PART II

THE PEOPLE AND THEIR INSTITUTIONS

CHAPTER XXVII

SITUATION AND GENERAL APPEARANCE OF PUERTO RICO

The island of Puerto Rico, situated in the Atlantic Ocean, is about 1,420 miles from New York, 1,000 miles from Havana, 1,050 miles from Key West, 1,200 miles from Panama, 3,450 miles from Land's End in England, and 3,180 from the port of Cadiz. It is about 104 miles in length from east to west, by 34 miles in average breadth, and has an area of 2,970 square miles. It lies eastward of the other greater Antilles, Cuba, Haiti, and Jamaica, and although inferior even to the last of these islands in population and extent, it yields to none of them in fertility.

By its geographical position Puerto Rico is peculiarly adapted to become the center of an extensive commerce. It lies to the windward of Cuba, Santo Domingo, and Jamaica, and of the Gulf of Mexico and Bay of Honduras. It is contiguous to all the English and French Windward Islands, only a few hours distant from the former Danish islands Saint Thomas, Saint John, and Santa Cruz, and a few days' sail from the coast of Venezuela.

Puerto Rico is the fourth in size of the greater Antilles. Its first appearance to the eye of the stranger is striking and picturesque.

Nature here offers herself to his contemplation clothed in the splendid vesture of tropical vegetation. The chain of mountains which intersects the island from east to west seems at first sight to form two distinct chains parallel to each other, but closer observation makes it evident that they are in reality corresponding parts of the same chain, with upland valleys and tablelands in the center, which again rise gradually and incorporate themselves with the higher ridges. The height of these mountains is lofty, if compared with those of the other Antilles. The loftiest part is that of Luguillo, or Loquillo, at the northeast extremity of the island, which measures 1,334 Castilian yards, and the highest point, denominated El Yunque, can be seen at the distance of 68 miles at sea. The summit of this ridge is almost always enveloped in mist, and when its sides are overhung by white fleecy clouds it is the certain precursor of the heavy showers which fertilize the northern coast. The soil in the center of the mountains is excellent, and the mountains themselves are susceptible of cultivation to their summits. Several towns and villages are situated among these mountains, where the inhabitants enjoy the coolness of a European spring and a pure and salubrious atmosphere. The town of Albonito, built on a table-land about eight leagues from Ponce, on the southern coast, enjoys a delightful climate.

To the north and south of this interior ridge of mountains, stretching along the seacoasts, are the fertile valleys which produce the chief wealth of the island. From the principal chain smaller ridges run north and south, forming between them innumerable valleys, fertilized by limpid streams which, descending from the mountains, empty themselves into the sea on either coast. In these valleys the majestic beauty of the palm-trees, the pleasant alternation of hill and dale, the lively verdure of the hills, compared with the deeper tints of the forest, the orange trees, especially when covered with their golden fruit, the rivers winding through the dales, the luxuriant fields of sugar-cane, corn, and rice, with here and there a house peeping through a grove of plantains, and cattle grazing in the green pasture, form altogether a landscape of rural beauty scarcely to be surpassed in any country in the world.

The valleys of the north and east coasts are richest in cattle and most picturesque. The pasturage there is always verdant and luxuriant, while those of the south coast, richer in sugar, are often parched by excessive drought, which, however, does not affect their fertility, for water is found near the surface. This same alternation of rain and drought on the north and south coasts is generally observed in all the West India islands.

Few islands of the extent of Puerto Rico are watered by so many streams. Seventeen rivers, taking their rise in the mountains, cross the valleys of the north coast and fall into the sea. Some of these are navigable for two or three leagues from their mouths for small craft. Those of Manati, Loisa, Trabajo, and Arecibo are very deep and broad, and it is difficult to imagine how such large bodies of water can be collected in so short a course. Owing to the heavy surf which continually breaks on the north coast, these rivers have bars across their embouchures which do not allow large vessels to enter. The rivers of Bayamon and Rio Piedras flow into the harbor of the capital, and are also navigable for boats. At Arecibo, at high water, small brigs may enter with perfect safety, notwithstanding the bar. The south, west, and east coasts are also well supplied with water.

From the Cabeza de San Juan, which is the northeast extremity of the island, to Cape Mala Pascua, which lies to the southeast, nine rivers fall into the sea. From Cape Mala Pascua to Point Aguila, which forms the southwest angle of the island, sixteen rivers discharge their waters on the south coast.

On the west coast, three rivers, five rivulets, and several fresh-water lakes communicate with the sea. The rivers of the north coast are well stocked with edible fish.

The roads formed in Puerto Rico during the Spanish administration are constructed on a substantial plan, the center being filled with gravel and stones well cemented. Each town made and repaired the roads of its respective district. Many excellent and solid bridges, with stone abutments, existed at the time of the transfer of the island to the American nation.

The whole line of coast of this island is indented with harbors, bays, and creeks where ships of heavy draft may come to anchor. On the north coast, during the months of November, December, and January, when the wind blows sometimes with violence from the east and northeast, the anchorage is dangerous in all the bays and harbors of that coast, except in the port of San Juan.

On the western coast the spacious bay of Aguadilla is formed by Cape Borrigua and Cape San Francisco. When the southeast winds prevail it is _not_ a safe anchorage for ships.

Mayaguez is also an open roadstead on the west coast formed by two projecting capes. It has good anchorage for vessels of large size and is well sheltered from the north winds.

The south coast also abounds in bays and harbors, but those which deserve particular attention are the ports of Guanica and Hobos, or Jovos, near Guayama. In Guanica vessels drawing 21 feet of water may enter with perfect safety and anchor close to the shore. Hobos or Jovos is a haven of considerable importance; sailing vessels of the largest class may anchor and ride in safety; it has 4 fathoms of water in the shallowest part of the entrance, but it is difficult to enter from June to November as the sea breaks with violence at the entrance on account of the southerly winds which prevail at this season.

All the large islands in the tropics enjoy approximately the same climate. The heat, the rains, the seasons, are, with trifling variations, the same in all, but the number of mountains and running streams, the absence of stagnant waters and general cultivation of the land in Puerto Rico do, probably, powerfully contribute to purify the atmosphere and render it more salubrious to Europeans than it otherwise would be. In the mountains one enjoys the coolness of spring, but the valleys, were it not for the daily breeze which blows from the northeast and east, would be almost uninhabitable for white men during part of the year. The climate of the north and south coasts of this island, though under the same tropical influence, is nevertheless essentially different. On the north coast it sometimes rains almost the whole year, while on the south coast sometimes no rain falls for twelve or fourteen months. On the whole, Puerto Rico is one of the healthiest islands in the West Indies, nor is it infested to the same extent as other islands by poisonous snakes and other noxious reptiles. The laborer may sleep in peace and security in the midst of the forest, by the side of the river, or in the meadow with his cattle with no other fear than that of an occasional centipede or guabua (large hairy spider).

Unlike most tropical islands there are no indigenous quadrupeds and scarcely any of the feathered tribe in the forests. On the rivers there are a few water-fowl and in the forests the green parrot. There are neither monkeys nor rabbits, but rats and mongooses infest the country and sometimes commit dreadful ravages in the sugar-cane. Ants of different species also abound.

CHAPTER XXVIII

ORIGIN, CHARACTER, AND CUSTOMS OF THE PRIMITIVE INHABITANTS OF BORIQUeN

The origin of the primitive inhabitants of the West Indian Archipelago has been the subject of much learned controversy, ending, like all such discussions, in different theories and more or less verisimilar conjecture.

It appears that at the time of the discovery these islands were inhabited by three races of different origin. One of these races occupied the Bahamas. Columbus describes them as simple, generous, peaceful creatures, whose only weapon was a pointed stick or cane.

They were of a light copper color, well-proportioned but slender, rather good-looking, with aquiline noses, salient cheek-bones, medium-sized mouths, long coarse hair. They had, perhaps, formerly occupied the eastern part of the archipelago, whence they had gradually disappeared, driven or exterminated by the Caribs, Caribos, or Guaribos, a savage, warlike, and cruel race, which had invaded the West Indies from the continent by way of the Orinoco, along the tributaries of which river tribes of the same race are still to be found. The larger Antilles, Cuba, Santo Domingo, and Puerto Rico, were occupied by a race which probably originated from some part of the southern division of the northern continent. The chroniclers mention the Guaycures and others as their possible ancestors, and Stahl traces their origin to a mixture of the Phoenicians with the aborigines of remote antiquity.

The information which we possess with regard to the habits and customs of the inhabitants of Boriquen at the time of discovery is too scanty and too unreliable to permit us to form more than a speculative opinion of the degree of culture attained by them.

Friar Abbad, in the fourth chapter of his history, gives us a description of the character and customs of the people of Boriquen taken wholly from the works of Oviedo, Herrera, Robertson, Raynal, and others.

Like most of the aboriginal inhabitants of America, the natives of Boriquen were copper-colored, but somewhat darker than the inhabitants of the neighboring islands. They were shorter of stature than the Spaniards, but corpulent and well-proportioned, with flat noses, wide nostrils, dull eyes, bad teeth, narrow foreheads, the skull artificially flattened before and behind so as to give it a conical shape, with long, black, coarse hair, beardless and hairless on the rest of the body. Says Oviedo: " ... Their heads were not like other people's, their skulls were so hard and thick that the Christians by fighting with them have learned not to strike them on the head because the swords break."

Their whole appearance betrayed a lazy, indolent habit, and they showed extreme aversion to labor or fatigue of any kind. They put forth no exertion save what was necessary to obtain food, and only rose from their "hamacas" or "jamacas," or shook off their habitual indolence to play a game of ball (batey) or attend the dances (areytos) which were accompanied by rude music and the chanting of whatever happened to occupy their minds at the time.

Notwithstanding their indolence and the unsubstantial nature of their food, they were comparatively strong and robust, as they proved in many a personal tussle with the Spaniards.

Clothing was almost unknown. Only the women of mature age used an apron of varying length, the rest, without distinction of age or sex, were naked. They took great pains in painting their bodies with all sorts of grotesque figures, the earthy coloring matter being laid on by means of oily or resinous substances extracted from plants or trees.

These coats of paint, when fresh, served as holiday attire, and protected them from the bites of mosquitoes and other insects. The dandies among them added to this airy apparel a few bright feathers in their hair, a shell or two in their ears and nostrils. And the caciques wore a disk of gold (guarim) the size of a large medal round their necks to denote their rank.

The huts were built square or oblong, raised somewhat above the ground, with only one opening for entrance and exit, cane being the principal building material. The chief piece of furniture was the "hamaca," made with creepers or strips of bark of the "emajagua" tree.

The "totumo" or "jiguera" furnished them with their domestic utensils, as it furnishes the "jibaro" of to-day with his cups and jugs and basins. Their mode of making fire was the universal one practised by savages. Their arms were the usual macana and bow and arrows, but they did not poison the arrows as did the Caribs. The largest of their canoes, or "piraguas," could contain from 40 to 50 men, and served for purposes of war, but the majority of their canoes were of small size used in navigating the coast and rivers.

There being no mammals in the island, they knew not the use of flesh for food, but they had abundance of fish, and they ate besides whatever creeping or crawling thing they happened to find. These with the yucca from which they made their casabe or bread, maize, yams, and other edible roots, constituted their food supply.

There were in Boriquen, as there are among all primitive races, certain individuals, the embryos of future church functionaries, who were medicine-man, priest, prophet, and general director of the moral and intellectual affairs of the benighted masses, but that is all we know of them.[60]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 60: For further information on this subject, see Estudios Ethnologicos sobre los indios Boriquenos, by A. Stahl, 1888. Revista Puertoriquena, Ano II, tomo II.]

CHAPTER XXIX

THE "JiBARO," OR PUERTO RICAN PEASANT

"There is in this island a class of inhabitants, not the least numerous by any means, who dwell in swamps and marshes, live on vegetables, and drink muddy water." So wrote Dr. Richard Rey[61] a couple of decades ago, and, although, under the changed political and social conditions, these people, as a class, will soon disappear, they are quite numerous still, and being the product of the peculiar social and political conditions of a past era deserve to be known.

To this considerable part of the population of Puerto Rico the name of "jibaros" is applied; they are the descendants of the settlers who in the early days of the colonization of the island spread through the interior, and with the assistance of an Indian or negro slave or two cleared and cultivated a piece of land in some isolated locality, where they continued to live from day to day without troubling themselves about the future or about what passed in the rest of the universe.

The modern jibaro builds his "bohio," or hut, in any place without regard to hygienic conditions, and in its construction follows the same plan and uses the same materials employed in their day by the aboriginal inhabitants. This "bohio" is square or oblong in form, raised on posts two or three feet from the ground, and the materials are cane, the trunks of the coco-palm, entire or cut into boards, and the bark of another species of palm, the "yaguas," which serves for roofing and walls. The interior of these huts is sometimes divided by a partition of reeds into two apartments, in one of which the family sit by day. The other is the sleeping room, where the father, mother, and children, male and female, of all ages, sleep, promiscuously huddled together on a platform of boards or bar bacao.

The majority of the jibaros are whites. Mestizoes, mulattos, and negroes are numerous also. But we are here concerned with the jibaro of European descent only, whose redemption from a degraded condition of existence it is to the country's interest should be specially attended to.

Mr. Francisco del Valle Atiles, one of Puerto Rico's distinguished literary men, has left us a circumstantial description of the character and conditions of these rustics.[62] He divides them into three groups: those living in the neighborhood of the large sugar and coffee estates, who earn their living working as peons; the second group comprises the small proprietors who cultivate their own patch of land, and the third, the comparatively well-to-do individuals or small proprietors who usually prefer to live as far as possible from the centers of population.

The jibaro, as a rule, is well formed, slender, of a delicate constitution, slow in his movements, taciturn, and of a sickly aspect.

Occasionally, in the mountainous districts, one meets a man of advanced age still strong and robust doing daily work and mounting on horseback without effort. Such a one will generally be found to be of pure Spanish descent, and to have a numerous family of healthy, good-looking children, but the appearance of the average jibaro is as described. He looks sickly and anemic in consequence of the insufficient quantity and innutritious quality of the food on which he subsists and the unhealthy conditions of his surroundings. Rice, plantains, sweet potatoes, maize, yams, beans, and salted fish constitute his diet year in year out, and although there are Indian races who could thrive perhaps on such frugal fare, the effect of such a _regime_ on individuals of the white race is loss of muscular energy and a consequent craving for stimulants.

His clothing, too, is scanty. He wears no shoes, and when drenched with rain or perspiration he will probably let his garments dry on his body. For the empty feeling in his stomach, the damp and the cold to which he is thus daily exposed, his antidotes are tobacco and rum, the first he chews and smokes. In the use of the second he seldom goes to the extent of intoxication.