508 GUAM AND ITS PEOVLE. 



visions is amply sufficient to keep the family supplied with its simple 

 clothing, some Hour and rice Ijrought b}- the traders from flapan or 

 America to exchange for copra, and perhaps a few delicacies, a ribbon 

 or two, and a new picture of the patron saint to place in the little 

 alcove of the side room, where the light is always kept burning. 



While in Guam 1 knew of onh" one person on the island dependent 

 upon charity, and she w^as an old blind woman without children or 

 near relatives. Even blindness does not make beggars of the natives. 

 On one occasion, while crossing the island to" report on the suitability 

 of a certain ba}" as a landing place for the proposed telegraph ca])le, I 

 visited a house in which a man and his wife were both blind. He was 

 engaged in twisting pininxpplc til)ei' into thread for cast-nets. The 

 surrounding farm was in a tiourishing condition — here a field of corn, 

 there a patch of tobacco, a little farther away a grove of y ovuig cocoanuts 

 set out evenly in rows; near the house a thicket of coli'ee bushes red 

 with l^erries; about the door betel nuts drying in the sun; at the edge 

 of the forest a cow, very much like an Alderney, tethered to a tree to 

 keep her out of a neighl)oring patch of sweet potatoes, and in a newly 

 cleared spot, where the stumps of trees were still standing, I saw a 

 rich growth of taro and some yam vines twining up a circle of poles 

 inclined against a tree. 



A tine, strapping youth came in to prepare dinner. He was the son 

 of the, old people and had been born before the\' were stricken with 

 the disease which caused their blindness. It was he who planted the 

 garden, who'cleared the forest, cared for the cow, the pigs, and chick- 

 ens, and collected the l)etel nuts. He climbed a cocoanut tree near the 

 house and l)rought in a bam])oo joint full of tuba, delicious as cider 

 just 1)eginning to turn sharp, which, after putting across the top .some 

 leaves to strain it, heoliered us withtheniaiuierof aSoanish caballero. 

 The next day, on my return from the opposite shore of the island, he 

 saddled the sleek little cow and insisted on my riding her back to the 

 city, he and the little calf running along by my side as the cow trot- 

 ted over the good roads, and wading through the deep mud, as our way 

 led across marshy places overarched by great bamboos. On all the 

 farms we passed the natives were planting cocoanuts. There were fields 

 of corn, sweet potatoes, and tol)acco. The young tobacco plant*^, 

 recently transplanted, were each sheltered from the sun by a section 

 of cocoanut leaf stuck into the ground at an angle. Every l)ody 

 seemed contented and all had a pleasant greeting for the stranger. 

 Some of the shy little children brought out by their parents to see us 

 took my hand to kiss it, as is the custom in the island on the occasion 

 of a visit from a dignitary of the church or state or the head of a 

 famil}'. It seemed to me th:it I had discovered Arcadia, and when 1 

 thought of a letter 1 had received from a friend asking whether 

 1 believed it would l)e possible to ''civilize the natives," 1 felt like 

 exclaiming, '"God forbid!" 



