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" The women seemed more industrious than the men, for they were housekeepers; and the noise of the Indian housewife patting her tortillas in preparation for breakfast was the only sound that ever broke the silence of our quiet morning rides. For what need have men to work in a land of perpetual summer, where fruits grow wild, and a small piece of ground will produce frijoles and corn, their sole living; where branches and stout vines from the woods furnish the framework of their houses, mud the covering, and palm leaves the thatching for the roof? They come up idle and careless in the sunshine, marry, grow old and die never having advanced a step beyond their fathers, nor, to all appearance, had a longing for better things. Yet there was never a more docile, kind-hearted happy people in the world, and who shall say they are not much better off than we, with our artificial wants, and strivings after the impossible? (pge 107) "
― Helen Josephine Sanborn , A Winter In Central America And Mexico