San Juan

“ The San Juan grows constantly wider. Its banks are dotted with the conical huts of Indians; the floors are always raised on poles, high above the ground, to escape the floods and insects.
As we sped down the river many of the naked, painted savages rushed out in their canoes, paddling and yelling like demons in attempts to overtake the launch. ”

“ Nice cool nights for sound slumber? Right here in San Juan, amigo mío. A desert across which the eye may run without stopping until it be tired, a wonderful desert whereon at dawn and dusk God weaves all of the alluring soft mists of mystery? ”

“ There is a peculiar fascination about Spanish and Oriental cities, a barbaric splendor that attracts the eye, even while our common sense tells us of its tawdry nature.
Many have described the San Juan of the past, and as a picture that has been turned to the wall, let us for the last time see the Porto Rican capital through the glasses of a [180] clever newspaperman, whose pen paints its colors just as might the faithful camera. This was as Roderic saw it the day after his safe entry into the town:
San Juan wakes early. ”

“ San Juan, where we passed a miserable week, is, even after seeing San Carlos, one of the most uninteresting places that can be imagined. The land is even flatter than the sea. It is a low sandy plain, just rising above the water, agreeably diversified with stagnant marshes, and hemmed in by unwholesome-looking forests. A few mushroom houses seem to have sprung up out of the sand, and among them three or four hotels, of the same board and shingle pattern that is so odious even in its native New England. ”

“ SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO—THE PENANCE OF MAGDALENA
Slowly, very slowly, the greatest and most beautiful of the Missions of Alta California had risen among the swelling lomas of the valley of the San Juan. Brick by brick and stone by stone the simple Indian laborers, under the tutelage of the Fathers, had reared a structure which, in its way and place, might not unfitly be compared with those great cathedrals of Europe in which we see, as in a parable, how inward love and faith work out in material beauty. ”

“ When a baby is born in San Juan, a rarer occurrence than a strong man's death, the littlest of the bells upon the western arch laughs while it calls to all to hearken; when a man is killed, the angry-toned bell pendant from the eastern arch shouts out the word to go billowing across the stretches of sage and greasewood and gama-grass; if one of the later-day frame buildings bursts into flame, Ignacio Chavez warns the town with a strident clamor, tugging frantically; be it wedding or discovery of gold or returns from the county elections, the bell-ringer cunningly makes the bells talk. ”

“ San Juan was the first Argentine province, as I have shown you, which after the revolution of independence elevated primary education to the highest grade of perfection possible at that epoch. From San Juan went forth the impulse which in these later days has stimulated two republics. San Juan owes it to herself to reestablish the fame of her ancient school, and permit me to say, that it is the duty of my country and my compatriots to aid me in the full development of a system of common school education which shall put the seal upon the work of thirty years of my life. ”

“ Out on the desert a man might stop and listen, forming his surmise as the sounds surged to meet him through the heat and silence. He might smile, if he knew San Juan, as he caught the jubilant message tapped swiftly out of the bronze bell which had come, men said, with Coronado; he might sigh at the lugubrious, slow-swelling voice of the big bell which had come hitherward long ago with the retinue of Marco de Niza, wondering what old friend or enemy, perchance, had at last closed his ears to all of Ignacio Chavez's music. ”

“ It is the day of San Juan. A broad grassy plain lies just outside the town of San Ildefonso, and upon this the citizens are assembled. It is the scene of the festival, and the sports will soon begin. Before they do, let us stroll through the crowd, and note its component parts. All classes of the community—in fact, all the community—appear to be present. There go the two stout padrés of the mission, bustling about in their long gowns of coarse serge, with bead-string and crucifix dangling to their knees, and scalp-lock close shaven. ”

“ When the Missions of the Concepcion, of San José, of San Juan, of San Francis of the Sword, now crumbling to inevitable decay, shall be only mounds in the midst of stunted trees and matted vines, when the exquisite carvings of their broad façades shall have turned to dust again, the traveller will stand before the Alamo with reverence, and enter, with uncovered head, the dim recesses of this altar-place of liberty. ”

“ Virginia Page found time passing swiftly in San Juan. Within two weeks she came almost to forget how she had heard a rattle of pistol-shots, how the slow sobbing of a bell in the Mission garden had bemoaned a life gone and a fresh crime upon a man's soul; at the end of a month it seemed to her that she had dreamed that ride through the night with Roderick Norton, climbing the cliffs, ministering to a stricken man in the forsaken abode of ancient cliff-dwellers. ”

“ It was clear, and from one point where they stopped to take a rest they could see for miles. Far away to the north they beheld the church spires of San Juan, and beyond the rolling sea, shining brightly in the sunlight. ”

“ At San Juan, as in all other pueblos, the old adobe church, with its absurdly barbaric furniture and uncouth appearance, is a center of interest. Climbing the rickety ladder to its little gallery, and thence ascending to the roof, one gets the best idea of how valuable a garden spot this district is. As far as the eye can reach, up and down the river, stretch farms and orchards and plazitas. ”

“ San Juan has grown in population,—owing to the progress of agriculture there, and to the emigrants driven by hunger and wretchedness from La Rioja and San Luis,—and its buildings have sensibly increased in number; facts which prove the natural wealth of the region, and the progress that might be made under a government which cared to foster education and culture, the sole methods of elevating a nation. ”

“ A superb frieze surrounds the entire nave, bearing in great Gothic letters an inscription narrating the foundation of the church. Everywhere the arms of Castile and Arragon, and the wedded ciphers of the Catholic kings. Statues of heralds start unexpectedly out from the face of the pillars. Fine as the church is, we cannot linger here long. The glory of San Juan is its cloisters. It may challenge the world to show anything so fine in the latest bloom and last development of Gothic art. ”

“ On through the bright moonlight came the sheriff's posse
The Bells of San Juan A Novel FOREWORD THE BELLS
He who has not heard the bells of San Juan has a journey yet to make. He who has not set foot upon the dusty road which is the one street of San Juan, at times the most silent and deserted of thoroughfares, at other times a mad and turbulent lane between sun-dried adobe walls, may yet learn something of man and his hopes, desires, fears and ruder passions from a pin-point upon the great southwestern map. ”

“ In character, San Juan is much like Mendoza although it has less fertile lands. This is due to the fact that while Mendoza has three rivers which serve to irrigate [93] it, San Juan has but one. San Juan is noted for the superior quality of its figs which here thrive to perfection. Its capital city is also named San Juan. It is ninety-eight miles north of the city of Mendoza and is reached by the Buenos Aires Pacific Railway which here has its terminus. It is a small town of 14,595 inhabitants with shady streets and of ancient appearance. Most of its houses are of adobe. ”

“ As we approach the harbour, and at the entrance dodge into a channel between yellow reefs plainly visible through the clear water, it is no small thing to see our dear Stars and Stripes peacefully waving over that relic of mediæval Spain, the venerable Morro of San Juan on the bold headlands to our left; its wide-spreading fortifications, gray with centuries and fast going to decay, running in walls and terraces far above the sea. We throw our whole soul into the soft folds of that flag with a deep sense of joy. ”

“ Social lines are none too clearly drawn in towns like San Juan; often enough they have long ago failed to exist. A John Engle, though six days of the seven he sat behind his desk in a bank, was only a man, his daughter only the daughter of a mere man; a Jim Galloway, though he owned the Casa Blanca and upon occasion stood behind his own bar, might be a man and look with level eyes upon all other men, their wives, and their daughters. Here, with conditions what they always had been, there could stand but one barrier between Galloway and Florrie Engle, the barrier of character. ”

“ Here in San Juan, indeed, I saw roughly sashed windows in many houses, or else a single pane of glass set in; but often only a grating is used to guard the aperture, or else holes in the walls are left so small that no enemy could crawl through. You can imagine the darkness inside, therefore, even on a bright day. Originally the pueblo was common property, and both men and women assisted in building it, but new ideas of individual possessions are invading the old notions. ”

“ While the municipal band renders its classical program with a moderate degree of skill, all San Juan rocks in unison with the leader’s baton. All San Juan with the color-line drawn, that is; for whether it is true that the well-groomed insular police have secret orders to ask them to move on, or it is merely a time-honored custom, black citizens shun the central square on Sunday evenings, or at most hang about the outskirts. There is no division of sexes, however, another evidence perhaps of American influence. ”

“ San Juan, the capital, is the principal city, especially so far as shipping is concerned, for its harbor is one of the best the island affords. The city contains about 30,000 inhabitants; natives, Spaniards and negroes, and foreigners from all over the world. ”

“ The celebration of San Juan's day began long before daylight, and the Montejos were out by lantern-light killing the goats under Nan's window; men, women, and children shrieking with laughter at the struggles of the dying animals.
By the time the sun rose, the drinking and feasting was well under way. At ten o'clock the songs and laughter were boisterous, but still good-natured. All the village and its guests in gala-day attire were flocking toward the plaza. ”

“ The robbers are of their complexion, but not of their nature. These are getting less and less. They were created by poverty and politics, and with the cessation of pronunciamentos and the coming in of railroads they will die. The Valley of San Juan is one of the loveliest I have ever seen. Irrigated by the rivers that come from the hills in the edge of Tierras Calientes, it glows in green as perfect as Cortez's emeralds. For more than twenty miles its enchantments lie under the eye. ”

“ The higher classes of San Juan boast of a pure descent from the old Spaniards or Portuguese. The fine, clear atmosphere of the Andes provinces has affected favorably the complexion, and most of these people have a skin as light as that of the inhabitants of the southern states of the Union. ”

“ In the evening is when the inhabitants of San Juan really live. These are the pleasant hours of the day. From the sea comes a breeze, cool and fresh, to whisper to the few shade trees in the plazas and revive enervated humanity. Twice a week one of the military bands plays in [181] the principal plaza. ”

“ The San Juan district is remarkably situated in its geographical relations. This river, rising in the crests of the high mountains forming the water-shed or divide between the Atlantic and Pacific, flows southward until it enters the table-land formation, through which it flows in a southwesterly and then northwesterly direction, making a long, sweeping curve in New Mexico and Arizona, after which it runs westerly to its confluence with the Colorado. ”

“ San Juan is one of a thickset cluster of islands that fills the waters between Vancouver and the mainland, a little to the north of Victoria. In some of the intricate channels between these islands the tides run at times like impetuous rushing rivers, rendering navigation rather uncertain and dangerous for the small sailing vessels that ply between Victoria and the settlements on the coast of British Columbia and the larger islands. ”

“ San Juan will be swept and garnished, her streets paved, her narrowest calles lighted, and within a few years she may vie even with Boston in regard to the conditions that make life worth living to the average American. ”

“ In short, San Juan is a strongly-fortified place. Everything is very clean, very new, and very modern looking. The cathedral is a noble edifice, and the theatre is in every way equal to the best buildings of the kind in Europe.
Crossing an open square, in which appear a number of bronze statues, Don Felipe conducts me back to the café, where we partake of refreshment, and arrange the various items of news which we have collected during our afternoon's ramble over the town. ”

“ Then northward of the province of Leon came the towering mountain ranges and plateaus of Santa Cruz, arid, and scorched, and dusty, rising almost precipitously from the forests of Leon, and falling again in terrific ridges and chasms into the northern province of San Juan, the eastern slopes falling into the sea as we had seen at Los Angelos. The mineral wealth—copper, gold, and silver—of the Republic was in these mountains, and they absolutely cut off the southern province of Leon from any communication with the northern province of San Juan. ”