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90 very interesting. Here were the milk and fruit peddlers, each with his wares hanging from a yoke balanced over his broad shoulders. And here were funny looking ponies and donkeys with huge burdens strapped to their backs. Native carts were rather scarce, but occasionally one would come lumbering along, with its broad and almost solid wheels, and its team of oxen or cows. The driver would walk by the team's side, lashing them with a long whip and yelling at them continually in very bad Spanish.

The people also interested the boys. A large proportion of them were black, the blacks increasing in number as the seacoast was left behind. Most of the colored men looked friendly enough, but here and there could be found fellows of mixed Carib blood—tall, ugly looking creatures.

"I reckon they are the Porto Rican brigands," whispered Dick, as they passed three of the ugly looking Caribs. "I don't think I would care to meet them of a dark night along a lonely road."

"These people have good cause to be ugly," put in Robert Menden. "Spain has robbed the natives for years by taxing them to death, and I understand that in many places the church has fallen into disrepute because the clergy do