126 RUBBER PLANTING ON THE 



any other people. Strange as it may seem also, the workmen from the 

 hill country, when they get down in the hot countries, are very apt to 

 die of pneumonia. The nwzo withal is an impractical sort of a chap, and 

 while he knows it, he doesn't seem to care to change. I heard a planter 

 point out to one of them that if he stayed on his own allotment, and 

 worked, he would in three months raise fifteen dollars worth of corn ; 

 on the other hand, if he worked three months for the planter, he would 

 get sixty dollars and all the corn he wanted. The native acknowledged 

 the force of the argument, but didn't see his way clear to change his 

 habits. They are a very serious people, as a rule, except when full of 

 aguardiente-, then they become rather boastful, and are sometimes quar- 

 relsome. 



A pretty custom of the country is the greeting that they always 

 give the traveler, and usually each other when they meet. In the morn- 

 ing, it is "buenas dias" ] in the afternoon, "buenos tarde" ; and in the 

 evening, "buenos noches." 



The mozo is essentially a religious being, and his impulses find ample 

 scope in the thirty-five fiestas, or feast days, that have been provided for 

 him. He usually patronizes at least two of these, and oftentimes many 

 more, and spends every cent he has on aguardiente and mescal. The 

 result is that he gets conspicuously drunk and stays so as long as he 

 can. Such a thing as a mozo having money ahead is unknown. On the 

 contrary, he is usually in debt. The planters, therefore, when they hire 

 them, purchase this debt, which sometimes runs as high as two hundred 

 dollars, and also promise the man a certain advance to be spent at the 

 next fiesta. The average wage is from sixty-two and one-half cents 

 a day up to about seventy-five cents a day, and found. This, as a rule, 

 includes three drinks of aguardiente a day. Some of the planters have 

 secured negroes direct from the United States, and from Jamaica. 

 These gel about seventy-five cents a day, and found, except when rail- 

 road contractors tempt them off by offering them from two dollars 

 to five dollars a day. But to return to La junta. 



We rode for a long distance through the rubber, and finally, ascend- 

 ing a steep hill, found ourselves in the main street of the plantation 

 village. Here was concentrated the life of the place, and the scene 

 certainly was a busy one. Of the thirty or more native houses of 

 bamboo and palm. thatched, several were rapidly being turned into frame 

 dwellings with tiled roofs, and built to stay. Beyond these was the 

 long, one story house of the general manager and his baker's dozen of 

 active young American assistants. Then came the store, stocked with as 



