"Their numbers are so small and the soil so fruitful they generally
have an abundance of bananas, maize, beans, and other food. Fish is
abundant, and few are without a cow or two. The only furniture they
have and need is a hammock and a cooking-pot. Plates, spoons, jugs,
and basins they make of the bark of the 'totumo,' a tree which is
found in every forest. A saber or a 'machete,' as they call it, is the
only agricultural implement they use. The construction of their houses
does not occupy them more than a day or two."
The good friar goes on to tell us that, through indolence, they have
not even learned from the Indians how to protect their plantations
from the fierce heat of the sun and avoid consequent failure of crops
in time of drought, by making the plantations in clearings in the
forest, so that the surrounding walls of verdure may give moisture
and shade to the plants. "Nor have they learned to build their bohios
(huts) to windward of swamps or clearings to avoid the fever-laden
emanations."
* * * * *
The stirring events in Europe that marked the end of the eighteenth
and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries did not find these
conditions much changed, though _some_ advance had been made and was
being made in spite of the prohibitive measures of the Government,
which were well calculated to check all advance.
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