Chapter 4

The wonderful beauty of the country of which he spoke is unchanged; but we listen and look in vain for the singing birds. The hunter's gun has caused the disappearance of large numbers of the birds. Those remaining are found only in the forests.

Columbus spoke also of the flocks of parrots "whose bright wings obscured the sun"; but we seldom see the brilliant plumage of these birds on our excursions.

BIRDS.

There are said to be about one hundred and fifty kinds of birds on the island of Puerto Rico. Among these are the mocking bird, the wild canary, the sugar bird, the thrush, the humming bird, the owl, the hawk, the dove, the cuckoo, the oriole, the nightingale, and the Guinea bird. During the migrating season, many other birds fly over from other islands.

Flamingoes and other water birds are numerous on the coast.

There is a parrot market in every port, however, and this is a popular place of resort. Here are cool trees and drinking stands, or booths, where cocoanut milk and cool drinks are sold.

The birds are not usually confined to cages, but are left to climb about the booths. The natives love these birds and make great pets of them. The birds are tame and quite accomplished in the art of begging. When the passer-by extends his hand, they walk into it for the sake of the gifts which they know will come.

But the bird which is oftenest seen is the fighting or game-cock. The streets and market places are full of these. They are the pets and often the most valued possessions of their owners.

OTHER ANIMAL LIFE.

The scorpions, centipedes, wasps, sand flies, fleas and mosquitoes manage to make things lively for us much of the time.

One enterprising and annoying insect, the chigoe, or "jigger," is able to bore a hole through the sole of a shoe and attack the foot.

There are no poisonous serpents or dangerous wild animals in the country; so we travel about through field and forest without fear.

The boa, which is occasionally seen, is huge and alarming in appearance; but it is looked upon as a friend rather than an enemy. It is of great service to the farmer in clearing his place of rats.

The largest native animals we find to be the armadillo, the agouti, and the iguana.

The agouti is a little animal resembling a rabbit. It lives on vegetable food, and finds a home in the rocky hillsides and on the borders of the woods. As game is not plentiful, it is sometimes used for food.

The armadillo and iguana are preferred for food, however. It is not an easy matter to catch an armadillo. It has a shell on its back, and into this it promptly retreats at the first sign of danger. It has a long, pointed snout and strong, sharp claws. It can dig a hole in the ground almost as fast as a man can dig with a pick and spade; so, when an enemy appears, it digs a hole and buries itself from sight. It is not a troublesome animal. It lives chiefly upon beetles, grubs and worms, which it hunts by night.

The iguana is a lizard which feeds on fruits and vegetables. It grows to three or four feet in length, and is an ugly looking creature. It will not fight unless you compel it to do so. It does not live in the water, but in trees, bushes, and in the cracks and fissures of rocks. Sometimes hunters build fires at the entrance of their hiding places and smoke them out. The flesh, when cooked, resembles chicken or veal, and is a popular dish with the natives.

But the most delicious meat of all comes from the land crabs and the crayfish. These are caught in great numbers when the crabs migrate from the mountains to the coast. Once a year they make this journey, for the purpose of depositing their eggs in the sand.

The sea fisheries are important to the people of Puerto Rico. The coast waters and fresh water streams swarm with fishes of strange shapes and gaudy colors.

Among these are the shad, sardines, Spanish mackerel, dolphins, flying fish, sting rays and sharks. The sponge, the manatee and the whale are also found near the island.

Suppose some one were to ask you to what kingdom the sponge belonged. Could you tell? Many years ago people believed that it belonged to the vegetable kingdom; but it is now known to belong to the animal kingdom.

The animals attach themselves to rocks, shells and other hard substances below water.

Mussels, clams and sponges are cultivated to some extent. Mollusks are useful in many other ways than as food. Their shells are used for making buttons, parasol handles and shirt studs. Sometimes they are used for making roads. Many shiploads of these shells are brought to New York from Puerto Rico and other parts of the West Indies every year.

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PLANT LIFE.

Puerto Rico seems to us to be one big flower garden. All kinds of fruit grow wild and most wild plants blossom and bear fruit several times a year.

Cultivated fruits, flowers and vegetables are planted several times a year in order that a fresh supply may always be at hand. Flowers bloom every month of the year, but are most plentiful in June. Ferns, in some instances, grow to spreading trees, with graceful drooping fronds. Many plants have colored leaves which are as brilliant as the flowers themselves.

Everywhere grow trees and shrubs valuable for their fruit or for their medicinal qualities.

The leading crops are sugar cane, coffee and tobacco. Over one-half of the exports consists of coffee, and a little less than one-fourth, of sugar. Cacao and fruits make a large part of the remainder.

Rice forms the chief food of the laboring classes, and this grows, not on the wet lowlands, as in our country, but on the mountain sides.

Bananas and plantains are two of the important food products. Next to these, the yam and the sweet potato form the diet of the natives.

Among the fruit trees we find cocoanut palms, tamarinds, prickly pears, guavas, mangoes, bananas, oranges, limes, cacao (or cocao) trees and lemons.

Among the spices found here are the pimento, or allspice, nutmeg, clove, pepper, mace, cinnamon, ginger, and vanilla.

The hills are covered with forests, which, yield valuable timber and dye woods. Among these are mahogany, cedar, ebony, and lignum-vitae trees. Logwood and other dye materials are common.

Many varieties of the palm flourish here,--the cocoanut palm producing fruit in greater abundance than in any other country of the West Indies.

THE COCOA PALM.

The most abundant cocoanut groves in the world are said to be found on Puerto Rico and the other islands of the Antilles. This tree usually grows near the coast, for it loves the salt water; but it is sometimes found on the hill slopes a short distance inland.

"The tree grows to a height of from sixty to eighty feet, lives a hundred years, bears a hundred nuts each year, and is said to have a hundred uses for man."

The trees bear such heavy burdens of fruit that it seems impossible that so slender a trunk could hold such a weight of fruit in the air. The fruit is expensive when it comes to us, because of the difficulty in climbing the trees, gathering the nuts, and removing from them the heavy fibrous husks.

Here is a negro gathering cocoanuts. Let us watch him. He climbs the tall tree, dragging a rope after him. About his waist is a belt in which is thrust a machete.

He hacks off a bunch of the nuts and attaches it to the end of the rope. It is then lowered to another negro or to the ground. The nuts are in bunches of a dozen or two, and are covered with a green, smooth, shining covering.

After the bunches of nuts are all removed from the tree, the climber throws down the rope and comes down hand over hand.

These nuts are so large that a single one often yields two glasses of milk.

We found that the natives made boats and furniture, as well as houses, from the trunk of this palm tree. They extract from its roots a remedy for fever. The foot stalks of the leaves are made into combs. The leaves are used for thatching huts and in making baskets, mats and hats.

The fibrous material at the base of the foot stalks is used for sieves, and woven into clothing. A medicine is made from the flowers, and from the flower-stalks palm wine is made. From the juice is made sugar and vinegar. From the fruit or nut, water, jelly and meat are obtained. Oil is extracted from the kernel; and the refuse is used for food for fowls and cattle, as well as for manure.

From the husks ropes, brooms, brushes, and bedding are made. The shells are used as lamps, cups, spoons, and scoops.

It has been called the poor man's tree because it gives him food, drink, medicine and material with which to build his home.

The tropics could not do without the palm. It is more to that region than the pine is to the north.

THE CALABASH TREE.

Another very useful tree to the natives is the calabash, or gourd tree. It provides him with many household utensils. In height and size it resembles an apple tree. Its leaves are wedge-shaped and its flowers are large, whitish and fleshy.

The fruit is something like a gourd and often a foot in diameter. The shell of the fruit is so hard that it is not easily broken by rough usage or burnt by exposure to fire. It is used instead of bottles, cups, basins, dishes, pots and kettles, and to make musical instruments.

Sometimes the calabashes are polished, carved, dyed or otherwise ornamented. The pulp of the fruit is used as a medicine.

THE TRAVELER'S TREE.

One of the most curious and beautiful trees on the island is the traveler's tree. It is so named because it contains in its leaves and at their bases a large quantity of pure water.

By piercing the leaves with a spear or pike the water is drawn out, and found cool and refreshing. It often relieves the thirst of the traveler in this warm country.

BREAD FRUIT.

Among the fruit products used in large quantities are the bread-fruit and bread-nuts. These trees grow very large and have wide-spreading branches about fifty feet from the ground.

The leaves are, very broad, and the fruit looks something like an ovoid osage orange as large as one's head.

The fruit is best when picked green, and baked in an oven or in the ashes, after paring away the outer skin or rind. When done it resembles a browned loaf of bread. It is very good and, wholesome, too; but it tastes more like baked plantain than bread.

The bread-nuts look on the outside like the bread-fruit, but the inside contains a great mass of closely packed nuts like large chestnuts. These are not good raw, but are fine when baked or boiled.

ANNOTTO.

We have often heard people speak of butter and cheese being colored, but did not know that the dairyman was obliged to send to the West Indies for his dye. The bush which provides it is called the annotto or annatto. It grows to the size of the quince tree. The leaves are heart-shaped; and the rosy flowers are followed by fuzzy red-and-yellow pods, something like chestnut burs.

These small burs are filled with a crimson pulp containing many seeds. This pulp is immersed in water a few weeks, strained and boiled to a paste. The paste is made into cakes and dried in the sun. Then it comes to our country and appears upon our tables in butter or cheese.

Can you tell me where bay rum comes from? We have often wondered, and find here an answer to the question. It is furnished by the bay tree, which grows here. The leaves are distilled and the oil extracted from them to furnish this perfume for the bath.

SPICES.

Spices, in some form, are served every day upon our table; yet few of us know where they come from, or where, how, or upon what they grow.

We have heard of the Spice Islands, perhaps, and we just take it for granted that they all grow there. We are very much surprised, then, to find many of the spices in Puerto Rico.

ALLSPICE, OR PIMENTO.

The pimento spice is native to this soil. The groves of these trees are beautiful. The trees grow to a height of thirty feet, their stems are smooth and clean, and their leaves glossy.

The trees bear fruit when about seven years old. The berries are gathered green and dried in the sun. The branches to which the berries are attached are broken off by boys and thrown to girls and women, who pick off the berries, and take them to the drying places. One tree sometimes bears a hundred pounds.

The tree likes the hills and mountains along the sea, a hot climate and a dry atmosphere.

THE NUTMEG TREE.

The nutmeg tree grows to a height of thirty to fifty feet. The ripe fruit looks somewhat like the apricot on the outside. It bursts in two and shows the dark nut covered with mace, a bright scarlet. This is stripped off and pressed flat. The shells are broken open when perfectly dry, and the nuts powdered with lime to prevent the attacks of worms.

The tree bears the sixth or seventh year,--the nuts becoming ripe six months after the flower appears. Twenty thousand nuts are sometimes gathered from one tree.

Other important growths we find to be pepper, which begins to bear when five years old and may bear for thirty years; the vanilla bean, which proves to be very profitable when properly cared for; and cacao, which requires eight years to come to full fruitage, but is an invaluable plant.

MINERALS.

Puerto Rico has no mines or minerals of any consequence, except a little iron. Foundries for magnetic iron have been established at Ponce, San Juan and Mayaguez.

Gold, silver, copper and coal are known to exist in small quantities beneath the surface, but not in sufficient amount to be mined.

The island is well supplied with limestone, which makes an excellent building material. Marble, also, is easily obtained. Along the coast are occasional marshes where salt is prepared for market.

OUR JOURNEY'S END.

Our month in Puerto Rico is drawing to a close, and the good ship which is to bear us homeward is waiting in the harbor.

We make a last farewell tour of the shops in San Juan, and buy a few gifts for the friends at home: a green parrot to please sister; a tortoise-shell comb for mother; a cane for father, a native hat for brother, and a calabash drinking bowl for the school museum.

It is with reluctant steps that we make our way to the ship. The clear sky, the perfect climate, the constant verdure, the wonderful plants and trees, and the beautiful mountain scenery make Puerto Rico one of the most attractive lands to be found anywhere.

Although the roads are in a deplorable condition, a new system has been planned, and will probably be soon completed.

Though the country may lack school buildings, the cities and towns are better provided with other public buildings than most places of the same size in the United States. And the eagerness with which the people seize upon the statements that their children are to be given the same opportunity for an education as children in the United States have, indicates that the schoolhouses will soon dot the island.

The streets of the smallest villages are paved, and all contain some place of recreation and attempts at ornamentation. Each village has one or more public squares laid out with trees, walks, flowers, seats, and usually with a band stand in the center.

We do not find these improvements in all our own small towns. But the people need better schools, more nourishing food, and improved methods of farming. Sanitary measures need to be introduced into the homes and communities. Harbors need to be dredged, that ships may come closer to land. The water power of many rushing streams needs to be chained and made to generate electricity, to grind corn, to hull coffee, to cook food, to pull cars, and to light cities.

There should also be fountains, baths, and sewers; the land in certain sections should be irrigated, and the streams should be bridged, that means for travel and transportation may be afforded.

Perhaps all this will be done, ere we visit this island again. At any rate, we sincerely hope that this may be the beginning of a new and better day for Puerto Rico.

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REFERENCE BOOKS.

"Our New Possessions," by Trumbull White. Cloth, 676 pp........$2.00 "Puerto Rico and Its Resources," by Frederick A. Ober.......... 1.50 "The West Indies," by A. K. Fisk. 414 pp....................... 1.50 "Porto Rico," Hall............................................. 1.00 "Porto Rico," Rector........................................... 1.25 "Porto Rico," Dinwiddie........................................ 2.50 "Porto Rico," Robinson......................................... 1.50 "The West Indies and the Main"................................. 1.75 "At Last" and "A Christmas in the West Indies," Kingsley....... "Three Cruises of the Blake," Alexander Agassiz. 2 vol......... 8.00 "Down the Islands," Palon...................................... 2.50 "The West Indies," Fiske....................................... 1.50 "In the Wake of Columbus," Ober................................ 2.00 "Due South," Ballou............................................ 1.50 "The Foreign Commerce of Our Possessions," etc., Treasury Department, Washington..................................... "Porto Rico," National Geographic Magazine, '99, 25 cts. a number; per year......................................... 2.00

These books may be obtained from A. FLANAGAN Co., Chicago, Ill., at price given. Considerable reductions may be secured, if several volumes are purchased at one time.

TEACHER'S SUPPLEMENT

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A LITTLE JOURNEY TO PUERTO RICO

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SPECIAL SUGGESTIONS.

Children love to read or hear of the people of other lands, and the tactful teacher will wrap her information about the natural features of a country in the "sugared pill of stories."

Books of travel are helpful and interesting in linking together fact and story. From them the child comes to feel a sympathetic interest in the ways of people unlike those he knows.

By emphasizing the idea of continuity of beliefs and customs, we impress the child with the most important lesson history and geography hold for him,--that all countries and peoples are closely related and have mutual interests.

"The acquisition of this feeling of the inter-relationship of the nations of the world, while starting the child out with a broad view of life, will in no wise lessen his love for his own country."

Too often the lonely little stranger in our midst--the foreigner--is viewed with heartless curiosity, or contempt, and subjected to ridicule. Patriotism to many a child means nothing more than a belief that our own country is the best, our own people the smartest, and that we can whip any and every other nation on the globe.

Do the children know that the "blood that boils so hotly against other countries is drawn from the very same sources that feed the veins of our seemingly alien neighbors"?

If any teacher imagines that her pupils have a definite idea of the meaning of patriotism because they are able to sing "America" and the "Star-Spangled Banner," let her read Marion Hill's story, entitled "The Star-Spangled Banner," in McClure's Magazine for July (1900).

THE TRAVEL CLASS.

Nothing in the study of geography is more interesting or helpful to pupils than the taking of imaginary journeys. It makes geography a _live_ subject.

Suggest that your pupils organize a Travel Club, and that some of the trips be personally conducted.

Maps and a globe should be in constant use. The home should be the starting point. Railroad circulars, maps, and time-cards for free distribution will be found valuable. Pupils should be taught _how to use_ these maps and time cards.

Give pupils a choice as to routes or roads over which they are to travel. Each pupil, however, should be able to give a reason for his preference for any particular road, and must know the number of miles and the time required for the journey. The road or route voted upon by the majority may then be decided upon, and preparations made for the trip.

Find out the best time to go to each particular country, and the reason. What clothes it will be best to wear and to take with one. About how much money it will be necessary to spend on such a trip, and when and where this money should be changed into the coin or currency used in the country we expect to visit.

A _Guide_ may be appointed to obtain time-tables, maps, railroad guides, the little books of travel, or other descriptions of routes and of the parts of the country that are to be visited. (Further suggestions in regard to these "helps" will be found elsewhere in this book.)

The principal features of the country passed through may be described, if time permits; also the more important cities. Note the population, occupations, productions, together with anything of special interest or historical importance associated with the city or locality.

The _Guide_ takes charge of the class in the same way that a tourist guide would do. He escorts us from the home depot to the city, state, or country, pointing out the route on a map suspended before the class.

Arriving at the city or country, he takes us to the various points of interest, telling as much about each as he is able, and answering questions pupils may wish to ask. If the guide can not answer all questions, the teacher or some other member of the party may.

When the guide has finished with a topic or section, other members of the party may give items of interest concerning it.

A different pupil may act as guide to each city or part of the country visited, and each pupil should come to the class with a list of questions about the places.

Every pupil in the class may take some part, either as guide, or as the class artist, musician, librarian, historian, geographer, geologist, botanist, zoologist, or man of letters.

A _Historian_ may tell us of the history of the country, and answer all questions of historical interest.

A _Geographer_ may tell of the location on the globe, of the natural land formations of mountains, canyons, prairies, rivers, etc., and of the climate resulting from these. He should illustrate his remarks.

A _Geologist_ may assist, and show specimens of minerals and fossils, or pictures of these.

A _Botanist_ may tell us of native plants, useful or ornamental, and show pictures of these if possible. A _Zoologist_ tells of the native animals, their habits and uses.

The geographer, geologist, botanist, and zoologist direct the work at the sand table, and assist in reproducing the country in miniature.

The _Merchants_ and _Tradesmen_ tell us of the products for which their country is noted, and show samples of as many as it is possible to secure. They also tell what they import, and why.

A _Librarian_ or Correspondent may visit the library for information sought by the club. He must be able to give a list of books of travel, and be ready to read or quote extracts referring to the places visited on the tour.

He or his assistant may also clip all articles of interest from papers, magazines, and other sources, and arrange these, as well as the articles secured by other pupils, in a scrapbook, devoted to each country.

The _Artist_ and his assistant may tell us about the famous artists and their works, if any. He may illustrate his remarks with pictures, if he can obtain or make them.

The _Club Artist_ may also place upon the board in colored crayons the flag, the coat of arms, and the national flower of the country.