one-fourth of it in henequen, part of the rest in pasture and a part unreclaimed. In the center of the plantation is the farm settlement, consisting of a grass-grown patio, or yard, surrounding which are the main farm buildings, the store, the factory, the house of the administrador, or general manager; the house of the mayordomo primero, or superintendent; the houses of the mayordomos segundos, or overseers, and the little chapel. Behind these are the corrals, the drying yard, the stable, the jail dormitory. Finally, surrounding all are the rows of one-room huts set in little patches of ground, in which reside the married slaves and their families.
Here we found fifteen hundred slaves and about thirty bosses of various degrees. Thirty of the slaves were Koreans, about two hundred were Yaquis and the rest were Mayas. The Maya slaves, to my eyes, differed from the free Mayas I had seen in the city principally in their clothing and their general unkempt and overworked appearance. Certainly they were of the same clay. Their clothing was poor and ragged, yet generally clean. The women wore calico, the men the thin, unbleached cotton shirt and trousers of the tropics, the trousers being often rolled to the knees. Their hats were of coarse straw or grass, their feet always bare.
Seven hundred of the slaves are able-bodied men, the rest women and children. Three hundred and eighty of the men are married and live with their families in the one-room huts. These huts are set in little patches of ground 144 feet square, which, rocky and barren as they are, are cultivated to some small purpose by the women and children. In addition to the product of their barren garden patch each family receives daily credit at the plantation store for twenty-five centavos, or twelve and one-half cents' worth of merchandise.
