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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 moso 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 clfear 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, (t buenos noches.” 
The moso 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 moso 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 get 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 
