158 RUBBER PLANTING ON THE 



train. While we sat there, one of the mozos roused up, and began to 

 talk to my companion. After a time, Mr. Harvey turned to me and 

 said: 



"Here is a most remarkable thing; this man was on his way to my 

 plantation to get work, when some of the railroad men told him that I 

 drove my laborers out in the field early in the morning, hitting them with 

 the flat of the machete, that I fed them very poorly, and made them 

 sleep in a fenced enclosure that had no roof over it, so he didn't dare 

 come. That is the way they try to get our help for themselves." 



At length, after what seemed an interminable wait, the train arrived, 

 and we got aboard. The train boy had some canned beans and crackers 

 from which we made a hearty meal, and then, stretching out on the seats, 

 we slept as best we could until we reached the breakfast station at Perez. 

 The breakfast was fair, but the fruit we bought later was really what 

 made life worth living. At every railway station, women and children 

 gathered under the car windows with fruits, flowers, native made candies, 

 and the great variety of sweet cakes of which both Mexicans and Indians 

 are very fond. I got a dozen oranges for ten cents, and they were 

 simply delicious. A fruit that I had been very anxious to taste was the 

 sapadillo, produced by the tree from which the chicle comes, and, finding 

 them on sale at last, I immediately invested. It is about the size of an 

 apple, with a skin like the potato, the pulp tasting like gelatine filled 

 with brown sugar. I also sampled many other fruits. Of them all, as 

 might be expected, the banana is the most common, and I observed several 

 varieties that are never seen in the States. Some tiny yellow ones, a 

 little larger than one's thumb, have an extremely delicate flavor, and are 

 delicious. Of this family is a large plantain which is either fried or 

 broiled, never being eaten raw, and which is extremely palatable. There 

 are a great variety of other fruits which appear at certain seasons, such, 

 for example, as the sour sop, a sort of pear with a prickly alligator skin 

 hide, and which tastes like sour snow mixed with cotton batting. 



During the forenoon we rode through a country largely given up to 

 cattle ranches. Of domestic animals in Mexico, the cattle are perhaps 

 the most valuable, and even with the poor strain of stock that is bred, 

 many large fortunes come to the owners of the ranches. Besides this, 

 those who go into the cattle business have no trouble at all in getting 

 help, as the native Mexican is a natural cowboy, and if he has but a pony 

 and a big set of Spurs, he is willing to work as he is at no other calling. 

 Some of the more progressive ranchers are crossing their cattle with 

 imported stock, and getting fine results. Most of the rubber planters 



