CIRIACO--PLANTATION GARDEN--TASAJO--NEGRO MUSIC AND DANCING.
From that band of Chinese, one with a good countenance and neat
appearance was selected for a cook. It is surprising how quickly and
accurately the Chinese imitate. Before Ciriaco could understand the
language, he had already learned to cook quite well. A cloth, some
ashes, and a rub or two from Martha, explained that “cleanliness was
next to godliness,” and that we delighted in clean pots and pans.
Martha made a pot of soup; solemnly and silently he watched every
ingredient and every motion; the next day he made soup, and the only
mistake was a seasoning of dog-fennel which he mistook for parsley!
He was given a portable grate once used to heat flat-irons. Martha
measured the coffee into the pan, tempered the heat, and showed him
with a stick how to stir the coffee till it was properly roasted. To
the last day at Desengaño that fellow three times a week put the grate
in the same spot, measured the coffee into the same pan, stirred it
with the identical stick, and I doubt not gave it the same number of
stirs each time. I never saw any servant so systematic, so methodical,
so quiet, so solemn, so intent, so clean. During the eight years he was
in the kitchen, there was not an hour in the day when Ciriaco could not
be found. He brought his wood from behind the sugar-house at the same
hour every afternoon, drew the water from the cistern with the same
regularity, carrying it Chinese fashion in pails swung at each end of a
pole.
The meals were always promptly served. He was like a machine wound up
when he kindled the morning fire, and run down when he turned the key
in the court at night.
There was a large area on the mountain planted in yams, malangas,
bananas, and other vegetables for plantation use. Wagon-loads were
brought to the store-room daily, to be weighed out to the cooks,
of which there were three--one for the house, one for the Chinese,
and one for the negroes. Green bananas of a very large and coarse
variety, such as are rarely seen in the United States, roasted in
ashes, and a thick mush, called _funcha_, made of yellow-corn meal,
were the universal substitutes for bread, and thousands, both white
and black, in Cuba never had any other. We ground corn daily in such a
mill as Sarah used when Abraham bade her “to make ready quickly three
measures of meal and make cakes”--i. e., a big stone worn hollow by
the operation of grinding: the upper stone is grasped by both hands,
and the weight of the body brought down upon it as it moves over the
lower stone, producing golden meal of excellent flavor, that was
daily very acceptable on our table in varied forms. Cuba is no corn
country, though there is no month in the year when green corn can not
be had; but the stalks are low and spindling, the ear small, somewhat
tasteless, and invariably yellow. We planted white corn of various
kinds obtained from both the Northern and Southern States; experimented
with broom-corn and pop-corn; but never succeeded in producing an ear
from any other seed than the native yellow corn of the island. We
endeavored to introduce a change of diet among our hands by making a
portion of the meal into bread to vary the regular rations of mush,
but neither negroes nor Chinamen relished it. More success, however,
attended our importation of navy-bread from the States for the same
purpose.
Rice of a cheap grade was imported from India, and frequently issued to
the Chinese in place of mush. The meat used was _tasajo_ (jerked beef)
cut in great slabs a half-inch thick, and sun-dried on the elevated
table-lands of South America--baled like skins, tied with rawhide
ropes, and sent to Cuba by ship-loads. It is cut into chips and stewed.
Hashed very fine and prepared with tomatoes, it makes an appetizing
diet, found on every table. Flour was from seventeen to twenty-five
dollars a barrel, and always of inferior quality. Large bakeries in
the cities supplied the inhabitants with crusty little rolls; but I
was unable to procure yeast, or any preparation of yeast-powders or
cakes that would keep in that climate. Ciriaco sometimes succeeded
in making an eatable though tasteless loaf of bread, by a mixture of
new milk, flour, salt, and sugar, fermented in the sun. Bread made
with this yeasty preparation, and also “raised” by a couple of hours’
exposure to the sun, was “fair to look upon,” and in lieu of better,
we ate it. One enterprising member of the family electrified us on
several occasions by presenting buckwheat-cakes of marvelous lightness
for breakfast. The secret of the “raising” power that produced the
delicacy was strictly kept; even Ciriaco, who had the honor of cooking
them, was not initiated into the mystery of their preparation. When the
sedlitz-powders gave out, the secret was “out” too! The first attempt
at these buckwheat-cakes caused a great laugh. We had been prepared for
a feast, the nature of which was kept a profound secret; but Ciriaco
baked the batter and served it in a pudding-dish!
Besides granting small patches of land to the negroes, where a few
thrifty ones cultivated tobacco, and such vegetables as they desired,
they were permitted to raise hogs. A piece of ground was set apart for
that purpose directly behind their barracoon. Each negro had his own
pen, and during the year fattened his animals, and every facility was
afforded him for an advantageous sale. But such arrant rogues were
they, that frequently they stole each other’s hogs during the night,
carrying them off on Lamo’s horses! So we had to appoint, every night,
two of their number to watch the pens, and one to watch the horses.
Even then, whenever a tired and blown horse was found in the morning,
it was _prima facie_ evidence that a hog had disappeared from the pen
during the night. We could not, with all our endeavors, find watchmen
equal to coping with the thieves.
Holiday afternoons the negroes were permitted to dance on the hard and
firm _patio_ in front of their barracoon. Their music consisted of
two _tombos_--hollow logs with skins stretched tightly over one end,
somewhat like a drum.
The heavy instrument is suspended by a strap from the neck of the
player, who strides and beats upon it with the flat palms of his
hard black hands, occasionally scratching variations with the tough
thumb-nail. The two _tombos_ make a mournful, monotonous thrumming,
beating time in regular cadence, and are accompanied by a dry bladder
containing a few shells or stones, which is rattled by an old, tattooed
African woman, whose cracked voice adds a melancholy wail, producing a
peculiarly penetrating repetition of the same dull sound, that lingers
in the ear long after the vibrations have ceased.
The musicians ready, and the circle formed, a woman glides into the
arena, and, catching her flowing train with each hand, sways round and
round with a shuffling, half-sliding motion, turning her face from side
to side, and sweeping the long dress clear of the ground at every step.
After making the circuit once or twice, one of the men bounds into
the circle and follows her from side to side with outstretched arms,
as though offering her an embrace. She deftly eludes the advance,
casting backward glances from the corners of her eyes to tempt him
on. Occasionally he falls, first upon one knee, then upon the other,
throwing himself into the most amazing attitudes, sometimes falling
prone upon the ground and rolling over, to catch the hem of her dress
as she passes, both dancers with every step and gesture keeping
wonderful time with the weird _tum-tum_ of the _tombos_; when fatigued,
or another ambitious couple step forward, they retire. The same
performance was repeated and repeated; the same sliding, shuffling,
and postulating in rhythm to the atrabilious noise, that often drove
me with aching nerves to the far end of the avenue of palms, and
there, long after the tap of the bell--a signal that the dance must be
over--the diabolical _tombo_ beat a devil’s tattoo in my head.
The Chinese did not mingle with the negroes, either in their work or
socially, though subject to the same rules and regulations in regard
to their hours of labor and hours of rest. On Sundays they would array
themselves in clean clothes, add the ornamentation of a string of
tweezers and ivory tooth-picks around their necks, and in groups of
twos and threes saunter about in a listless manner, scarcely pausing to
see the Africans dancing, and often giving little evidence of animation
save the perpetual use of large fans. In their own barracoon they were
inveterate gamblers, and, if two or more were seen squatting together,
they were surely at their besetting vice. If one “lay out” or “outfit,”
or whatever it may be called, was taken from them, another was quickly
substituted.
They gambled with a few little sticks, or grains of rice, or
lemon-seeds. And frequently, Monday morning, a Chinaman presented
himself to work clad in a coffee-sack, the scamp having risked and lost
the very clothes off his back; and it was next to impossible to make
him tell which one of his countrymen had won the garments.