290 Coffee Culture on tbe Soutbetn Coast of Cbiapas. 



able scale without having inexhaustible resources with which to pay the 

 debts of laborers, who would shortly afterward run away; then to pay 

 the debts of new hands, who before very long would do the same ; and 

 so on indefinitely. Fortunately, the Indians of the cold region of 

 Guatemala, contiguous to this District, where poor people are nu- 

 merous, have no reluctance to coming down to the temperate lands, 

 which are the most suitable for coffee, and with them alone it would be 

 possible to plant coffee plantations of considerable extent in Socon- 

 usco. Later on it will perhaps be easy to bring laborers from other 

 parts of the Republic ; but this will probably not be the case until some 

 plantations have been already established; and meanwhile it will be 

 necessary to depend on the laborers of Guatemala. 



Nor is the work done by laborers from the cold lands of Guatemala 

 exempt from expense and loss. To induce the laborers to leave their 

 villages it is necessary to advance them for expenses a sum of money, 

 generally five dollars a head, which sum is not always repaid. The 

 demoralization has already extended to the cold lands of Guatemala, 

 and the Indians of that region run away also ; but, as the sums they 

 owe are comparatively small, the losses suffered from this cause are in- 

 -considerable. The evils of this system of labor make themselves felt 

 in the large plantations of Guatemala, which have only a limited num- 

 ber of hands to depend upon for the most necessary labors, whose 

 owners have large sums invested in advances to laborers, and who re- 

 quire to keep several clerks to visit the villages to engage new hands 

 and to search for the runaways. 



As the Indians of the cold region of Guatemala leave behind them 

 their families, their occupations and their sheep, they cannot remain 

 away from their villages very long at a time. As a general thing, they 

 remain barely a month or two in the plantations, and return to their 

 homes to take care of their cornfields. For this reason they cannot be 

 considered permanent laborers, which is another serious drawback. 



The only remedy for these evils would, in my opinion, be to bring 

 laborers from other parts of the Republic, where the poor drag out a mis- 

 erable existence, to these fertile districts. Coffee culture gives employ- 

 ment to the wives and children of the laborers, and the plantations are 

 situated in temperate, healthy, and even agreeable climates. The diffi- 

 culty lies in the first attempts. If, as is to be expected, these give good 

 results, I think it certain that, notwithstanding the distance, many peo- 

 ple would come from the interior of the Republic to settle in Soconusco, 

 or at least to work for the season. If many laborers go, during the 

 cotton harvest, from the valleys of Oaxaca, travelling considerable 

 distances over rough roads, to the unhealthy coast of Veracruz I 

 see no reason why they should not come to these mild and salubrious 

 climates. 



