Page:From Yauco to Las Marias.djvu/159

Rh intent upon our part the merchants allowed themselves to be coaxed back into their places of business. The cafés were once more thronged. Semi-weekly concerts were given in the Plaza Principal by the band of the Eleventh Infantry and the Banda del Bomberos, in alternation. Balls, dinner-parties, and flirtations resumed their interrupted course, gathering new zest and brilliancy from the foreign element within the gates. All the Americans began to study Spanish, and all the Puerto Ricans to study English, without particularly gratifying results on either side. Cocking-mains, local games of chance, and more hectic immoralities were set forth for the delectation of the private soldiers; while I have personal knowledge of at least one quasi-clandestine bullfight, that may be best described as a furtive fizzle.

Strict measures were taken by the brigade commander to prevent anything resembling disorderly conduct among his men, and though these laurel-crowned heroes, under the influence of a wonderfully cheap rum,