last. We have got to the other side.
The ship goes still and hoots. We have our last supper together. There is plenty of wine. "Drink deep," cry the Cuban passengers to those of us who disembark at Porto Rico. "It is ultimo vino, your last glass of wine."
"Porto Rico is not dry?"
"Oh, yes," say the Porto Ricans, mournfully. "You see, it belongs to the United States. Cuba is only under supervision of America, but Porto Rico belongs to her, and is dry."
"Seca! Seca!" they cry explanatorily in Spanish.
"Well, with the last glass, here's to Christopher Columbus, who discovered the island. He made the bridge from Old Spain and incidentally brought the first firewater too. All we who arrive, arrive after him."
3
We enter the harbor of San Juan de Porto Rico and leisurely pass the old stone castle on the rock and the Spanish fortifications. They look to be several centuries older than they are and are not unlike the weather-beaten ruins at the entrance to old ports on the east of Scotland. They mounted Spanish guns but were without power to repel the North American invader of 1898. The island was then wrested from Spain and added territorially to the United States. Natives of Porto Rico are now ipso facto American citizens. It was novel to me to realize that a whole population of American citizens was without English and that many did not know George Washington from Abraham Lincoln.