Hacienda 
del 
Capricho 
On the 12th we left Gaetepeo and made 9 miles in a SI course to the 
Hacienda del Capricho on the east side of the Sta. Catarina River. 
This is the property of Senor Mendez, There is a small cotton gin and 
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press here and a small group of negroes and mixed bloods who grow com 
and cotton on the lands of the Hacienda. They pay #2.00 a year for 
land eaoh one uses for corn, and #3.00 for cotton land. The native 
houses are all round here. The people of all this coast are very ig¬ 
norant and brutal. They all carry machetes and when drinking use them 
in bloody fights at the least provocation. Huge, deep scars across the 
face are common among the men as results of these brawls. When sober 
they sure cowardly and peaceable enough. They are very lazy and have 
an extremely rude agriculture. For a com crop they clear a piece of 
woods, burning off the smaller material. Then com or cotton is plant¬ 
ed merely by making small holes in the undisturbed soil and putting in 
the seed. It is a common belief among them that land will not yield a 
■r 
second good crop so the next year they clear another piece and leave 
the former one to grow wild again. In this way the community works 
over a large extent of country in a few years and destroys great 
values in rubber, mahogany, Brasil, and Campeche and Rosewood. Mr, 
Mendez gives this as the reason for a present scarcity of rubber trees 
along the coast where they do well and get to be a fair size in damp 
bottom lands. 
A curious thing is noted in a quite general use of American axes 
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along this coast south of Acapulco which seem out of place among poor 
tools. 
The practice of wife stealing is followed all along the coast country 
from Aoapulco south among the negroes and mixed bloods. The man usually 
arranges with the woman or girl and She is outside the house when he 
comes with his friends on horseback and she is oarried off to some 
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