"This is a normal _jíbaro_ diet. With the wage paid him he can get no better, but aside from this he is wedded to cheap bulky foods, chiefly for reasons to be stated, and is completely ignorant of the importance of certain foods which any hygienist would like to add to his bill of fare. If the normal food of the _jíbaro_, as stated, were his usual food, it would not be so serious a matter, nor would the _jíbaro_ complain so bitterly of his wretched ration, but the fact is he does not get the menu detailed above save when he can be said to be prosperous. Only a few cents difference in wages will cut out the small proportion of animal proteids he obtains, the codfish, and a cyclone will drive him in sheer desperation to the town. "Aside from all this, if wages were better, it is said, he would leave his ration as it now is and spend his surplus otherwise. This has not been given, however, a very earnest trial. He takes also more rum than he is given credit for by those who have accepted the formula that the _jíbaro_ does not drink, but it is true that he is not usually intemperate in this sense. One of his vices is _la mascaura_ (the wad of tobacco), and he believes the juice of the tobacco to be beneficial in warding off tetanus. "The _jíbaro_, mountain bred, avoids the town whenever possible, avoids the genteel life of a civilization higher than that of his own. He instinctively tucks his little hut away in the most inaccessible spots; he shrinks from the stranger and lapses into stolid silence when brought face to face with things that are foreign to his life. He does this because he has been made to feel that he must do all that he is told to do by established authority, and he knows that this authority never takes the trouble to look for him unless it expects to get something out of him; because he is suspicious of outsiders, having been too often led astray by false prophets and disappointed by broken promises; because he realizes that he is not a free agent anywhere save in the mountain fastnesses. In other words, he seeks liberty in his home, freedom from the constant repression of those he recognizes as his superiors, and exemption from a repetition of deceptions that have been so often practiced upon him. He has always been made to stay strictly in his class, in the _jíbaro_ class. Frequently when he tries to express himself he is laughed down, frowned down, or growled down. '_Tu eres un jíbaro_' is not a term of reproach exactly, but it means 'You are not in a position to express yourself, for you are only a mountaineer. You know nothing of our world; you are still a child. Your place is under the shade of the coffee tree; the mark you bear is clear to everyone; you are a _jíbaro_.' Thus there is a great difference between the _jíbaro_ and those who are not _jíbaros_, _i.e._, those who live in towns or those who command in the country. This distinction is neither made unkindly nor roughly. All the Porto Rican people are kindly and