Cuba. Volantes. A Cuban Railway. Voyage. Passports. Isle of Pines.
Mosquitos. Pirates. Runaway slaves. Baths of Santa Fé. Alligators. The
Cura. Missionary Priest. Florida Colonists. Blacks in the West Indies.
Chinese and African slaves.
CHAPTER II.
Players and Political Adventurers. Voyage. Yucatan. Slave-trade in
Natives. The Ten Tribes. Vera Cruz. Don Ignacio Comonfort. Mexican
Politics. Casualties. The City of the Dead. Turkey-buzzards. Northers.
The “temperate region.” Cordova. The Chipi-chipi. The “cold region.”
Mirage. Sand-pillars. The rainy season. Plundered passengers.
Robber-priest. Aztec remains. Aloe-fields. Houses of mud-bricks. Huts
of aloes. Mexican churches. Mexican roads. Making pulque.
CHAPTER III.
Palace-hotel of Yturbide. Site and building of Mexico. Changes in the
Valley of Mexico. Dearth of Trees. Architecture. Drunkenness. Fights.
Rattles. Judas’s Bones. Burning Judas. Churches in Holy Week. Streets.
Barricades. People. Women. The cypress of Chapultepec. Old-fashioned
coaches. The canal of Chalco. Canoe-travelling. “Reasonable people.”
Taste for flowers. The “Floating Gardens.” Promenade. Flooded streets.
Earthquakes.
CHAPTER IV.
Tacubaya. Humming-birds and butterflies. Aztec feather-work. Bullfight.
Lazoing and colearing. English in Mexico. Hedge of organ-cactus.
Pachuca. Cold in the hills. Rapid evaporation. Mountain-roads. Real del
Monte. Guns and pistols. Regla. The father-confessor in Mexico. Morals
of servitude. Cornish miners. Dram-drinking. Salt-trade. The Indian
market. Indian Conservatism. Sardines. Account-keeping. The great
Barranca. Tropical fruits. Prickly pears. Their use. The
“Water-Throat.” Silver-works. Volcano of Jorullo. Cascade of Regla.
“Eyes of Water.” Fires. The Hill of Knives. Obsidian implements.
Obsidian mines. The Stone-age. The loadstone-mountain of Mexico.
Unequal Civilization of the Aztecs. Silver and commerce of Mexico.
Effect of Protection-duties. Silver mines. The Aztec numerals.
CHAPTER V.
A Revolution. Siege and Capitulation of Puebla. Military Statistics.
Highway-robbery. Reform in Mexico. The American war. Mexican army. Our
Lady of Guadalupe. Miracles. The rival Virgins. Sacred lottery-ticket.
Literature in Mexico. The clergy and their system of Education in
Mexico. The Holy Office. Indian Notions of Christianity.
CHAPTER VI.
To Tezcuco. Indian Canoes. Sewer-canal. Water-snakes. Salt-lakes. A
storm on the lake. Glass-works. Casa Grande. Quarries. Stone Hammers.
Use of Bronze in stone-cutting in Mexico and Egypt. Prickly Pears.
Temple-pyramids of Teotihuacán. Sacrifice of Spaniards. Old Mexico.
Market of Antiquities. Police. Bull-dogs. Accumulation of Alluvium.
Tezcotzinco. Ancient baths and bridge. Salt and salt-pans. Fried
flies’-eggs. Water-pipes. Irrigation. Agriculture in Mexico. History
repeats itself.
CHAPTER VII.
Horses and their training. Saddles and bits. The Courier. Leather
clothes. The Serape. The Rag-fair of Mexico, Thieves. Gourd
water-bottles. Ploughing. Travelling by Diligence. Indian carriers.
Mules. Breakfast. Bragadoccio. Robbers. Escort. Cuernavaca. Tropical
Vegetation. Sugar-cane. Temisco. Sugar-hacienda. Indian labourers. The
evensong. The Raya. Strength of the Indians. Xochicalco. Ruins of the
Pyramid. Sculptures. Common ornaments. The people of Mexico and Central
America. Their civilization. Pear-shaped heads. Miacatlán.
CHAPTER VIII.
Cocoyotla. Indian labourers. Political Condition of the Indians. Indian
Village and huts. Cotton-spinning. The Indian Alcalde. Great Cave of
Cacahuamilpán. Optical phenomenon. Monk on horseback. Religion of the
Indians. Idols. Baptism by wholesale. Village amusements. Dancing.
Chalma. The meson and the convent. Church-dances. The miller’s
daughter. Young friar. The Hill of Drums. Sacred cypress-tree. Oculan.
Change of climate. Grain-districts of Mexico. The Desierto. Tenancingo.
Toluca. Lerma. Robbers.
CHAPTER IX.
Museum. Fate of Antiquities. War-God. Sacrificial Stone. Mexican words
naturalized in Europe, &c. Chamber of Horrors. Aztec Art. Wooden Drums.
Aztec Picture-writings. The “Man-flaying” Mr. Uhde’s Collection. Mr.
Christy’s Collection. Bones of Giants. Cortes’ Armour. Mexican
Calendar-stone. Aztec Astronomy. Mongol Calendar. Peculiarities of
Aztec Civilization. The Prison at Mexico. No “Criminal class.”
Prison-discipline. The Garotte. Mexican law-courts. Statistics. The
Compadrazgo. Leperos and Lepers. Lazoing the bull. Cockfighting.
Gambling. Monte. The fortunate Miners.
CHAPTER X.
A travelling companion. Mexicans who live by their wits. Jackal-masks,
&c. Mexican words used in the United States. Miraflores.
Cotton-factory. Sacred Mount and Cypress-tree. Rainy Season. Ascent of
Popocatepetl. The Crater. View of Anahuac. Descent from Popocatepetl.
Plain of Puebla. Snow-blindness. Hospitable Shopkeeper. Morality of
Smuggling. Pyramid and Antiquities of Cholula. Hybrid Legends of
Mexico. Genuine Legends. Old-world analogies among the Aztecs.
CHAPTER XI.
Puebla. The Pasadizos. Revolutions in Mexico. Festival of Corpus
Christi. Mexican clergy. Their incomes and morals. Scourging. Religion
of the People. Anomalous constitution of the Republic. The horse-bath.
Debt-slaves or peons. Great fortunes in Mexico. Amozoque. Spurs.
Nopalucán. Orizaba. Robbers. Locusts. Indian village. Inroads of
Civilization. Lawsuits. Native Aristocracy. The vapour-bath. Scanty
population. Its explanation. Unhealthy habits. Epidemics. Intemperance.
Pineapples. Potrero. Negros. Mixed races. “Painted men.”
CHAPTER XII.
Barrancas. Indian trotting. Flowers. Armadillo. Fire-flies. Singular
Fandango. Epiphytes. The Junta. Indian Life. Decorative Art. Horses.
Jalapa. Anglo-Mexicans. Insect-life. Monte. Fate of Antonio. Scorpion.
White Negress. Cattle. Artificial lighting. Vera Cruz. Further Journey.
St. Thomas’s. Voyage to England. Future destinies of Mexico.
APPENDIX.
I. The Manufacture of Obsidian Knives.
II. On the Solar Eclipses recorded in the Le Tellier MS.
III. Table of Aztec roots.
IV. Glossary.
V. Ancient Mexican mosaic work (in Mr. Christy’s Collection).
VI. Dasent’s Essay on the Ethnographical value of Popular Tales and
Legends.
INDEX.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS:
PLATES:
Cascade of Regla. _From a photograph by J. Bell, Esq._ Porter and
Baker in Mexico.
Indians bringing Country Produce to Market.
Indians in a Rancho, making and baking Tortillas.
Map to illustrate Messrs. Tylor and Christy’s journeys and excursions
in Mexico.
WOODCUTS:
_(The cuts of smaller objects of antiquity, and articles at present in
use, have been drawn from specimens in the Collection of Henry Christy,
Esq.)_
Indian Tlachiquero, collecting juice of the Agave for Pulque.
View of Part of the Valley of Mexico.
Water-carrier and Mexican Woman at the Fountain.
Group of Mexican Ecclesiastics.
Stone Spear-heads, and Obsidian Knives and Arrow-heads, from Mexico.
Fluted Prism of Obsidian, and Knife-flakes.
Mexican Arrow-heads of Obsidian.
Aztec Stone-knife, with wooden handle, inlaid with mosaic work.
Aztec Head in Terra-cotta.
The Rebozo and the Serape.
Aztec Bridge near Tezcuco.
Spanish-Mexican Saddle and appendages.
Spanish-Mexican Bit, with ring and chain.
Sculptured Panel, from Xochicalco. _(After Nebel)_.
Small Aztec Head in Terra-cotta.
Ixtacalco Church.
Spanish-Mexican Spurs.
Goddess of War. _(After Nebel)_.
Three Views of a Sacrificial Collar or Clamp, carved out of hard
stone.
Two Views of a Mask, carved out of hard stone.
Ancient Bronze Bells.
Spanish-Mexican Cock-spurs.
Leather Sandals.
Mexican Costumes. _(After Nebel)_.
View of Orizaba.
Indians of the Plateau. _(After Nebel)_.
[Illustration: THE CASCADE OF REGLA. _From a Photograph by J.
Ball Esq. of the Hacienda de Regla. March 1856._]
INTRODUCTION.
The journey and excursions in Mexico which have originated the
narrative and remarks contained in this volume were made in the months
of March, April, May, and June of 1856, for the most part on horseback.
The author and his fellow-traveller enjoyed many advantageous
opportunities of studying the country, the people, and the antiquities
of Mexico, owing to the friendly assistance and hospitality which they
received there. With this aid they were enabled to accomplish much more
than usually falls to the lot of travellers in so limited a period; and
they had the great advantage too, of being able to substantiate or
correct their own observations by the local knowledge and experience of
their friends and entertainers.
Visiting Mexico during a lull in the civil turmoil of that lamentably
disturbed Republic, they were fortunate in being able to avail
themselves of that peaceable season in making excursions to remarkable
places and ruins, and examining the national collection of antiquities,
and other objects of interest,—an opportunity that cannot have occurred
since owing to the recommencement of civil war in its worst form.
The following are some of the chief points of interest in these Notes
on Mexico, which are either new or treated more fully than hitherto:
1. The evidence of an immense ancient population, shewn by the
abundance of remains of works of art (treated of at pages 146-150), is
fully stated here.
2. The notices and drawings of Obsidian knives and weapons (at page 95,
&c., and in the Appendix) are more ample than any previously given.
3. The treatment of the Mexican Numerals (at page 108) is partly new.
4. The proofs of the highly probable sophistication of the document in
the Library at Paris, relative to Mexican eclipses, have not previously
been advanced (see Appendix).
5. The notices of objects of Mexican art, &c., in the chapter on
Antiquities, and elsewhere (including the Appendix), are for the most
part new to the public.
6. The remarks on the connection between pure Mexican art and that of
Central America, in the chapter on Xochicalco, are in great part new.
7. The singular native bridge at Tezcuco (page 153) is another novelty.
The order in which places and things were visited is shewn in the
annexed Itinerary, or sketch of the journeys and excursions described.
ITINERARY.
Journey 1. Cuba. Havana. Batabano. Isles of Pines. Nueva Gerona. Baños
de Santa Fé. Back to Havana. _Pages_ 1-14.
Journey 2. Havana. Sisal. Vera Cruz. _Pages_ 15-18.
Journey 3. Vera Cruz. Cordova. Orizaba. Huamantla. Otumba. Guadalupe.
Mexico. _Pages_ 18-38.
Journey 4. Mexico to Tacubaya and Chapultepec, and back. _Pages_ 55-58.
Journey 5. Mexico to Santa Anita and back. _Pages_ 59-65.
Journey 6. Mexico. Guadalupe. Pachuca. Real del Monte. Regla.
Atotonilco el Grande. Soquital and back to Real del Monte. Real del
Monte to Mount Jacal and Cerro de Navajas (obsidian-pits), and back to
Real del Monte. Pachuca. Guadalupe. Mexico. _Pages_ 72-105.
Journey 7. Mexico to Tisapán. Ravine of Magdalena. Pedrigal
(lava-field), and back. _Pages_ 118-120.
Journey 8. Mexico to Tezcuco. Pages 129—162. Tezcuco to Pyramids of
Teotihuacán and back. Pages 136—146. Tezcuco to Tezcotzinco (the
so-called “Montezuma’s Bath,” &c.). Aztec Bridge, and back to Tezcuco.
_Pages_ 152-153. Tezcuco to Bosque del Contador (the grove of
ahuehuetes, where excavations were made.) _Pages_ 154-156. Tezcuco to
Mexico. _Page_ 62.
Journey 9. Mexico. San Juan de Dios. La Guarda. Cuernavaca. Temisco.
Xochicalco. Miacatlán. Cocoytla. _Pages_ 172-195. Cocoytla to village
and cave of Cacahuamilpán and back. _Pages_ 196-205. Cocoytla to
Chalma. Oculán. El Desierto. Tenancingo. Toluca. Lerma. Las Cruzes.
Mexico. _Pages_ 214-220.
Journey 10. Mexico to Tezcuco. Miraflores. Amecameca. Popocatepetl. San
Nicolas de los Ranchos. Cholula. Puebla. Amozoque. Nopaluca. San
Antonio de abajo. Orizaba. Amatlán. El Potrero. Cordova. San Andrés.
Chalchicomula. La Junta. Jalapa. Vera Cruz. West Indies and Home.
_Pages_ 260- 327.
Illustration: MAP OF PART OF MEXICO TO ILLUSTRATE A JOURNEY FROM
VERA CRUZ TO MEXICO AND BACK & EXCURSIONS IN THE COUNTRY, By Messrs.
E.B. Tylor & H. Cristy.
CHAPTER I.
THE ISLE OF PINES.
In the spring of 1856, I met with Mr. Christy accidentally in an
omnibus at Havana. He had been in Cuba for some months, leading an
adventurous life, visiting sugar-plantations, copper-mines, and
coffee-estates, descending into caves, and botanizing in tropical
jungles, cruising for a fortnight in an open boat among the
coral-reefs, hunting turtles and manatis, and visiting all sorts of
people from whom information was to be had, from foreign consuls and
Lazarist missionaries down to retired slave-dealers and assassins.
As for myself, I had been travelling for the best part of a year in the
United States, and had but a short time since left the live-oak forests
and sugar-plantations of Louisiana. We agreed to go to Mexico together;
and the present notes are principally compiled from our
memorandum-books, and from letters written home on our journey.
Before we left Cuba, however, we made one last excursion across the
island, and to the _Isla de Pinos_—the Isle of Pines—off the southern
coast. A volante took us to the railway-station. The volante is the
vehicle which the Cubans specially affect; it is like a Hansom cab, but
the wheels are much taller, six and a half feet high, and the black
driver sits postillion-wise upon the horse. Our man had a laced jacket,
black leather leggings, and a pair of silver spurs fastened upon his
bare feet, which seemed at a little distance to have well polished
boots on, they were so black and shiny.
The railway which took us from Havana to Batabano had some striking
peculiarities. For a part of the way the track passed between two walls
of tropical jungle. The Indian fig trees sent down from every branch
suckers, like smooth strings, which rooted themselves in the ground to
draw up more water. Acacias and mimosas, the seiba and the mahagua,
with other hard-wood trees innumerable, crowded close to one another;
while epiphytes perched on every branch, and creepers bound the whole
forest into a compact mass of vegetation, through which no bird could
fly. We could catch the strings of convolvulus with our walking-sticks,
as the train passed through the jungle. Sometimes we came upon a swamp,
where clusters of bamboos were growing, crowned with tufts of pointed
leaves; or had a glimpse for a moment of a group of royal palms upon
the rising ground.
We passed sugar-plantations with their wide cane-fields, the
sugar-houses with tall chimneys, and the balconied house of the
administrador, keeping a sharp look out over the village of
negro-cabins, arranged in double lines.
In the houses near the stations where we stopped, cigar-making seemed
to be the universal occupation. Men, women, and children were sitting
round tables hard at work. It made us laugh to see the black men
rolling up cigars upon the hollow of their thighs, which nature has
fashioned into a curve exactly suited to this process.
At Batabano the steamer was waiting at the pier, and our passports and
ourselves were carefully examined by the captain, for Cuba is the
paradise of passport offices, and one cannot stir without a visa. For
once everybody was _en règle_, and we had no such scene as my companion
had witnessed a few days before.
If you are a married man resident in Cuba, you cannot get a passport to
go to the next town without your wife’s permission in writing. Now it
so happened that a respectable brazier, who lived at Santiago de Cuba,
wanted to go to Trinidad. His wife would not consent; so he either got
her signature by stratagem, or, what is more likely, gave somebody
something to get him a passport under false pretences.
At any rate he was safe on board the steamer, when a middle-aged
female, well dressed, but evidently arrayed in haste, and with a face
crimson with hard running, came panting down to the steamer, and rushed
on board. Seizing upon the captain, she pointed out her husband, who
had taken refuge behind the other passengers at a respectful distance;
she declared that she had never consented to his going away, and
demanded that his body should be instantly delivered up to her. The
husband was appealed to, but preferred staying where he was. The
captain produced the passport, perfectly _en règle_, and the lady made
a rush at the document, which was torn in half in the scuffle. All
other means failing, she made a sudden dash at her husband, probably
intending to carry him off by main force. He ran for his life, and
there was a steeplechase round the deck, among benches, bales, and
coils of rope; while the passengers and the crew cheered first one and
then the other, till they could not speak for laughing. The husband was
all but caught once; but a benevolent passenger kicked a camp-stool in
the lady’s way, and he got a fresh start, which he utilized by climbing
up the ladder to the paddle-box. His wife tried to follow him, but the
shouts of laughter which the black men raised at seeing her
performances were too much for her, and she came down again. Here the
captain interposed, and put her ashore, where she stood like black-eyed
Susan till the vessel was far from the wharf, not waving her lily hand,
however, but shaking her clenched fist in the direction of the
fugitive.
To return to our voyage to the Isle of Pines.—All the afternoon the
steamer threaded her way cautiously among the coral-reefs which rose
almost to the surface. Sometimes there seemed scarcely room to pass
between them, and by night navigation would have been impossible. We
were just in the place where Columbus and his companions arrived on
their expedition along the Cuban coast, to find out what countries lay
beyond. They sailed by day, and lay to at night, till their patience
was worn out. Another day or two of sailing would have brought them to
where the coast trends northwards; but they turned back, and Columbus
died in the belief that Cuba was the eastern extremity of the continent
of Asia.
The Spaniards call these reefs “cayos,” and we have altered the name to
“keys,” such as _Key West_ in Florida, and _Ambergris Key_ off Belize.
It was after sunset, and the phosphorescent animals were making the sea
glitter like molten metal, when we reached the Isle of Pines, and
steamed slowly up the river, among the mangroves that fringe the banks,
to the village of Nueva Gerona, the port of the island. It consisted of
two rows of houses thatched with palm-leaves, and surrounded by wide
verandahs; and between them a street of unmitigated mud.
As we walked through the place in the dusk, we could dimly discern the
inhabitants sitting in their thatched verandahs, in the thinnest of
white dresses, gossipping, smoking, and love-making, tinkling guitars,
and singing seguidillas. It was quite a Spanish American scene out of a
romance. There was no romance about the mosquitos, however. The air was
alive with them. When I was new to Cuba, I used to go to bed in the
European fashion; and as the beds were all six inches too short, my
feet used to find their way out in the night, and the mosquitos came
down and sat upon them. Experience taught us that it was better to lie
down half-dressed, so that only our faces and hands were exposed to
their attacks.
The Isle of Pines used to be the favourite resort of the pirates of the
Spanish main; indeed there were no other inhabitants. The creeks and
rivers being lined with the densest vegetation, a few yards up the
winding course of such a creek, they were lost in the forest, and a
cruiser might pass within a few yards of their lurking-place, and see
no traces of them. Captain Kyd often came here, and stories of his
buried treasures are still told among the inhabitants. Now the island
serves a double purpose; it is a place of resort for the Cubans, who
come to rusticate and bathe, and it serves as a settlement for those
free black inhabitants of Florida who chose to leave that country when
it was given up to the United States. One of these Floridanos
accompanied us as our guide next day to the Baños de Santa Fé.
When we left the village we passed near the mangrove trees, which were
growing not only near the water but in it, and like to spread their
roots among the thick black slime which accumulates so fast in this
country of rapid vegetable growth, and as rapid decomposition. In Cuba,
the mangoe is the abomination of the planters, for they supply the
runaway slaves with food, upon which they have been known to subsist
for months, whilst the mangroves give them shelter. A little further
inland we found the guava, a thick-spreading tree, with smooth green
leaves. From its fruit is made guava-jelly, but as yet it was not ripe
enough to eat.
In the middle of the island we came upon marble-quarries. They are
hardly worked now; but when they were first established, a number of
emancipados were employed there. What emancipados are, it is worth
while to explain. They are Africans taken from captured slavers, and
are set to work under government inspection for a limited number of
years, on a footing something like that of the apprentices in Jamaica,
in the interregnum between slavery and emancipation. In Cuba it is
remarked that the mortality among the emancipados is frightful. They
seldom outlive their years of probation. The explanation of this piece
of statistics is curious. The fact is that every now and then, when an
old man dies, they bury him as one of the emancipados, whose register
is sent in to the Government as dead; while the negro himself goes to
work as a slave in some out-of-the-way plantation where no tales are
told.
We left the marble-quarries, and rode for miles over a wide savannah.
The soil was loose and sandy and full of flakes of mica, and in the
watercourses were fragments of granite, brought down from the hills.
Here flourished palm trees and palmettos, acacias, mimosas, and
cactuses, while the mangoe and the guava tree preferred the damper
patches nearer to the coast. The hills were covered with the pine-trees
from which the island has its name; and on the rising ground at their
base we saw the strange spectacle of palms and fir trees growing side
by side.
Where we came upon a stream, the change in the vegetation was
astonishing. It was a sudden transition from an English, plantation of
fir trees into the jungle of the tropics, full of Indian figs, palms,
lancewood, and great mahagua[1] trees, all knotted together by endless
creepers and parasites; while the parrots kept up a continual
chattering and screaming in the tree-tops. The moment we left the
narrow strip of tropical forest that lined the stream we were in the
pine wood. Here the first two or three feet of the trunks of the pine
trees were scorched and blackened by the flames of the tall dry
savannah-grass, which grows close round them, and catches fire several
times every year. Through the pine forest the conflagration spreads
unobstructed, as in an American prairie; but it only runs along the
edge of the dense river-vegetation, which it cannot penetrate.
[1] The mahagua tree furnishes that curious fibrous network which is
known as _bast_, and used to wrap bundles of cigars in. The mahogany
tree is called _caoba_ in Spanish, apparently the original Indian
name, as the Spaniards probably first became acquainted with it in
Cuba. Is our word “mahogany” the result of a confusion of words, and
corrupted from “mahagua?”
The Baños de Santa Fé are situated in a cleared space among the fir
trees. The baths themselves are nothing but a cavity in the rock, into
which a stream, at a temperature of about 80°, continually flows. A
partition in the middle divides the ladies from the gentlemen, but
allows them to continue their conversation while they sit and splash in
their respective compartments.
The houses are even more quaint than the bathing-establishment. The
whole settlement consists of a square field surrounded by little
houses, each with its roof of palm leaves and indispensable verandah.
Here the Cubans come to stay for months, bathing, smoking cigarettes,
flirting, gossiping, playing cards, and strumming guitars; and they
seemed to be all agreed on one point, that it was a delightful
existence. We left them to their tranquil enjoyments, and rode back to
Nueva Gerona.
Next morning we borrowed a gun from the engineer of the steamboat, and
I bought some powder and shot at a shop where they kept two young
alligators under the counter for the children to play with. The creeks
and lagoons of the island are full of them, and the negroes told us
that in a certain lake not far off there lived no less a personage than
“the crocodile king”—“_el rey de los crocodilos_;” but we had no time
to pay his majesty a visit. Two of the Floridan negroes rowed us up the
river. Even at some distance from the mouth, sting-rays and jelly-fish
were floating about. As we rowed upwards, the banks were overhung with
the densest vegetation. There were mahogany trees with their curious
lop-sided leaves, the copal-plant with its green egg-like fruit, from
which copal oozes when it is cut, like opium from a poppy-head, palms
with clusters of oily nuts, palmettos, and guavas. When a palm-tree on
the river-bank would not grow freely for the crowding of other trees,
it would strike out in a slanting direction till it reached the clear
space above the river, and then shoot straight upwards with its crown
of leaves.
We shot a hawk and a woodpecker, and took them home; but, not many
minutes after we had laid them on the tiled floor of our room, we
became aware that we were invaded. The ants were upon us. They were
coming by thousands in a regular line of march up our window-sill and
down again inside, straight towards the birds. When we looked out of
the window, there was a black stripe lying across the court-yard on the
flags, a whole army of them coming. We saw it was impossible to get the
skins of the birds, so threw them out of the window, and the advanced
guard faced about and followed them.
On the sand in front of the village the Castor-oil plant flourished,
the _Palma Christi_; its little nuts were ripe, and tasted so innocent
that, undeterred by the example of the boy in the Swiss Family
Robinson, I ate several, and was handsomely punished for it. In the
evening I recounted my ill-advised experiment to the white-jacketed
loungers in the verandah of the inn, and was assured that I must have
eaten an odd number! The second nut, they told me with much gravity,
counteracts the first, the fourth neutralizes the third, and so on ad
infinitum.
We made two clerical acquaintances in the Isle of Pines. One was the
Cura of New Gerona, and his parentage was the only thing remarkable
about him. He was not merely the son of a priest, but his grandfather
was a priest also.
The other was a middle-aged ecclesiastic, with a pleasant face and an
unfailing supply of good-humoured fun. Everybody seemed to get
acquainted with him directly, and to become quite confidential after
the first half-hour; and a drove of young men followed him about
everywhere. His reverence kept up the ball of conversation continually,
and showed considerable skill in amusing his auditors and drawing them
out in their turn. It is true the jokes which passed seemed to us mild,
but they appeared to suit the public exactly; and indeed, the Padre was
quite capable of providing better ones when there was a market for
them.
We found that though a Spaniard by birth, he had been brought up at the
Lazarist College in Paris, which we know as the training-school of the
French missionaries in China; and we soon made friends with him, as
everyone else did. A day or two afterwards we went to see him in
Havana, and found him hard at his work, which was the superintendence
of several of the charitable institutions of the city—the Foundling
Hospital, the Lunatic Asylum, and others. His life was one of incessant
labour, and indeed people said he was killing himself with over-work,
but he seemed always in the same state of chronic hilarity; and when he
took us to see the hospitals, the children and patients received him
with demonstrations of great delight.
I should not have said so much of our friend the Padre, were it not
that I think there is a moral to be got out of him. I believe he may be
taken as a type, not indeed of Roman Catholic missionaries in general,
but of a certain class among them, who are of considerable importance
in the missionary world, though there are not many of them. Taking the
Padre as a sample of his class, as I think we may—judging from the
accounts of them we meet with in books, it is curious to notice, how
the point in which their system is strongest is just that in which the
Protestant system is weakest, that is, in social training and
deportment. What a number of men go to India with the best intentions,
and set to work at once, flinging their doctrines at the natives before
they have learnt in the least to understand what the said natives’
minds are like, or how they work,—dropping at once upon their pet
prejudices, mortally offending them as a preliminary step towards
arguing with them; and in short, stroking the cat of society backwards
in the most conscientious manner. By the time they have accomplished
this satisfactory result, a man like our Cuban Padre, though he may
have argued but little and preached even less, would have a hundred
natives bound to him by strong personal attachment, and ready to accept
anything from him in the way of teaching.
We paid a regular round of visits to the Floridan settlers, and were
delighted with their pleasant simple ways. It is not much more than
thirty years since they left Florida, and many of the children born
since have learnt to speak English. The patches of cultivated land
round their cottages produce, with but little labour, enough vegetables
for their subsistence, and to sell, procuring clothing and such
luxuries as they care for. They seemed to live happily among
themselves, and to govern their little colony after the manner of the
Patriarchs.
Whether any social condition can be better for the black inhabitants of
the West Indies, than that of these settlers, I very much doubt. They
are not a hard-working people, it is true; but hard work in the climate
of the tropics is unnatural, and can only be brought about by unnatural
means. That they are not sunk in utter laziness one can see by their
neat cottages and trim gardens. Their state does not correspond with
the idea of prosperity of the political economist, who would have them
work hard to produce sugar, rum, and tobacco, that they might earn
money to spend in crockery and Manchester goods; but it is suited to
the race and to the climate. If we measure prosperity by the enjoyment
of life, their condition is an enviable one.
I think no unprejudiced observer can visit the West Indies without
seeing the absurdity of expecting the free blacks to work like slaves,
as though any inducement but the strongest necessity would ever bring
it about. There are only two causes which can possibly make the blacks
industrious, in our sense of the word,—slavery, or a population so
crowded as to make labour necessary to supply their wants.
In one house in the Floridan colony we found a _ménage_ which was
surprising to me, after my experience of the United States. The father
of the family was a white man, a Spaniard, and his wife a black woman.
They received us with the greatest hospitality, and we sat in the porch
for a long time, talking to the family. One or two of the mulatto
daughters were very handsome; and there were some visitors, young white
men from the neighbouring village, who were apparently come to pay
their devoirs to the young ladies. Such marriages are not uncommon in
Cuba; and the climate of the island is not unfavourable for the mixed
negro and European race, while to the pure whites it is deadly. The
Creoles of the country are a poor degenerate race, and die out in the
fourth generation. It is only by intermarriage with Europeans, and
continual supplies of emigrants from Europe, that the white population
is kept up.
On the morning of our departure we climbed a high hill of limestone,
covered in places with patches of a limestone-breccia, cemented with
sandstone, and filling the cavities in the rock. All over the hill we
found doubly refracting Iceland-spar in quantities. Euphorbias, in
Europe mere shrubs, were here smooth-limbed trees, with large flowers.
From the top of the hill, the character of the savannahs was well
displayed. Every water-course could be traced by its narrow line of
deep green forest, contrasting with the scantier vegetation of the rest
of the plain.
As we steamed out of the river, rows of brilliant red flamingos were
standing in the shallow water, fishing, and here and there a pelican
with his ungainly beak. Our Chinese crew were having their meal of rice
when we walked forward, and the national chopsticks were hard at work.
We talked to several of them. They could all speak a little Spanish,
and were very intelligent.
The history of these Chinese emigrants is a curious one. Agents in
China persuade them to come out, and they sign a contract to work for
eight years, receiving from three to five dollars a month, with their
food and clothing. The sum seems a fortune to them; but, when they come
to Cuba, they find to their cost that the value of money must be
estimated by what it will buy. They find that the value of a black
labourer is thirty dollars a month, and they have practically sold
themselves for slaves; for there is no one to prevent the masters who
have bought the contract for their work from treating them in all
respects as slaves. The value of such a contract—that is, of the
Chinaman himself, was from £30 to £40 when we were in the island.
Fortunately for them, they cannot bear the severe plantation-work. Some
die after a few days of such labour and exposure, and many more kill
themselves; and the utter indifference with which they commit suicide,
as soon as life seems not worth having, contributes to moderate the
exactions of their masters. A friend of ours in Cuba had a Chinese
servant who was impertinent one day, and his master turned him out of
the room, dismissing him with a kick. The other servants woke their
master early next morning, with the intelligence that the Chinese had
killed himself in the night, to expiate the insult he had received.
Of African slaves brought into the island, the yearly number is about
15,000. All the details of the trade are matter of general notoriety,
even to the exact sum paid to each official as hush-money. It costs a
hundred dollars for each negro, they say, of which a gold ounce (about
£3 16s.) is the share of the Captain-general. To this must be added the
cost of the slave in Africa, and the expense of the voyage; but when
the slave is once fairly on a plantation he is worth eight hundred
dollars; so it may be understood how profitable the trade still is, if
only one slaver out of three gets through.
The island itself with its creeks and mangrove-trees is most favourable
for their landing, if they can once make the shore; and the Spanish
cruisers will not catch them if they can help it. If a British cruiser
captures them, the negroes are made emancipados in the way I have
already explained.
Hardly any country in the world is so thoroughly in a false position as
England in her endeavours to keep down the Cuban slave-trade, with the
nominal concurrence of the Spanish government, and the real vigorous
opposition of every Spaniard on the island, from the Captain-General
downwards. Even the most superficial observer who lands for an hour or
two in Havana, while his steamer is taking in coals, can have evidence
of the slave-trade brought before his eyes in the tattooed faces of
native Africans, young and middle-aged, in the streets and markets;
just as he can guess, from the scored backs of the negroes, what sort
of discipline is kept up among them.
We slept on board the steamboat off the pier of Batabano, and the
railway took us back to Havana next morning.