[Illustration: A MOUNTAIN VILLAGE IN PUERTO RICO.]

Most of the land is divided up into very small farms or garden patches, or is taken up by groves.

In the interior of the country are many little villages, shut out from the rest of the world. We reach them by the narrow horse-trails that wind in and out among the mountains.

THE LABORER'S HILLSIDE HOME.

Perched on the hilltops and sides, shaded by banana trees, are the picturesque little huts of the laborers. Most of them pay no rent. Land owners give them small patches of ground on the hillsides, which they themselves do not care to till, in order to have the laborers near or on the plantations to assist in cultivating or harvesting the sugar cane, tobacco and coffee crops.

Here the peasant laborers build their cabins; and, when there is no work for them on the plantations, they tend their gardens in a haphazard way. By working a little each day they manage to make a scant living.

Five months of the year they labor for their landlords, receiving about fifty cents a day.

The laborer is often paid in plantains. Fifty plantains are a day's pay. On this he feeds his family, for the plantain is the Puerto Rican peasant's bread.

The plantains left are taken to market and sold. One day a week is lost in this way, for the market is often twenty miles away.

Near a stream on the mountain side we see a group of women. Some of them are sitting on stones by the bank; others are standing in the hot sun in midstream, and all are washing.

It is wash day, and they have brought their clothes here to wash them. They have no tubs, wash-boards, clothes-pins, or clothes-lines. Sometimes they have no soap. In place of this, they use the seed or roots of the soapberry tree.

The soap-seed tree bears several months in the year. The seed is inclosed in a yellow skin, and is black, and about the size of a marble. The leaf of a vine, called the soap vine is also used for the purpose of washing clothes.

The clothes are first soaked in the stream or pond, and then spread upon a broad, smooth stone; after which they are pounded with clubs or stones. When they are clean, they are spread out upon the bushes to dry and bleach.

[Illustration: COOKING THE EVENING MEAL.]

Then the tired women rest under the trees, and chat, and perhaps smoke until evening. When the hot sun has gone down in the west, they make their damp and dry clothes up into huge bundles, lift them to their heads, and plod homeward.

Let us follow them to their homes up on the mountain side. Some of the huts are built closely together. Others are scattered about on lonely ledges. Shall we go inside one of these huts? The woman who has just returned has thrown her burden into a corner.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 20 of 41
Words from 9699 to 10204 of 20588