United States or Afghanistan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


The coast now leads southwesterly to Point Espada, shaped like a sword, and but twenty-five miles distant from the Island of Mona, a dependency of Porto Rico. Southwest from Point Espada lies the largest island of the Dominican Republic, the Island of Saona, fifteen miles long by four miles wide, the low hills of which are covered with abundant vegetation.

One afternoon it was on the 22nd of March, 1797 being off Zaccheo, the lookout aloft reported that a brig and several smaller vessels were at anchor inshore between that island and the larger one of Porto Rico.

Arriving at the White House, I passed an hour with the President, and found him, of all men in Washington, the only one who seemed not at all troubled by the heat, by the complications in China, by the difficulties in Cuba and Porto Rico, or by the rush and whirl of the campaign.

In the evening, soon after moonrise, we stopped for wood at the little Brazilian town of Porto Martinho. There are about twelve hundred inhabitants. Some of the buildings were of stone; a large private house with a castellated tower was of stone; there were shops, and a post-office, stores, a restaurant and billiard-hall, and warehouses for matte, of which much is grown in the region roundabout.

The existence of this new Republic was inaugurated by striking the fetters from the slaves in Porto Rico. This beneficent measure was followed by the release of several thousand persons illegally held as slaves in Cuba. Next, the Captain-General of that colony was deprived of the power to set aside the orders of his superiors at Madrid, which had pertained to the office since 1825.

The important events of the first McKinley Administration were the enactment of the Dingley Tariff, the successful conclusion of the war with Spain, the ratification of the Treaty of Peace, the independence of Cuba, and the acquisition of Porto Rico, the Philippines, and the Island of Guam; the establishment of the gold standard by law, and the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands.

They then sailed to the island of St John, or Porto Rico, where they went into the harbour of St Germaine, where they required provisions and other necessaries for their ship, and complained against the inhabitants of St Domingo, saying that they came not to do any harm, but to trade for what they wanted, paying in money or merchandize.

One was directed to Petropolis, a colony founded by Germans in the heart of scenery of the most exquisite character. Accompanied by Count Berchthold, she sailed for Porto d'Estrella in one of the regular coasting barks. Their course carried them across a bay remarkable for its picturesque views.

Thence round the corner, so to speak, to British Honduras, where we called in at Belize, whose trade is in mahogany and chicklee gum, combined with a deal of quiet smuggling done with the Central American States. Many man-o'-war birds and pelicans were in the harbour. From Belize to Porto Barrios, the eastern terminus of the Guatemala railway.

I had been seen by two or more people engaged in a quarrel with the deceased in the Basso Porto. I had been seen on the Chiaja with him at a time when he was the worse for drink, and when my conduct and appearance were so suspicious that a perfect stranger was impelled to watch me for two hours lest I should do the man a mischief in his drunken sleep.