Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/696

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NE of the commonest elements in any picture of modern Latin America is the cargador, or porter. Upon his back may be seen water, merchandise of every sort, in curious receptacles, supported and held in place by a strap across his foreheador across his breast. His dress also is the quaintest mixture, partly old, partly new, of the primitive aboriginal and of the later European cut and stuffs. But at present we are concerned with his feet and their gear. Underneath is a sole of hide, harness leather or sole leather as the case may be, cut in the form of the foot and having a hole through the front and gashes through the margin just beneath the ankle. About the foot is the lacing, consisting of a narrow strap knotted at one end, drawn up through the hole in front between the first and the second toe, then carried over the back of the foot through a side gash, where it makes a half hitch, then backward over the heel to the other gash, making another half hitch, thence over the instep, where it is tied into itself to complete the round. There is another style in which the toe string is omitted, a cross lacing over the top of the foot and above the heel like that on a west coast baby frame, holding the sole to the foot. There are many varieties of these types, as may be seen in Wiener's Pérou et Bolivie, pages 676-681.