1G8 CUBA AND PORTO RICO 



ness of the climate. Some cabins have doors, others have 

 none. There is nothing to dread from robbers, and if there 

 were bandits, poverty would protect the people from vio- 

 lence. A few calabash-shells and earthen pots, one or 

 two hammocks made of the bark of the jmlm-tree, two or 

 three game-cocks, and a machete form the extent of their 

 movable property. A few coffee-trees and plantains, a cow 

 and a horse, an acre of land in corn or sweet potatoes, con- 

 stitute the property of what would be denominated a 

 comfortable gibaro, who, mounted on his meager and hard- 

 worked horse, with his long sword protruding from his 

 baskets, dressed in a broad-rimmed straw hat, cotton jacket, 

 clean shirt, and check pantaloons, sallies forth from his 

 cabin to mass, to a cock-fight, or to a dance, thinking him- 

 self the most independent and happy being in existence. 



A reviewer has noted that the descriptions of character 

 which Colonel Flinter has given do not show any symptoms 

 of the industry which he elsewhere attributes to the hus- 

 bandmen of Porto Rico. But it is quite clear that the spread 

 of these tropical backwoodsmen over the virgin soil of the 

 island has prevented it thus far from falling into the 

 hands of the sugar-monopolist ; and it furnishes a sufficient 

 answer to those who imagine that a European race, living 

 by its own labor, cannot exist where 80 is the average 

 height of Fahrenheit's thermometer. With the gradual 

 diffusion of education, of which there is a lamentable de- 

 ficiency, much of the grosser part of the character of the 

 peasantry may be progressively removed. 



The negroes of Porto Rico are in a minority; they do 

 not form a very considerable part of the population, and 

 are not distinguished by marked characteristics. With 

 the gibaros they form the laboring class of the island, and 

 seem thoroughly contented with their lot, which, as in 

 Cuba, is much better than that of the negroes in the 

 French, English, and independent islands. 



In our description of the negro and colored populations 

 of Cuba we have alluded to the social status and traits of 



