hatches, and, as a rule, never know of the progress or the result of a
fight until it closes. They work in a temperature of from one hundred
to one hundred and fifty degrees, by half-hour stretches. The roaring
furnaces make the fire-rooms almost beyond a man's power to endure,
and we should give a great deal of our praise to the brave fellows who
make the power that moves the ship.

[Illustration: The Men Who Make the Power.]

You know that we saw in the first chapter, that Spain owned another
large island some miles east of Cuba--an island called Porto Rico.

This island was sighted by Columbus on November 16, 1493, and, three
days later, he anchored in one of its bays. In 1510, and again a year
later, Ponce de Leon visited the island and established a settlement,
to which he gave the name of San Juan Bautista. Spain did not always
hold it peaceably, however, for at different times the Dutch and the
English tried to take it from her. The people of the island used to be
terribly annoyed by pirates and buccaneers, but that was a long time
ago.

The Spanish used to call San Juan the "Rich Port of John the Baptist,"
and it was a great source of profit to them for nearly four hundred
years. Ponce is the largest city in the island, but San Juan has the
advantage of a large, protected harbor. Like Havana and Santiago, San
Juan has its Morro Castle, and within its walls are the buildings of a
small military town,--houses for troops, a chapel, bake-house, and
guard-room, with dungeons down by the sea, and underneath it.

[Illustration: Palace and Sea-wall, San Juan, Porto Rico.]