PORTO RICO is a land of sunshine and gentle manners. Latitude and longitude are responsible for the first; the manners are a heritage from Spanish ancestors. A Spaniard's "house is yours," even if you are a stranger in the land. And in Porto Rico this is not merely an ornamental phrase. Hosts mortgage their most treasured belongings that their guests may be suitably entertained. A guest, not to be outdone in generosity, bestows gifts after receiving hospitality, and gives a liberal reward of silver to those that serve.

"It is a hospitality highly seasoned with garlic and sweet oil that the true-born Puertoriqueño proffers to Americans, but," we are assured by one that knows the islanders well, "it is no less beautiful in sentiment for all its odoriferousness. An elaborate dinner in a Porto Rican home is a trying gastronomic ceremony. The menu is made up of astonishing viands, and the dishes seem to follow no conventional sequence in their procession to the table. Soup is as apt to be the second or third dish as the first. Roast beef and beefsteak are served at most unheard-of moments. The disastrous effect of a meat diet in tropical climes has been dwelt upon by medical experts, yet at one dinner no less than eight meat dishes were served – ombinations of bacon, of ham, of kidney, of beef, and of chicken."

This is the menu of a well-remembered dinner served to American guests by an island host:

Fried eggs with fried corn-cakes
Vegetable soup with garlic
Godinga (a hash of chopped kidneys and liver seasoned with garlic and olives)
Larded beef, flavored with garlic and oil
Beefsteak, onions and garlic, fried in oil
Potatoes, both white and sweet
Rice and scrambled eggs
Guava jelly cut in small blocks
Cocoanut and brown sugar
Apples and cheese
Coffee and cigars

Says a traveler, "Dinner is served, one article of food at a time, and the plates, knives, and forks are changed with each. At least a dozen such changes take place during a single meal.

"Smoking goes on at the table with the ladies present, and unfinished cigars are carried into the drawing-room.

"The table decoration consists of a huge bouquet of native flowers, which are magnificent in their profusion and variety.

"Napkins are generally as large as towels, but in many of the interior towns table-linen is at a premium, and it is slightly shocking to catch a pretty, black-eyed senorita slyly wiping her rosebud mouth on the edge of the table-cloth.

"The native early-morning meal is a cup of coffee with milk and a piece of bread. Breakfast is served at eleven or twelve o'clock.

"Dinner is the meal of the day, and is eaten between six and seven o'clock. This is the native's only full, heavy meal, and this fact may account for his ability to eat a quantity of food which leaves the average American a victim to indigestion and remorse." Early in the course of a meal an alligator pear is sometimes served, dressed with oil and vinegar. Sweet potato soup, and goat cheese made by the natives, add a variety to the menu. The garbonza, a large yellow pea of chestnut flavor, is a staple vegetable. Here, as in Spain and Portugal, a bowl of boiled garbonzas is often the only dish on the peasant's dinner table. The frijole (free-hol-ay), a red bean, also dominates the poor man's bill of fare.

Whatever the fare and whoever the host, the spirit of hospitality' is the same. The best that a Porto Rican has belongs to his guest, even to the house he lives in.