[Illustration: HOW THE PEONS LIVE.] Like other Spanish-American countries, the national vices are indolence and extravagance. The common people never get ahead, and have no need of purses, much less of savings-banks. They might make good wages, as they are naturally good producers, but they always spend their earnings before they receive them, and are encouraged to keep in debt to those who employ them, as, under the law, no laborer can leave a job upon which he is employed as long as he owes his employer a penny. This system of credit, although it amounts to only a few dollars in each case, is equivalent to slavery, a peonage which is permanent; for if the laborer really aspires to be a free man, he is persuaded or threatened or swindled into renewing the obligation under which his life is spent. The aristocracy are equally extravagant. It is a part of their religion, apparently, to spend their incomes, even if they do not anticipate them; and the latter is generally the case. Nearly every crop is mortgaged to the commission man before it is harvested, and the planter is compelled to take the price that is offered. The peon is in debt to the planter, the planter to the merchant, the merchant to the commission-house, and the latter conducts his business on borrowed money; and so it goes on, year after year, without cessation, each person involved spending as much or more than he makes, and conducting his business on paper, like speculators in the stock market, the country growing poorer each year, with no possible hope of redemption except by an influx of fresh blood and capital. The climate is delightful, the land is wonderfully productive, and the products always in active demand in the markets of the world.