Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1889-03-26
IN A GUAJIRO'S HOME.
How the Tramps Of Cuba Live anc
What They Do.
q Country Where the Landed Aristocracy
Is Constantly Passing from Opuience to
Beggary-Poor But HospitabIs
Men and Women.

The Cuban countryman is an entertaining
study, remarks Edgar L. Wakeman in one
of his letters from Cuba to the New York
Nail and Express. His generic name is Ell
guajiro. The guajiro to the city Cuban is
any countryman, cor fellow from the
country" But when you come to know the
interior you will find he has three names.
These are guajirO, the montero and the
sitiero The guajiro, properly speaking, is
the Cuban country lout; the same fellow
you have seen Longing about remote
country crossroads stores in our own land;
the fellow who IS bumped and caliow,
scraggy of hair, with spreading legs, swing
ing jaws, silent tongue and sodden eyes
the being here not so bright as the negro Of
the tropics, nor so sunny, nor even so little
aspiring. He is a sort of spiritless animal,
never exactly harmful, never wholly help
full, always contented with a ragged SOM
brero of any sort of stuff, pair of leather
breaches, filthy shirt worn outside these,
any vile cigarette, like our own noble
American youth, a cockade, and machete,
or any other villainous knife, though
q tap from O riding whip would drive
him into q paralysis of fear. He
is not vicious, though he looks it desperate
". He does some labor. He does that not
wholly under protest. But he is, all in all,
only another one in summing up population.
If he be married he lives in apalm-thatched
hut any where. His wife, whose grade Of
intelligence is even beneath his own, is pro-
Life of children and eXpedients That is,
she will give her husband from q dozen to
score of healthy young guajiros, and knows
how to boil roots and mend the matches of
their cabin. These duties are about all their
condition imposes. Over there against the
mountain, where l have been for few
days, are a number of these guajiros'
homes. / counted ninety three children in
seven families. OF these over one-half were
naked. There is no cabin where O half doz-
en- cooking and eating utensils can be found.
Thoy live upon yucca root, the yam, and they
gave me bread made of salt and corn, broken
in a stone mortar, baked upon heated stone.
Sometimes they get bit of tassejo or
South American dried beef. AS great treat
@ few times each year scrap of the filthiest
American pork is had. These occasions are
very close to heaven. And yet among the
youth and maidens Of this listless brood are
those of noble frame and face; and pitiful
look of eager longing would fit into their
splendid eyes as | told them what their
gainings might be in any land of labor and
reward AFFECT poverty sits upon their
world. But its grip and sting are powerless
TO prod into action. The luxuriance, bounte-
business and prodigality of nature are more
than match for perjury here. This consid-
cred, there would seem 10 be no hope for the
guajiro. So long as he Is a subject of Spain
perhaps he is better without it.
When the guajiro becomes, instead of
squatter, a regular tenant of The land, the
countrywide name for him is changed TO Ell
Atiero. These sitieros usually occupy bit
Of land called caballeria, comprising thirty
three and one-third acres, but frequently
only fraction of that amount, for which he
pays an exorbitant rental TO the proprie-
tario, who lives in Havana in opulence and
dissipation. The proprietario is as hard
upon his Cuban brother as Spain is upon the
island. Thls landlord lives his little spend
thrift life in the gay capital, only to become
overwhelmed with debt and in time be sup
planted by other land proprietors, who, in
their turn, dissipate, grind the tenantry and
make way again for others. Thus the landed
. aristocracy of Cuba is constantly passing
from opulence to beggary A common ex-
preston here illustrates the quick shifting
of fortunes in commerce as well as in lands:
padre bodeguero, hiio caballero, nieto
pordio sero!" ('The father grocer, the
son a gentleman, the grandson beggar!1
But in all these changes the sitiero re
mains the same luckless, sunny gatherer of
whatever this grand and exaoerant clfms
brings forth. He has neither motive nor
prompting, from an active need or wise
landlord, 10 be else than he is, and this will
be so long as the race which rules him con-
tinues in mastery. So il Is that you viii see
him on every hand, using the primitive
utensils with which mother earth was prod
ded in old Spain half a thousand years
gRo-scarcely better of than the ancient
Goths and Huns in envlronment-and drag
Eing his drinking water by ox-sled in ire
mendous puucheons from some spring or
stream miles and miles away from his palm
matched. hillside howell
But the montero is more Of man. he Is
often cutie as indolent And il must be ever
borne in mind that virility, viGor, activity,
thrift as we know them IN our rigorous
cline. which thrust savage necessity al
when the permanent set begins 10 appear.
There should be no falling awayof the small
milk-teeth from decay; but gradually their
roots viii be absorbed, until there IS no
longer support for the crown. which then
loosens and, under favorable conditions,
fails out, or may be gently removed VIZ.
little or no pain, and as fair and clean as
when IT first appeared in the mouth. The
second tooth now appears: and if little
forethought has been taken TO secure for y
plenty OF room. il Is coueIz and heait