"You've never truly lived, Señor, until you've had a pregnant woman," he said. The speaker was a short sweaty man of about thirty, wearing tattered white cotton work togs. The place was the docks at San Ambroso, an insignificant town in Central America, where the freighter on which I was returning from a vacation in Brazil had put in for minor repairs. "I am Juan Garcia," the little man persisted, "For just a few pesos, Señor, I take you to a beautiful pregnant woman who will give you a good time, I guarantee, like nothing you've ever dreamed of."

I told him in Spanish that my dreams never included pregnant women, but I offered to buy him a beer if he would guide me to a good bar. He seemed delighted and leading me along for several blocks with the usual conversation finally ushered me into the Cornucopia Bar, a large but rather shabby place. Except for the long counter and a juke box the room contained only four tables indicating either an habitual dearth of customers or else a great deal of dancing on the spacious empty floor. We were alone except for the barman so we had our choice of tables.

Juan explained, "Business is very poor in my country. There are many people, everywhere many people, but little food. Most of our citizens have no work, and those who do have employment earn barely enough to keep body and soul together. It is very unfortunate. Ah! Here comes Maria, the one I told you about. Hello, mi cara, perhaps I have brought you a customer." Then turning to me, "She has a room out back, and for only a few pesos. . . No? Well, sit down anyway, Maria, maybe the Señor will change his mind."

Maria, like too many Latin women of thirty, had a worn-out look about her, and, though she was obviously pregnant, her arms and legs were like match stems. Yet she said a few cheerful words of greeting and eagerly poured herself a glass of beer. Juan continued, "She has not eaten since yesterday, poor dear, and with the baby on the way I worry. She was been a perfect wife to me for fifteen years." "Your wife?"

"I understand your surprise, Señor," Juan went on. "She really doesn't look her age, but she has given me fifteen wonderful children, who all look like me. I try to be a good father, and you have no idea what difficulties I go through to feed my little ones."

I caught myself in time before inquiring how all the children looked like Juan if his wife was no better than she should be. I merely assumed that she followed the practice of Mrs. Octavian Caesar, who always shunned other masculine advances until she was already in a family way by her husband.

"Some day we hope to get married," Juan sighed pensively, "Like most couples in this country, Señor, we could never afford to pay the priest to marry us." "Marriage is a sacrament," I pointed out, "Even I-raised a Protestant-know that no priest can charge you for performing a sacrament."

"True, Señor, but it would embarrass us too much to get married without some little offering for the priest. And perhaps there would be flowers to buy, and a band, and wine for the guests.... No, Señor, it would embarrass us too much without money for the priest. These are indeed hard times."

"What's the chief means of livelihood here," I inquired, trying diplomatically to change the subject.

"Some fish and some farm," Juan said, "but the ocean currents are not right for fishing, and the land is exhausted. Would you believe it, Señor, the land here was once fertile and abundant-like our people. When my grandfather came here from the capital as a youth, the forests in this province were nearly untouched. He could burn away all the timber he liked, to get as much as he could work. And wood ashes make the corn grow high and green. Others came, and they with all their children did the same. But with the trees gone, every rain carried away more

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