and a number of churches. The Casa Blanca, or
“ White House,” of Ponce de Leon is still standing
where it looked northward over the sea so long ago,
and the dust of the visionary conquistador is cherished
in a leaden casket in the old Dominican church.
I t was taken from the vault under the altar in 1863,
for the purpose of being placed beneath a monument
which was to be raised to the memory of the founder
of San Juan, but the monument has not been built,
and the casket waits the never-coming “ mañana” for
its final repose. On the bay side below the old
walled town is the Marina, with wharves and wooden
buildings and some humble dwellings, and in the
outskirts on the one roadway to the mainland is
Puerta de Tierra, with some 2000 inhabitants. A t
San Turce, out on the road beyond, are suburban
residences, and also at Rio Piedras and Cataño
across the bay. The near-by rural retreats are
mostly on sand spits surrounded by mangrove
swamps. A few miles inland to the west of the
capital is Bayamon on a river of the same name. I t
is the centre and market-place of a rich agricultural
region.
Arecibo, farther west on the north coast, is called
a seaport, but it is some distance from the shore,
and the Rio Grande de Arecibo is a shallow stream,
navigated only by flat-bottomed boats. T h e town,
nevertheless, affords the outlet to the sea of a fertile
district which contains the populous towns of A d juntas
and Utuado. It is built about a central plaza
upon which the principal public buildings face.
Just around the north-west angle of the island on