BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 413 



Spanish main, and Colon. The women are for the most part employed 

 in household duties, though sometimes they work on the farm. As a rule 

 they marry young ; the child-bearing period, as a rule, begins when they 

 are sixteen, and often continues up to the fifty-second year. Many of 

 them are very prolific ; several of them told me they had given birth to 

 as many as fifteen children. While this may be true in many cases, I saw 

 a large number affected with serious uterine disorders, which seemed 

 to be due to early child-bearing, and who had been more or less disabled 

 for years. A number of them dated their trouble to a protracted and 

 hard labor, which had occurred early in their married life, and since 

 v/hich no conception had taken place. During labor they are attended 

 by mid wives who have no knowledge whatever of obstetric procedures. 

 I»had an opportunity to converse with some of the midwives, and while 

 they seemed amiable and anxions to do their best for their patients, 

 they had absolutely no knowledge of the subject. The people generally 

 are very courteous in their manners and amiable to a degree. They 

 are scrupulously neat in their persons and dress. 



The whole population, judging from those I met, is an uncommonly 

 intelligent one. It was the exception to find an adult who was unable 

 to read and write, and in walking about the island I several times saw 

 children, with books and slates, standing by their elders and saying 

 lessons to them. Education is encouraged by the Bogota Government, 

 and a schoolmaster is paid from the i)ublic funds. A strong religious 

 sentiment seemed to pervade all classes, many of them being members 

 of the Baptist Church, of which there are two in the island. The mar- 

 riage ceremony must be performed by a magistrate, and, as a rule, 

 is afterward also solemnized by a minister. A number of people live along 

 the shores of the harbor, and though without any sharply defined 

 boundaries, this settlement has been named Isabel. 



Upon the arrival of the ship at Isabel I learned from some natives 

 who came on board that a number of people in the island were greatly 

 in need of medical attention. The next morning I went on shore and 

 Jiad a conversation with a Mr. Archibald, the leading merchant of the 

 island, who corroborated the statement. I proposed to him to have a 

 room fixed up for me as an ofSce at some convenient place, and told 

 him if h^ would do so I would come in at certain hours every day 

 during the stay of the Albatross in port and do what I could for the 

 people. To this he readily assented, and immediately began to fit up 

 in his own house a large, well lighted and ventilated apartment for 

 an office ; he also sent out word to various parts of the island by peo- 

 ple who came in during the day to make purchases that I would be 

 at his place every morning. I was met at the outset by a difficulty 

 in the great scarcity of medicines in the island and the entire ab- 

 sence of even the simplest surgical appliances. Two merchants in the 

 town kept for sale a few medicines, but their stock in trade was very 



