Page:Barbarous Mexico.djvu/37

Rh No money is paid; it is all in credit, and this same system prevails on about one-half the plantations. The other half merely deal out rations. It amounts to the same thing, but some of the planters stick to the money credit system merely in order to keep up the pretense of paying wages. I priced some of the goods at the store—corn, beans, salt, peppers, clothing and blankets was about all there was—and found that the prices were high. I could not understand how a family could live on twelve and one-half cents' worth of it each day, a hard-working family, especially.

The slaves rise from their beds when the big bell in the patio rings at 3:45 o'clock in the morning, and their work begins as soon thereafter as they can get to it. Their work in the fields ends when it is too dark to see, and about the yards it sometimes extends until long into the night.

The principal labor of the plantation is harvesting the henequen leaves and cleaning the weeds from between the plants. Each slave is given a certain number of leaves to cut or plants to clean, and it is the policy of the planter to make the stint so hard that the slave is compelled to call out his wife and children to help him. Thus nearly all the women and children of the plantation spend a part of the day in the field. The unmarried women spend all the day in the field, and when a boy reaches the age of twelve he is considered to be a man and is given a stint of his own to do. Sundays the slaves do not work for the master. They spend their time in their patches, rest or visit. Sunday is the day on which the youths and maidens meet and plan to marry. Sometimes they are even permitted to go off the farm and meet the slaves of their neighbor, but never are they permitted to marry the people of other