334 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[July i, 1903. 



"RUBIO. BRICK AND TILE FACTORY. 



none can tell, but that the land was once densely inhabited is 

 proved by bits of pottery, arrow heads, etc., that are to be found 

 on every plantation, and in the railroad cuttings in great abun- 

 dance. And that reminds me that at " La Junta" Mr. Shufeldt 

 gave me a hideously interesting little clay idol which he found 

 in a vegetable garden there. I unwittingly left it on the table 

 in my room at " La Ventura," and I wish to warn the genial 

 householder that I am coming down next year purposeiy to 

 recover it. 



M 1 \\\\ HI 1 E, hot, perspiring, but cheerful, we were plodding 



on towards the Tehuantepec railway that was miles and miles 



in the distance. Finally, however, we reached 



indications s an b orn soon to D e a metropolis, but when we 



OF PROGRESS. , . , , j 



arrived simply a camp where men were grad- 

 ing, felling the forest, and getting ready to put up a modern 

 railway station, which is to have a telegraph and telephone 

 office, and all sorts of modern conveniences. This place, by 

 the way, is about eight miles from La Junta, and will be its 

 railway station, and is named after one of the prominent 

 officials, who, besides his interest in rubber planting, has pur- 

 chased a big block of land, and is going into lumbering, brick 

 making, and a variety of industries that will be of marked 

 benefit to that section. At Sanborn we struck good luck, (or 

 we had not been there five minutes when a locomotive whis- 

 tled, and soon the construction train crawled into sight, and, 

 boarding the flit car in front of the engine, to keep from being 

 set afire by sparks from the wood burning engine, we continued 

 our journey. 



Arriving at Santa Lutretia in due time, we disembarked and 

 wended our way to the town proper, which consists of a hotel 

 on stilts, a railway station, and a few native huts as a back- 

 ground. With a railway camp close by, and with the many 

 Americans constantly going and coming, the town really pre- 

 sented a busy scene. The hotel is run by Major Elliott, a pow- 

 erful man with a military bearing, very friendly to those who 

 behave, but a trifle stern with the semi-worthless natives that 

 are ever to be found at a railroad end. We had an excellent 

 dinner, partly of native food, and partly canned goods from the 

 States. 



Speaking of the latter, American manufacturers do not seem 



to realize that one of the best supply markets in the world is 



to be found among the planters and small hotel 



men in the tropics. Some do, of course, and 



TRADE METHODS. K . ., ' 



some of the great merchants and mail order 

 houses are cultivating the field most industriously and profit- 

 ably, but most do not. A case in point of this lack of apprecia- 

 tion came to my attention in this journey. A planter who is 



so thoroughly American that he had far rather buy of his own 

 countrymen tnan of any other, used a great deal of condensed 

 milk. That which he bought of English or Swiss make was 

 white and sweet, while the American brand, that he wanted to 

 buy, soon became in that hot, moist climate, of a chocolate 

 brown color, and quite offensive. In the goodness of his heart 

 he wrote the manufacturers, telling them the whole story, and 

 instead of being thanked, received a most insulting letter from 

 an officer of the company. He wrote again, not in his former 

 vein, but stating a few salient facts, and ended by remarking 

 that as the English had for 150 years been successfully supply- 

 ing tropical markets, they would probably keep on until Amer- 

 icans had the sense to study their methods. 



Just before the train arrrived, our party was reinforced by the 

 arrival of Mr. R. O. Price, the general manager of " Solo 

 Suchil." who had been apprised to be on the lookout for us, 

 and who told us that a steam launch would be waiting for us at 

 the end of the railway j jurney to take us up the Coatzacoalcos 

 river to Minatitlan and later to the plantations on that and 

 tributary streams. At length our train came and we were on 

 our way. The much vaunted National Tehuantepec road is 

 no doubt an engineering triumph, but what with earthquakes, 

 morasses, and streams that are one day riverlets and the next 

 raging torrents, it is not yet equal in equipment or service to 

 a one horse road in the Far Wes'. The trains run everv other 

 day, and get in on time very rarely. 



We finally arrived at Coatzacoalcos, the Atlantic terminus, 

 two hours late, and there were welcomed by Mr. A. B. Luther, 

 the ger ante general of " Plantacion Rubio." Here two more 

 Americans joined the party and, bearding the steam launch, we 

 steamed up to Minatitlan, a quaint old Mexican town where 

 we were to spend the night. Beds had been bespoken in the 

 little hotel familiarly known as the " bird cage" and we were 

 soon sleeping the sleep of the just. 



With the first break of day we were up, had our coffee, and 

 started out to see the place. As a matter of fact, there was 

 not much to interest one at that early hour. Most of the in- 

 habitants were still wrapped in the arms of the sleep god, 

 whatever his Aztec name may be, and the chief signs of life 

 were the dogs, chickens, and turkey buzzards, the latter the 

 most independent and loathsome of all the feathered tribe. 

 There is a fine of $50 for killing one, and the creature knows it, 

 and pursues its scavenging operations with a ruffianly impu- 





BODEGA ON PLANTATION "RIBIO. 



