152 RUBBER PLANTING ON THE 



clump, clump, clump, along the passage between the cots came a heavy 

 tread. Peeping out from between the mosquito bars, I saw a man clad 

 only in heavy boots, tramping up and down the room. The Major 

 discovered him at the same time, and wrathfully inquired what he was 

 about. "Just taking exercise,'' was the reply. Then really the Major 

 let himself out. It was truly a rhetorical masterpiece that he delivered 

 himself of, and the offender at last reluctantly agreed to put off his 

 constitutional until the morrow, and went back to bed. 



It was still raining when we awoke, and we sat around all the 

 forenoon waiting for the train, or for better weather. It was then that, 

 looking at the passing mozos, I had a chance to see the native raincoats 

 of cane and cocoa fiber that are the only mackintoshes the Indians use. 

 They look far better and cleaner in a photograph than otherwise, and 

 rubber manufacturers in the States need not fear that rubber markets 

 will ever seriously seek them. 



At two o'clock that afternoon, as it was raining only a little, we 

 loaded our belongings on a inozo, and started to walk the track to the 

 railroad camp, twelve kilometers away. We got there finally, boots covered 

 with mud, damp, perspiring, and weary, and were welcomed to the 

 engineer's quarters that consisted of five box cars fitted up as dwellings, 

 full of material comforts, and inhabited by several young and friendly 

 Americans. 



The head of this engineering household was Mr. F. M. Ames, 

 chief engineer of the Vera Cruz and Pacific Railway, who has for 

 seventeen years been at work railroad building, all the time in the 

 tropics. Indeed, he headed the corps that surveyed the National Tehuan- 

 tepec road, cutting his way through the densest sort of jungle, and 

 establishing camps where now are thriving settlements. Mr. Ames 

 knew the country, the people, and the animals, and we were soon 

 launched into talk about the wild dwellers of the forest. Of the cat 

 tribe, there are quite a number of large and active specimens. The 

 leader of all these is the ounce, or as the natives call it, the tigrc, and 

 next to him come a great variety of spotted cats, diminutive specimens 

 of the jaguar tribe. They never attack man, and when hunted invariably 

 take to a tree, although before doing so they often stop and finish a 

 dog or two, which they are fully capable of doing. They are more or 

 less of a nuisance about plantations as they have a great fondness for 

 turkeys and chickens. 



Many of the smaller mammals of the temperate zone are also very 

 common, such as foxes, rabbits, skunks, squirrels, black and brown, and 



