ave over the continent he had helped to discover and
colonize:--the city of Ponce.

Water Caves

As in most of the Spanish American countries, so in Porto Rico, ghosts
are common,--so common that in some towns the people hardly turn to
look at them; and if on a wild night in the hurricane season they hear
them gibbering at their doors, they patter an _ave_ or throw a piece of
harness at the disturbance, and sleep again. Ponce, for instance, has
a number of these spooks, such as the man who searches for his hidden
money, and the child with a snowy face that knocks on the panes, then
stares fixedly in, with corpse eyes, at the windows. Best known among
these supernatural citizens are two lovers who "spoon" on dark nights,
and are faintly outlined on the landscape as figures of quivering,
smoky blue. Their favorite haunt is their death-place, eight miles
from Ponce, in a hollow among limestone hills, now environed by a
coffee plantation. Here are found three basins--results of erosion,
most likely--that are described as natural bath-tubs. The middle and
largest of these pools is partly filled with silt, probably occluding
the entrance to a cavern which formerly opened into it, a fathom or
so below the water-surface. This cave was the hiding-place of a native
woman whose father had discovered her love for one of Ponce de Leon's
soldiers. He forbade her to have anything to do with the enemies of
his country, enlarged on their rapacity, cruelty, and treachery,
and tried to create in her a sense of shame that she should have
chosen a Spaniard, instead of a Boriqueno chief, for a lover. There
were no locksmiths in the Antilles for love to laugh at, but there
were spears and knives to fear, and the young couple, who seemed to
be inspired by genuine affection, met at this lonely spot to do their
courting. On the least suspicion of a hostile approach, the maid could
slip into the water, enter the cave, and wait for an hour or a day,
until the intruder had retired. However it happened nobody could
tell,--or would,--but the Spaniard was found drowned one morning in
that pool. He may have been found waiting there, by the angry parent,
thrown in, on general principles, and held to the bottom by his steel
arms and armor; or he may have been trying to find the cave in which
his charmer had secreted herself, and while so engaged may have bumped
his head against the rocky wall and stunned himself, or he may have
been a poor sw