Little Journey to Puerto Rico Part 6

The princ.i.p.al draught animals are oxen. The heavy two-wheeled ox cart is used to convey great loads of sugar, coffee, and tobacco or fruit, over the good roads.

Great, strong, patient beasts they are. They are yoked by a bar of heavy wood fastened to their horns.

They are driven, not with words or whip, but with a goad. The driver or teamster walks in front of his team and waves his arms and goad the way he wishes them to go.

If they do not follow fast enough to please him, he urges them along by prodding them. The end of the goad is shod with a sharp spike of steel, three inches or more long. Often we see these oxen dripping with blood, and seamed and scarred with wounds.

Besides the pain of this constant goading, they suffer from flies upon their face, nose and eyes. Since their heads are bound, they can not shake the flies off.

All day they stand or travel in the hot sun without water or food.

Even when they stop or rest, no one thinks of putting them in the shade.

Almost all the people are cruel to their animals, yet they seem not to realize that they are doing wrong. It is a custom, that is all.

It makes us wish we might organize a society for the prevention of cruelty. It is, perhaps, the only thing that could change this custom.

THE FARMER AND HIS HOME.

Puerto Rico is a country of farmers. Nearly five-sixths of the people live in the country. Their homes are scattered along the valleys, on the hills, and even on the mountain tops; for the land is fertile everywhere.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PUERTO RICAN FARMER IN TOWN.]

We have seen the homes and home life of the people in the city. Now let us take a jaunt out into the country to see how the farmers and the plantation laborers live.

Here is a farmer now, coming down the street. He is on his way to the market. His horse is a thin, mean-looking little beast. His produce is carried in baskets, and his machete is sticking out of one of these.

This machete he always carries with him. He could not get along without it. It is a large, long, clumsy knife, something like a corn-cutter.

Sometimes he uses it to cut a way for himself and pony through the forest, or on the bridle paths overgrown with plants and vines after the rainy season.

When he has sold his load of vegetables and fruit, we will ride out with him to his home and visit some of the plantations.

We saw many peasant farmers and laborers in the market place, and found them polite, shrewd, bright in conversation, but very ignorant and somewhat indolent.

They are quite content with their way of living, and take no thought for the future. A Puerto Rican farmer thinks himself rich and fortunate if he owns a horse, a cow, some game-c.o.c.ks, a gun and an acre of land.

He is simple in his tastes and buys little in the market. His rice flour, corn meal and coffee he has prepared at home, by pounding in wooden mortars or grinding between stones.

His patch of land he plants with corn, sweet potatoes and other vegetables. Bananas, plantains and other fruits grow wild and may be had for the picking.

His vegetables, fruit and poultry he takes to the market and sells, but only when compelled to do so by necessity.

This money is spent for clothing or other articles, or perhaps lost in gambling.

Only the lightest kind of clothing is necessary; for the coldest days are not so cold as our mild autumn days.

The dress of the farmer consists of a cotton jacket, white s.h.i.+rt and check pantaloons. His head is protected from the hot rays of the sun by a large broad-brimmed hat. This is made from the gra.s.s which grows around his doorway. No shoes are needed.

The dress of his wife is a simple white cotton gown, and his children wear no clothes at all.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HOME OF A PEASANT FARMER OF THE BETTER CLa.s.s.]

The houses or homes of the peasant farmers are nearly all alike. They are built in a few days, from poles and royal palm bark. They are thatched with leaves of the palm or with gra.s.s. These huts are usually divided into two rooms.

There are no chimneys, often no windows, and but one door. A very poor house, you think; but then it is only intended for a shelter. It s.h.i.+elds them from the damp and cool winds of night and the daily rains of the rainy season. At other times they live outside.

There is no stove, and of cooking utensils there are few. The cooking is done for the most part outside the house, when the weather is dry, on a sheet of iron or in an iron kettle. The food is served in gourd dishes and eaten with gourd spoons.

During the rainy season the people live in great discomfort. The cooking must be done inside the hut at this time. As there is no chimney, the room is soon filled with smoke, which can only escape through the openings under the eaves.

Would you like to see the furniture of one of these poor cabins? It consists of a few calabash sh.e.l.ls used for eating vessels; some rude earthen pots; a tin cup, perhaps; two or three hammocks made of the bark of the palm tree, and a machete.

Bunches of dried herbs and gourds dangle on the walls, but there are no pictures, curtains, or ornaments of any kind.

At night the people sleep on the floor, or in hammocks. They spend much of the day also in swinging to and fro in their hammocks, smoking, and playing on their guitars and other native musical instruments.

By the door the family dog and the naked babies tumble in the dirt.

Perhaps there is a pig and some poultry; but there is sure to be a game-c.o.c.k or two.

Near the house is the garden. In this are raised sweet potatoes, beans, squashes, muskmelons, peppers, gourds, calabashes, bananas and plantains.

The farmers we see at work have their oxen harnessed to rude plows by the horns. The ground is so rich it is not necessary to plow it very deep.

An acre of good land here will produce more vegetables and fruit than in most other countries.

Riding through the country we see plantations of coffee, sugar cane or tobacco, and also stock farms. Puerto Rico is fertile from the mountain tops to the sea. It is rich in pasture lands, shaded with groves of palm trees, and watered by hundreds of streams.

Here and there herds of horses and cattle and flocks of sheep graze on the plains. When we approach the flocks of sheep, we discover a very curious thing. The wool on these sheep is not at all like the wool on the sheep raised in our own country. It is more like the hair of the goat.

Cattle are highly valued by the people, not only for dairy and food purposes, but as beasts of burden and draft.

Outside of the large plantations, crops are raised on a small scale; and modern implements and machinery are almost unknown.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A MOUNTAIN VILLAGE IN PUERTO RICO.]

Most of the land is divided up into very small farms or garden patches, or is taken up by groves.

In the interior of the country are many little villages, shut out from the rest of the world. We reach them by the narrow horse-trails that wind in and out among the mountains.

THE LABORER'S HILLSIDE HOME.

Perched on the hilltops and sides, shaded by banana trees, are the picturesque little huts of the laborers. Most of them pay no rent. Land owners give them small patches of ground on the hillsides, which they themselves do not care to till, in order to have the laborers near or on the plantations to a.s.sist in cultivating or harvesting the sugar cane, tobacco and coffee crops.

Here the peasant laborers build their cabins; and, when there is no work for them on the plantations, they tend their gardens in a haphazard way.

By working a little each day they manage to make a scant living.