grim when he arrived, for he was a Briton; but he became passionate when he saw the beauty of Santa Something. It was excusable. The beauty of Santa Something is so beautiful that her fame has spread through ten degrees of latitude under the tropic of Cancer.

The pilgrim had arrived in a sailingship from Africa, where he had been pursuing his lifelong profession of being stranded. "The captain," as he explained, "took me aboard because he wanted his books written up in a manner suitable for critical owners. He'd been away two years, and he wanted 'em done nicely. He did n't need a bookkeeper. What he required was a fellow with some imagination."

All that the pilgrim had when he landed was the strictly limited amount of money given to him by the conscientious captain. When he saw the beauty, he stayed right there till all the money was gone, and he had not progressed further than to gaze through the window at night and see her sitting in monumental loveliness behind the iron grill-work. Then her family, troubled by the evening promenades of the suspicious stranger, sent her away to an aunt in a city about a hundred miles inland.

The passionate pilgrim had no money for railroad fare. He borrowed a horse from a British resident, who, rumor said, considered it sound economy to lose a horse when he could lose a penniless countryman with it. He rode to the interior city, and threw himself with the ease of an old campaigner on the hands of his fellow-Britons there. They used frank language, but they passed him to and fro as a guest. Occasionally he did his hosts such odd services as a gentleman could do. All the time he laid siege to the beauty.

First he paraded before the windows in proper Spanish fashion. She sat within, beautiful, graceful, calm, fanning herself languorously, and looking languorously over her fan with her great eyes. At last he got an introduction, and was admitted within the house, an amazingly un-Spanish privilege, accorded, with a shrug, to "the queer English." Really it was his cheek that did it.

It was then that she spoke to him for the first time in all those months. She had a voice as beautiful as her face, which is not the case always in Spanish America.

The beautiful voice said to him: "Buenos noches, Señor. Come and sit beside me."

He came and sat beside her. That was all. It was the only English she knew, and he was the determined kind of AngloSaxon who never would or could learn anything but his native tongue. The only Spanish word that he had was the word cerveza for beer, and that was a pure waste, because every cantina in the Caribbean world understands the English word. It came to be the thing in that town for the American and British residents to make window parades to see the passionate pilgrim sit beside her. She fanned herself slowly and looked beautiful. He gazed at her, and spoke words that he fondly believed to be nearly Spanish. Whenever he spoke, she looked at him with her wonderful eyes, and the stout aunt who acted as duenna dozed in her rocking-chair just opposite.

There never was love-making so utterly devoid of scandal. The Briton was a patient Briton, not prone to see a joke. The beauty's family heard of it long before he became impatient, and they spirited her away to San José in Costa Rica. The passionate pilgrim could not borrow a horse to pursue her, it being a thousand miles by sea. Neither could he borrow passage money. So he borrowed enough money to get completely intoxicated, and got over it in that way.

This spring I witnessed another speechless affair, wherein the passionate pilgrim, being American, saw the joke more swiftly, though ungraciously. The passionate pilgrim was my host, and such a generous one that it is humanly natural that I should reward him by using him for copy. He is one of those mighty strenuous Americans whom it is so splendid to watch. from a hammock, and when he saw a certain beauty in an ancient city about fifty miles from his plantation, he pitched in instantly and got acquainted, virtually by main strength, with her brother, who was her only living relative.

Cunningly, he invited the brother to visit his place, which is somewhat of a show place in that part of Cuba. The beauty had heard of it, and wished to see it, too, but could not, having no chaperon. She belongs to a very old, very distinguished family, and has been brought up in a very old and distinguished fashion.

The passionate and strenuous American telegraphed peremptorily to his married cousin to visit him, and she went (about two hundred miles), marveling suspiciously at his sudden vehemence of cousinly regard.

When he had his cousin safe, he was sure of the brother and the beauty, and he patted himself on the back openly and shamelessly for his immense ability to "do things."

He could speak Spanish to dazzle natives. As soon as he could get rid of the brother, which he did by arranging a riding-party for him, he used all that excellent Spanish without regard to economy. It was lovely talk, as rich as Cervantes when he is really good. The beauty reclined languidly and decoratively in her chair and looked at him. Once in a long time she said, "Yes." Once in a long time she said, "No." The married cousin was a tactful woman. For an hour she sat as chaperon, then she withdrew. Ostensibly it was to give him a clear field; really it was to laugh.

The passionate pilgrim's oratory was a little less enthusiastic during the second day, but the beauty's conversation showed no flagging. At the end of the third day the pilgrim strode to the other end of the veranda, where his tactful cousin was reading something that must have been funny, for she was giggling when she looked up at him. He wiped his forehead. "Good Lord!" he said. "And I 've invited 'em for a week!"

"Maybe you can coax them to stay longer," said the tactful cousin, encouragingly. "Go in and win. She 's the most beautiful thing I 've ever seen."

The passionate pilgrim glared at her passionately. "Look here," he said rudely, "you 've got to get a telegram the first thing to-morrow morning,-I'll see to it for you,-calling you away. Do you suppose I'm going to stand this thing four more whole days?"

The tactful cousin went away obediently, taking the beauty in her train, of course. Cousins and other feminine relatives of American and British men in the Caribbean tropics show a strange lack of enthusiasm for the Spanish-American señoritas whom the men admire. Cynics put it down to jealousy. Whatever it is, the tactful cousin is telling the story with

vast pleasure all over the West Indies, and it is melancholy to observe how vastly pleased all the other American and English ladies are to hear it.

However, the passionate pilgrim need not be deterred. The señoritas and señoras are lovely to see, if not to hear; and to see them in the mist of poetry, he need merely go to the painted cities of the Spanish Main, to Cartagena or San José.

In the narrow streets of secretive housewalls, painted blue or rose, violet, gamboge, or pink, the clock of custom still marks the time of the Spanish conquistadores, and the clock of the conquistador was the clock of a civilization before his -the civilization of the Arabic empire, of the stately Moor of Granada.

Automobiles whoop through the streets, but he who looks down on the painted cities from a high place looks down on the sloping, fluted, red-tiled roofs of a longgone past. The telephone instrument hangs on the stone walls of the high-built, darkened rooms, but the duenna sits under it. The piano-player is there, or the phonograph, but the tall, unglazed window-openings are barred with lover-proof iron grill-work. Electric lights illuminate the rooms, but mighty doors studded with rivets look forbiddingly on the strange man.

The Spanish-American dandy wears "mail-order" clothes from the States, but when he glances at a lady on the street, it is the same stolen glance that is ventured at eyes that flash above Moorish veils. He keeps his tryst by the time of a Parisian watch, but the tryst is kept by clinging to the outside of the iron grills while the lady sits within.

When he is admitted within, his doom is sealed, if that is a proper expression in connection with a señorita of ravishing eyes and hair. Once he has become a visitor inside the great fort-like doors, he is expected to declare his intention, and stick to it. Even then there are no sentimental rambles for him and his señorita under the palms of the patio; there are no whispered conversations full of sweetly maudlin monotony. He sits in a rocking-chair that is one of a painfully straight row ranged down the middle of the room. His señorita sits in one in a similarly straight row opposite. The rest of the rows is occupied by the señor father and the señora mother and the señoras aunts and the señoritas

sisters, and all the rest of the household. For an hour or two hours they rock at each other and speak noble politenesses. Then the señor father begins to indicate, very much as señors fathers sometimes do in the United States, that he would lay the parental head on the pillow. The señor lover picks his hat from the stone floor and rises. The señorita sweetheart smiles sweetly at him. over her fan, but with holy calm. The señor father and the señora mother say graciously:

"Adios, Don Enrique. It was us much pleasure," and Don Enrique says:

"Much thanks. It is hoped that one may have the pleasure extreme of arriving again some evening?"

"Some evening" is the next evening in the same rocking-chair.

Sometimes when all the painted city is abed, and the staring tropical moonlight falls whitely on streets with every window shuttered as if the streets were streets of seraglios, the señor lover strolls to the house of his señorita with a guitar, and sings under the tiny rose-red or sky-blue nest of Juliet balcony. But the chance traveler is in luck if he is fortunate enough to see that pretty custom. It is going out. Colonel Goethals is wiping out more than mere distances in the Caribbean world with his Panama Canal.

presidents may cut their rivals' throats or have their own cut without violent public objections. They may loot a treasury and provoke no more than a shrugged, "What will you?" They may declare martial law, and shoot a few brace of conspirators every morning, and the surviving citizens will live on cheerfully, and

Drawn by W. M. Berger

The unfortunate young señor who is not in favor with parents or duenna is limited to window parade, or stolen glances once a week on the plaza. It is on Sunday night, when the city band. plays, and everybody goes there to walk around and around. In that one time and place, the señorita is permitted to walk unescorted in public. She is not unwatched. Elder relatives or the duenna sit on benches or the reserved chairs (price, five cents). However, by a happy provision of geography, every plaza has four sides; and by a happy provision of anatomy, the human sight cannot possibly travel all around those four sides.

It is a sacred institution in the Spanish Americas, this plaza. Spanish-American

undisturbed take their good siestas and drink their strong, thick coffee in their clubs. But any president so mad as to interfere with the plaza and the bandconcert would vanish like a drop of rain on hot palmetto bad-lands.

The young people do the walking around the plaza. They walk around and around. Robed in beautifully flowing, airy, gauzy things of delicate colors, the señoritas walk around and around in one direction, their very fine arms intertwined.

Drawn by W. M. Berger

OF

"THE SEÑOR LOVER STROLLS TO THE HOUSE OF HIS SEÑORITA WITH A GUITAR"

The señors, side by side, walk around and around in the opposite direction. Thus Thus once at every circuit of the four sides of the plaza there may be a meeting of eyes.

Now, what the Spanish-American beauty cannot do with her eyes is not worth mentioning. In the brief moment of passing she can say:

"Don Manuel, I love you. Beware of my señora aunt, who is watching me like a tiger. Don Manuel, you are the handsomest man I ever saw. Do you behold how jealous is the fat Don Marco, who is sitting with my so beloved and respected father? For the fat Don Marco I have the great disgust. Shall you be passing our casa to-morrow at the usual hour of night? Behold, I shall be looking forth, Don Manuel. I would fall into your arms!"

The señorita says it all with her eyes. There is no smile on her mouth, no

heightened flush on her darkly flushed, smooth cheek, no motion of a feature. All that moves are her fiery eyes.

She cannot say it in words. Perhaps if, some evening, some señorita, walking around and around, were to stop for a moment and chat with some señor, walking around and around, no catastrophe would occur. Nobody can say. It never has been tried.

Put a beautiful creole and a not too plain Northern woman together, and the Northern woman will come off victorious by her play of expression, the vivacity of every lineament, as against the astonishing immobility of the lovely Spanish face opposed to her. But no Northern woman can rival her tropic sister's play of eyes. If she tried, it would seem of bold purpose. The creole's glances are as natural as the glance of the creole's burning sun.

Her eyes are the one possession of the Spanish-American beauty that bears the full light of her glaring tropical day. Again there must be exception to the specific Señorita Hortensia or Señorita Conchita or Señorita Carmencita, who is always beautiful. As the painted cities are most lovely in the glory of their majestic nights, so are the señoritas and the señoras. Like the magic flower of the cereus, living splendidly at night alone, are these dark, richly colored tropical girls.

Let the passionate pilgrim refrain, by all that he holds dear, from looking for señoritas in the daytime. In the first place, it will be a rather empty quest, for in the hot day the barred and shuttered houses look blindly on the sunburned streets as if all the cathedral bells had clashed out the ancient alarm: "English bucaneers! English bucaneers!"

In the second, and sadder, place, if he catches forbidden glimpses through shutters left half open, what he will see will be no dainty figures gliding poetically through inner glooms, but shapeless persons in Mother-Hubbard things, shuffling through the inner glooms in heelless, flipflapping slippers. The glorious hair will be stuck up this way and that with unprepossessing hair-pins, and the complexions will be too likely to show sallow and dull.

The Spanish-American lady does not love the sun. While it shines, she exists in negligée, hidden from all men in her