I  rambled  about  several  sections  of  the  island  on  foot.  There  was
the  trip  to  and  about  Lares,  for  instance,  in  the  heart  of  the  coffee
district.  The  men  of  the  over-developed  big  toes  are  less  in  touch  with
the  outside  world  than  either  the  cane  or  tobacco  planters.  The  coffee
industry  is  the  only  one  that  suffered  by  the  island's  change  of  sov-


296          ROAMING  THROUGH  THE  WEST  INDIES

ereignty.  Though  it  was  not  introduced  into  Porto  Rico  until  more
than  two  centuries  after  the  sugar-cane,  the  Arabian  berry  was  the  king
of  the  island  when  General  Miles  landed  the  first  American  troops  at
Guanica.  The  loss  of  their  free  markets  in  Spain  and  Cuba,  however,
caused  the  coffee  men  to  succumb  under  a  discouragement  from  which
they  have  not  wholly  recovered  to  this  day.  It  is  this,  no  doubt,  which
accounts  for  the  careless  methods  of  the  cafetales,  where  jungle,  weeds,
and  parasites  often  choke  the  bushes,  while  the  berries  are  dried  on
half-cured  cowhides  laid  in  the  open  streets  or  on  hut  floors,  with
chickens,  dogs,  goats,  and  naked  children,  to  say  nothing  of  pigs,
wandering  over  them  at  will.  Such  conditions  will  of  course  improve
when  the  United  States,  th»  greatest  coffee-drinking  nation  on  the
globe,  finally  learns  that  a  berry  equal  to  any  in  the  world  can  be
produced  on  American  soil.
