During the rainy season the people live in great discomfort. The cooking must be done inside the hut at this time. As there is no chimney, the room is soon filled with smoke, which can only escape through the openings under the eaves. Would you like to see the furniture of one of these poor cabins? It consists of a few calabash shells used for eating vessels; some rude earthen pots; a tin cup, perhaps; two or three hammocks made of the bark of the palm tree, and a machete. Bunches of dried herbs and gourds dangle on the walls, but there are no pictures, curtains, or ornaments of any kind. At night the people sleep on the floor, or in hammocks. They spend much of the day also in swinging to and fro in their hammocks, smoking, and playing on their guitars and other native musical instruments. By the door the family dog and the naked babies tumble in the dirt. Perhaps there is a pig and some poultry; but there is sure to be a game-cock or two. Near the house is the garden. In this are raised sweet potatoes, beans, squashes, muskmelons, peppers, gourds, calabashes, bananas and plantains. The farmers we see at work have their oxen harnessed to rude plows by the horns. The ground is so rich it is not necessary to plow it very deep. An acre of good land here will produce more vegetables and fruit than in most other countries. Riding through the country we see plantations of coffee, sugar cane or tobacco, and also stock farms. Puerto Rico is fertile from the mountain tops to the sea. It is rich in pasture lands, shaded with groves of palm trees, and watered by hundreds of streams. Here and there herds of horses and cattle and flocks of sheep graze on the plains. When we approach the flocks of sheep, we discover a very curious thing. The wool on these sheep is not at all like the wool on the sheep raised in our own country. It is more like the hair of the goat. Cattle are highly valued by the people, not only for dairy and food purposes, but as beasts of burden and draft. Outside of the large plantations, crops are raised on a small scale; and modern implements and machinery are almost unknown. [Illustration: A MOUNTAIN VILLAGE IN PUERTO RICO.] Most of the land is divided up into very small farms or garden patches, or is taken up by groves. In the interior of the country are many little villages, shut out from the rest of the world. We reach them by the narrow horse-trails that wind in and out among the mountains. THE LABORER'S HILLSIDE HOME. Perched on the hilltops and sides, shaded by banana trees, are the picturesque little huts of the laborers. Most of them pay no rent. Land owners give them small patches of ground on the hillsides, which they themselves do not care to till, in order to have the laborers near or on the plantations to assist in cultivating or harvesting the sugar cane, tobacco and coffee crops.