One person in every five had a house or, in other words, the average number in a family was five, which may be thought to indicate a slow increase. Accordingly, the excess of birds above deaths in Los Santos, in 1827, was only 324, one seventy-second part of the population, or about one and a half per cent. In the United States the increase exceeds three, and approaches to four per cent. Of the houses, a very large proportion, almost a half, are marked as houses in the country, indicating at once security, and the prevalence of agricultural occupation: two-thirds are stated as 'thatched houses,' the remainder as 'tiled.'
The column marked 'cattle' includes both oxen for draught and slaughter. The breed is of good size; and the draught-oxen, when well broken, fetch from twenty-five to thirty dollars each. Those for slaughter may be bought at from twelve to eighteen dollars each, the best. The race of horses is small, but hardy; and their price varies from fifteen to forty dollars. Mules are said by Mr. Lloyd to be the animals most prized in the country, yet the return of their numbers in the canton of Los Santos, in 1827, is so small, as strikingly. to illustrate his previous statement as to the flatness of the country in this direction; for in mountainous districts, it is well known, no other animal is ever rode. Their price varies from twenty, even to 120 dollars. The number of goats is also very small, which, at first sight, seems merely to confirm the same fact; but when it is considered that, throughout the West Indies generally, this animal supplies the place of the sheep for the table, and in some degree also that of the milch-cow for the dairy, its rarity here leads to a further induction. Pigs are few, and of most exorbitant value; of a good size and well fattened, they will fetch from thirty to thirty-five dollars each; and are chiefly purchased by women butchers, who, after killing them, cut off every morsel of fat, and. sell it separately as lard for culinary purposes.
Fish and fowl are plentiful, cheap, and much used; and in Panamà market, hundreds of young sharks, of the kind called shovel-nosed; and from one to two feet and a half long, are daily sold for food. The guana[1] is considered an especial dainty, as are pearl oysters, and many varieties of game, which are brought in
- ↑ Thus described:—'It has much the appearance of a small alligator, of a yellowish green colour, and is very common along the banks of all the rivers, living chiefly on fruit and leaves of trees. It has a peculiar power of running on the top of water, which it does with great rapidity, and apparently with the greatest ease. Its claws seem, indeed, formed for the purpose, having a membrane, or web, resembling that of the duck.'The eggs of these creatures when dried, are considered a great luxury. They are little larger than a boy's marble, and have nearly the same flavour with turtle-eggs. The flesh itself resembles that of the fowl, both in appearance and taste. The Mosquito-Indians occasionally come to the river Chagres, in companies of twenty or thirty, to hunt the guana, which they do with great expertness, chasing them into the trees with small dogs, and shooting them with fowling-pieces. The Americans have taught them to know and use these both with percussion and other locks.'
