Look at these people coming in from the country! Our guide says they are
going to the market place. Let us follow them and see what a Puerto
Rican market place is.
Here it is, situated near the ocean. The court is formed with stones,
and it contains booths for fruits, vegetables, and produce of all kinds.
[Illustration: GOING TO MARKET.]
Dear me! what a busy, noisy place! People from every race and nation
seem to be gathered here. Big people, little people, babies, roosters,
dogs, donkeys, horses! What talking, shouting, laughing, crying,
crowing, barking, and braying!
Men are smoking, lounging about, and bragging about their game-cocks;
women are making small purchases and gossiping with neighbors; babies
are tumbling about on the ground, devouring bits of fruit that come in
their way: but all are good-natured.
Each market man or woman has a place assigned, and within this space or
in a booth are piled high heaps of fruits and vegetables. And such
fruits and vegetables we never in our lives beheld or even dreamed of!
Heaps and heaps of golden, luscious oranges are offered us by the
thousand, or two for a penny. Bananas are sold five for a cent, or a
bunch of a hundred bananas for twenty-five cents. Think of it! In New
York it would cost us three to five dollars.
There are ever and ever so many kinds of fruits of which we do not even
know the name. But we make a list of those whose names we do know, and
here they are: oranges, bananas, plantains, limes, lemons, cocoanuts,
bread-fruit, bread nuts, pomegranates, dates, figs, pawpaws, the
tamarind, sugar apple, grosella, mammee, guava, granadilla, naseberry,
alligator pears, shaddocks, and Indian plums.
Could you find so many in a New York, New Orleans, Chicago, or San
Francisco market, do you think?
Then here are the vegetables. They would make even a longer list, but we
note a few of those with whose names and forms we are acquainted: yams,
sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes, carrots, turnips, celery, beets, egg
plant, radishes, peas, beans, tomatoes, cabbage, pumpkins, cantaloupes,
watermelons, squashes, peppers, cassava, yantias, and okra.
[Illustration: A POULTRY DEALER.]
The people in the market, seeing that we are Americans, try to charge
us many times what each article is worth. If we travel very far, we will
find that this is a custom of the people in many countries. They think
all Americans are rich.
[Illustration: THE MARKET PLACE AT PONCE, PUERTO RICO.]
Now this is a great mistake, and so we decline very firmly to buy
anything at all. This offends the market people. They wish us to make
them an offer.
They offer us their fruits for half the first price. Again we refuse. A
fourth of the original price. We shake our heads.
Our guide now offers to make our purchases for us, and does so for a
very small sum. And the market people and venders are quite satisfied.
It is all they expected.
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