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. [Illustration: A VIEW IN PONCE, PUERTO RICO.] PONCE. To reach Ponce, the next city we wish to visit, we must use carriages as well as railways. It is on the southern side of the island. Ponce is the largest city in Puerto Rico, having a population of over thirty-seven thousand people. The main part is built on a plain about three miles from the seashore. A fine road connects it with Playa, the port, where are found a good harbor, large wharves and the more important government offices. Ponce has wide, clean streets, handsome buildings, and attractive homes. Many quaint and picturesque old buildings line its avenues; but in the newer parts of the town and in the suburbs the buildings are modern. It has a military hospital and barracks, two other hospitals, a home for the old and poor, gas works, and an ice machine. There are also establishments for hulling coffee, drying coffee, distilling rum, manufacturing carriages, and grinding sugar. (See illustrations on pages 54 and 69). The large central plaza has pretty gardens and a cathedral. There are three manufactories of chocolate for the use of the people in the surrounding country. Sugar, coffee, oranges, pineapples and cocoanuts are brought here to be shipped to the United States and other countries. Near the city are white-gypsum quarries; also medicinal baths, to which many invalids and travelers go. The only Protestant church in the West Indies is the Episcopal church here. On the outskirts of Ponce is an old cemetery, in which many famous Puerto Ricans of an early day were buried. It is quite different from our idea of a cemetery. It is one solid mass of masonry built into the side of a hill. In this are narrow vaults, one above the other. [Illustration: A FUNERAL PROCESSION.] The openings of these vaults look much like bakers' ovens. The bottom vaults are used first, and when a body is laid in one of them it is sealed up and the name of the deceased graven on the outside. The next member of the family who dies is placed in the vault above; and so on, each family having a tier of vaults.