General Characteristics, 1899
Puerto Rican mountain-ranges rise massively only two thousand feet above the level of the sea, with here and there a peak gaining gradual elevation to three thousand, or, in the…
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From Puerto Rico; Its Conditions and Possibilities by William Dinwiddie, 1899.
The first impressions one receives of the island of Puerto Rico from the water, as the steamer churns through a placid sea as blue as the beautiful Mediterranean, are rather disappointing. These impressions depend largely upon how novel to the traveler are the expanses of limpid azure, with the distant highlands gradually rising from the flat earth near the sea to rough foothills, and then to sharp-pointed, irregular peaks, piled high behind each other, all clothed in the same unvarying, intense green, the entire landscape being wonderfully crowned with low-hanging, vaporous clouds, which roll forever into new, fantastic, nebulous forms.
If one has not seen the giant mountain-ranges of the southeastern coast of Cuba, lifted seven thousand feet in air, or those of the heart of the Antillean chain in Santo Domingo, which rise twelve thousand feet, in pinnacled peaks of verdure, from bases bound in coral and washed by the waves of a summer sea, then one will be tempted to exclaim, "What a paradise!" Comparison, the invidious mental enemy, alone can detract from the loveliness of this "Isle of the Gate of Gold."
Puerto Rican mountain-ranges rise massively only two thousand feet above the level of the sea, with here and there a peak gaining gradual elevation to three thousand, or, in the case of El Yunque in the northeast, thirty-seven hundred feet, but there are no great heights which hold the eye entranced. Neither do they make an effective showing from the sea, as the most marked elevations are far inland; in fact the mountainous backbone traverses almost the center of the island, beginning at a point near San German in the southwest corner, and crossing diagonally to El Yunque, the highest land near the northeast.
In circumnavigating the island, the western end has few suggestions of scenic beauty. The isle of Desecheo, like a partially-submerged cone,—the home of sea-birds only,—guards the northwest corner like a lonely sentinel. Looking toward Aguadilla, on the mainland, the country is slightly rolling, backed by a single low range of carved, ancient-coral formation in the middle ground, while in the misty distance there are suggestions of greater mountains. Mayaguez, the great western shipping port, is almost invisible from the sea, lying low down on the shoreline, and fronting an open harbor which is a dangerous one in heavy southwesterly or westerly weather. Still farther to the south, one looks into apparently better-protected, landlocked harbors, while the distant view carries the eye from the near-by, rolling foothills along the axes of heavy ranges.
The western end of the southern coast is monotonous in the extreme, and nothing breaks the weariness of the view except the dashing of waves on coral reefs, whose tireless builders have thrust their castellated homes upward through the foam and spray. The ancient and almost-deserted port of Guanica, foreshortened from the water into a mere dent in the coast-line, develops into as fine and beautiful a harbor as any on the island—excepting, perhaps, the sea-sheltered havens near Fajardo on the east. It is surprising that cities should have sprung up near almost useless ports, while at this point—offering as it does a fine deep-water harbor, too narrow for much maneuvering at its mouth—a town once recognized as a point of ocean trade has not only failed to expand commercially, but has lost its old-time prestige. Its deterioration could probably be traced to political discrimination in San Juan.
Ponce, to the west of the center of the southern coastline and two miles from the ocean, can just be seen with a field-glass, cradled in palms and green trees among the first of the rolling foothills, while the Playa, its port-town, stands, with flat roofs and whitened walls, on the disintegrated coral of the shore. The harbor is very open and shallow, though protected somewhat on the east by a spur of land, and slightly on the west by a little island reef, made a gem of beauty by the simple architecture of its white lighthouse.
From Ponce westward the landscape from the sea grows more pleasing, and one realizes the beauty of the mountain-ranges, each rising higher behind the other, the effect enhanced by the great spur from the main series which breaks away and follows the seacoast not many miles inland. At Jobos, on this portion of the shore-line, occurs another fine harbor with ample sea-room, which is used only by a few coasting vessels; the thriving city of Guayama, but five miles away to the westward, uses—curiously enough—the open roadstead of Arroyo, four miles on the other side, for shipping purposes, in preference to the fine, landlocked body of water at Jobos.
From the island of Vieques, on the southeast corner, to San Juan, on the northern coast, the landscape is broken by islets and islands, and the mainland shows jutting, rocky promontories, producing kaleidoscopic vistas of which one never tires.
The islands of Vieques and Culebra, which lie off the east coast and belong to Puerto Rico, are low in contour, with little running water, though they are fertile in the extreme, and the waving cane-fields of Vieques, which stretch over hill and dale, are far more lovely, in their undulating, silken tassels, than those of the mainland, covering flat, unrelieved plains.
The thousand small islands which form the Lesser Antilles and curve off in a great arc to the southward from Puerto Rico, together with the innumerable coral islets shooting out from the northeast corner of the island, constitute a sea-screen which protects all the harbors of the eastern side; and it is quite probable that, under the impetus of American development, this side of the island—instead of being almost wholly deserted commercially—will become in time the most favored and sought after, for it undoubtedly offers natural advantages in a marked degree, in the shape of protected sea-room, with deep waters close inshore, such as are not possessed by the other three sides. It should be stated, however, that coral reefs and shoals abound, among which navigation is highly dangerous at present, owing to the lack of accurate charts; but when the Coast Survey shall have carefully mapped the submarine pathways, these difficulties will be overcome, for, between these submerged reefs, which act as sea-walls, are ample passageways of deep water.
It is said that this is the less fertile end of the island, but the opinion has gained credence from the fact that hitherto this region has contributed less in commercial products, and hence has attracted less attention in business centers, rather than because the soil possesses any inherent sterility, for it is beyond question quite as rich and productive as any other section of the land, and—given population and land and sea transportation facilities—it should outstrip other regions tributary to the less-favored harbors on the open coasts.
The northern side of the island has no good ports, with the exception of the embayed harbor of San Juan, and the landscape from afar is almost a dreary one. Arecibo is the only city—after the capital—which attracts the eye landward. Its cathedral seems to rise from a veritable city of thatched huts, though in reality these only hang upon the skirts of the main city, which is well built. Past its doors flows the second largest river on the island, Rio Grande de Arecibo.
San Juan is a city of delight to the vision. Its massive, high-walled, grey-grown forts may be seen far out at sea, their battlements crowning every bold salient of the shore-line. Across its harbor entrance, in heavy northern weather, the white-crested billows pile high on each other in a frenzied race toward shore ; this, viewed as a picture in nature, fills the heart with rapture, but, seen with the eye of the mariner, causes the face of the stoutest navigator to pale.
The deep, fast-flowing rivers, which fall into the sea from this side, are all spoken of by previous writers as being navigable for several miles inland, but mention is made, at the same time, of sand-bars and spits which close them effectually to shipping. From a commercial standpoint they would be of little use, even if their mouths were opened by dredging, as they flow between banks quite too close for the handling of anything but small fishing smacks, and, during a receding tide, the out-speeding current whips the water's surface into eddying whirlpools, which would be dangerous even for moored vessels.
On the whole it must be admitted that Puerto Rico, from the water, is not an impressive sight; that it has few good harbors, and that the best of them appeal neither to the artistic nor technical eye; but it should be remembered that this little island has less than three hundred and fifty miles of coast-line, all told—or, roughly speaking, about as much as the coast of Massachusetts—and in this short distance it lays claim to fourteen harbors, though, in point of real commercial utility, it has not more than six. In an island which averages but ninety-five miles in length by thirty-five in breadth, half a dozen good ports will feel the strain of competition severely, when the time shall come that railroad transportation and good roads bind the agricultural country closely to the business centers.
Once on shore, the traveler through the island realizes for the first time what a wealth of artistic loveliness and fertile possibilities lies in this land clothed with a livery of tropical vegetation. Almost every foot of ground is steep and rolling, except along the coast-lines and in a few narrow valleys of the interior, where the earth lies seemingly as flat as a floor, from the banks of the wandering rivers to the very foot of the mountains, which rise abruptly to sharp, curved crests, a thousand feet above.
Table-lands there are none; the mountain uplifts are flexed into razor-backed ridges, and time and weather have fought against the form-preserving vegetation with sufficient success to mold their sides into soft erosional shapes, steep-sided and high, but covered to their very tops with rich, fertile, and cultivatable soil.
While there are no flat-topped mountain-ranges in the interior, the few narrow valleys, found mainly on the northern side east of the center, are elevated above the sea as much as a thousand feet, and no more delightful place of abode for white men can be imagined: perfect landscapes, a soil in which almost everything under heaven will grow, cool nights, bearable days, and the whole of this idealistic conception set off with a filigree-work of heaving clouds, wonderful rainbows overhanging the green of stately palms, waving, broad-leaved banana plantations, food-and fruit-trees, and jungle forests whose odd shapes and queer foliage lend a never-tiring charm to the scene. It is a tropic Elysium, and will become the winter Mecca of America.
Dinwiddie, William. Puerto Rico: Its Conditions and Possibilities. Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1899
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