OH, SHOOT! 



counseled. "Get a paper which will give you 

 title to your lands and to the plantations you 

 have made; then let the white men come if 

 they want to you have no use for the jungle 

 and the mountains yonder. It is no good to 

 fight, for the white man will come -he always 

 does, wherever the soil is rich and the trees are 

 heavy with fruit and the waters are full of 

 fish. It is his way." 



We promised to help the San Bias people 

 get title to their lands, and we did what 

 little we could, for they are good people, 

 clean, healthy, moral, and God-fearing, and 

 they had treated us well. They are the best 

 Indians I have ever seen, and they would 

 make good citizens of any country. How 

 many there are I could not learn; some said 

 ten thousand, some said twenty thousand 

 certainly there are enough of them to warrant 

 consideration. 



All the San Bias people want are the coconut 

 trees and the lands upon which their crops 

 grow not much, to be sure. But coconut 

 groves are of slow growth ; those bottom lands 

 are rich, and I have disquieting visions of ag- 

 gressive, conscienceless exploiters, of a reser- 

 vation, and of sick Indians. 



138 



