The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-04-03
ODD THINGS IN ECUADOR.
STRANGE COMMODITIES AND
 MERCHANTS

With Queer Business Mefhods-sO- Called "Panama Hats" are Never Made In Panama.
 Especial Correspondence of the Journal
 and Courier.)
 Guayaquil. Ecuador, March 1, 1908.
 As this port is the commercial center of Ecuador-in fact the only place within its borders worth mentioning in connection with trade-its merchants carry considerable stocks of goods. Some of them claim to have half million pesos. or more, invested, with an annual trade of double that amount. Very few of them, however, are Ecua- dorians. The heaviest importers are Chinese; then Germans, French, Eng fish and Italians in the order named. The Chinese, with their usual quiet persistency, have driven so many na- tive dealers to the wall and continue their monopolies so alarmingly, that a few years ago the legislature of the re- public, following the bright and shining example of Uncle Samuel, passed law forbidding the immigration of Mongoli- ans to Ecuador. The Celestial, when transplanted to this congenial climate. no longer confines himself to the socie- ty of his own countrymen and women, as in California and elsewhere, but blossoms out as leader of Caucasian society, delighting to share his marital attentions, his opium-pipe and his wash-tub with representatives of other generally low-class Ecuadorians, in whose veins circulates regular ollapo- drida of Indian, Spanish, Negro and Anglo-Saxon blood, and whose leather Colored skin is not bad match for his own saffron -hued complexion; the main difference in looks" being in the eyes those of the native women being very large, dark and expressive, and not set on the bias after the fashion of the Flowery Kingdom. As may be in ferred, the offspring of this polyglot pa- rentage have not much to boast of in the way of beauty. They are about as prepossessing in appearance as the peo- pie of the Creek nation in the Indian territory, who are mixed Indian, Scotch and Negro, and have kinky red hair, high cheek bones, fiat noses, light blue eyes with pinkish lids, and yellowish skin covered with dark brown freckles large as marrow-fat peas
 The lower floors of all the buildings along the principal street of Guayaquil are used for shops, while the mer- chants and their families live above them. F During business hours the en- tire front of each house is removed, to allow freer circulation of air and the better to show off goods, the ground floors having no windows. The upper stories are abalconied, and during the day awnings are let down, permitting the inmates to look out from behind, but perfectly screening them from out side observation. At evening the avn ings are furled, and then everybody rushes to the open air-all except the women who are welded to Chinamen. They must still remain in virtuous se- c1usion, because their lords and mas ters do the greatest amount of business in their shops between sun-down and midnight, and are therefore unable to escort their wives abroad. But on fies- ta days and Sundays you see them each Celestial husband walking ahead with the lordly air of chanticleer, his seraglio of hens meekly following, in the order of their espousal-the oldest wife first, although generally his man. ner shows that he prefers the latest ac- quisition.
 Ecuadors' exports bear no propor- tion to her capabilities, and there is no excuse but laziness for the chronic bankruptcy of the country The ship ments of cocoa, coffee, India-rubber, hides, chincona bark, nuts, vegetable ivory, orchilla- weed, sarsaparilla, tam arinds and other fruits amount to an average of six million pesos per annum.
 They tell us in Guayaquil that Ecua- dor imports upwards of ten million pe- SOS worth every year-but perhaps we may be pardoned for doubting the statement. The government keeps no statistics of it's commerce and the value of imports is based merely on the amount of duties collected. It does not seem reasonable that the most impover-