Doubling Cape Cruz. -- Trinidad. -- Cienfuegos. -- The Plaza.
-- Beggars. -- Visit to a Sugar Plantation. -- Something
about Sugar. -- An Original Character. -- A Tropical Fruit
Garden. -- Cuban Hospitality. -- The Banana. -- Lottery
Tickets. -- Chinese Coolies. -- Blindness in Cuba. -- Birds
and Poultry. -- The Cock-Pit. -- Negro Slavery, To-Day. --
Spanish Slaveholders. -- A Slave Mutiny. -- A Pleasant
Journey across the Island. -- Pictures of the Interior. --
Scenery about Matanzas. -- The Tropics and the North
contrasted.
To reach Cienfuegos, our next objective point, one takes water
conveyance, the common roads in this district being, if possible, a
degree worse than elsewhere. It is therefore necessary to double Cape
Cruz, and perform a coasting voyage along the southern shore of the
island of about four hundred miles. This is really delightful sailing
in any but the hurricane months; that is, between the middle of August
and the middle of October. It would seem that this should be quite a
commercial thoroughfare, but it is surprising how seldom a
sailing-vessel is seen on the voyage, and it is still more rare to
meet a steamship. Our passage along the coast was delightful: the
undulating hills, vales, and plains seemed to be quietly gliding past
us of their own volition; the tremor of the ship did not suggest
motion of the hull, but a sense of delight at the moving panorama so
clearly depicted. No extensive range of waters in either hemisphere is
so proverbially smooth as the Caribbean Sea, during eight months of
the year, but a stout hull and good seamanship are demanded during the
remaining four, especially if coming from the northward over the
Bahama Banks and through the Windward Passage, as described in these
chapters.
The city of Trinidad, perched upon a hillside, is passed at the
distance of a few miles, being pleasantly situated more than a league
from the coast. The town of Casilda is its commercial port. This
arrangement was adopted in the early days as a partial protection
against the frequent inroads of the buccaneers, who ceased to be
formidable when separated from their ships. Trinidad was once the
centre of the prosperous coffee trade of Cuba, but is now, and has
been for many years, commercially wrecked. It is very beautifully
located, with Mount Vijia for its background, in what is declared to
be the healthiest district upon the island. But it is an ancient city,
comparatively deserted, its date being nearly contemporary with that
of Santiago. Cienfuegos, its successful business rival, is on the
contrary quite modern, exhibiting many features of thrift and
activity, and is counted the third commercial city of Cuba. Like
Cardenas, it is called an American capital. It has some twenty-five
thousand inhabitants, a large proportion of whom speak English, nine
tenths of its commerce being with the United States. In this immediate
neighborhood Columbus, on his second voyage, saw with astonishment the
mysterious king who spoke to his subjects only by signs, and that
group of men who wore long white tunics like the monks of mercy, while
the rest of the people were entirely naked. The town is low and level,
occupying a broad plane. The streets are of fair width, crossing each
other at right angles, and are kept neat and clean. The harbor is an
excellent and spacious one, admitting of vessels being moored at the
wharves, a commercial convenience unknown at Santiago, Matanzas, or
Havana. The navies of all the world might rendezvous here and not
crowd each other. Three rivers, the Canudo, Saludo, and Danuyi, empty
into the bay, and each is navigable for a considerable distance
inland, a matter of great importance in a country so devoid of good
roads. The parti-colored houses are of the usual Cuban type, mostly of
one story, built with a patio or open courtyard in the centre, well
filled with flowering plants, among which were observed the attractive
coral-tree, which resembles a baby palm, and the universal banana.
The Plaza of Cienfuegos forms a large, well-arranged square, where an
out-door military concert is given twice a week, a universal practice
in all Cuban cities. It is laid out with excellent taste, its broad
paths nicely paved, and the whole lighted at night with numerous
ornamental gas-lamps. The vegetation is both attractive and
characteristic, consisting of palms, laurels, and flowering shrubs,
mingled with which are some exotics from the North, which droop with a
homesick aspect. Plants, like human beings, will pine for their native
atmosphere. If it be more rigorous and less genial at the North, still
there is a bracing, tonic effect, imparting life and strength, which
is wanting in the low latitudes. On one side of this fine square is
the government house and barracks, opposite to which is an open-air
theatre, and in front is the cathedral with any number of discordant
bells. The little English sparrow seems to be ubiquitous, and as
pugnacious here as on Boston Common, or the Central Park of New York.
Boyish games are very similar the world over: young Cuba was playing
marbles after the orthodox fashion, knuckle-down. It was very pitiful
to behold the army of beggars in so small a city, but begging is
synonymous with the Spanish name, both in her European and colonial
possessions. Here the maimed, halt, and blind meet one at every turn.
Saturday is the harvest day for beggars in the Cuban cities, on which
occasion they go about by scores from door to door, carrying a large
canvas bag. Each family and shop is supplied with a quantity of small
rolls of bread, specially baked for the purpose, and one of which is
nearly always given to the applicant on that day, so the mendicant's
bag becomes full of rolls. These, mixed with vegetables, bits of fish,
and sometimes meat and bones when they can be procured, are boiled
into a soup, thus keeping soul and body together in the poor creatures
during the week.
Cienfuegos is situated in the midst of a sugar-producing district,
where soil and climate are both favorable, and over twenty large
plantations are to be seen within a radius of two or three leagues.
The export from them, as we were informed by the courteous editor of
"La Opinion," a local paper, aggregates thirty thousand hogsheads
annually. The visitor should not fail to make an excursion to some
representative plantation, where it is impossible not to be much
interested and practically informed. One of these sugar estates,
situated less than two leagues from the town, was found to be
furnished with a complete outfit of the most modern machinery, which
had cost the proprietor a quarter of a million dollars. It was working
with the usual favorable results, though at the present price of sugar
no profit can accrue to the planter. The plantation presented a busy
scene. During the grinding season the machinery is run night and day,
but is obliged to lie idle for eight months out of the year.
In the uncultivated fields through which we passed when driving out to
the sugar estate, the prickly pear grew close to the ground in great
luxuriance, as it is seen on our Western prairies. Its thick leaves,
so green as to be dense with color, impart the effect of greensward at
a short distance. On close inspection it was seen to be the star
cactus, which like the Northern thistle kills all other vegetation
within its reach. Here and there the wild ipecacuanha with its bright
red blossom was observed, but the fields, except those devoted to the
cane, were very barren near Cienfuegos.
Sugar-cane is cultivated like Indian corn, which it also resembles in
appearance. It is first planted in rows, not in hills, and must be
hoed and weeded until it gets high enough to shade its roots. Then it
may be left to itself until it reaches maturity. This refers to the
first laying out of a plantation, which will afterwards continue
fruitful for years by very simple processes of renewal. When
thoroughly ripe the cane is of a light golden yellow, streaked here
and there with red. The top is dark green, with long narrow leaves
depending,--very much like those of the corn stalk,--from the centre
of which shoots upwards a silvery stem a couple of feet in height, and
from its tip grows a white fringed plume, of a delicate lilac hue. The
effect of a large field at its maturity, lying under a torrid sun and
gently yielding to the breeze, is very fine, a picture to live in the
memory ever after. In the competition between the products of
beet-root sugar and that from sugar-cane, the former controls the
market, because it can be produced at a cheaper rate, besides which
its production is stimulated by nearly all of the European states
through the means of liberal subsidies both to the farmer and to the
manufacturer. Beet sugar, however, does not possess so high a
percentage of true saccharine matter as does the product of the cane,
the latter seeming to be nature's most direct mode of supplying us
with the article. The Cuban planters have one advantage over all other
sugar-cane producing countries, in the great and inexhaustible
fertility of the soil of the island. For instance: one to two
hogsheads of sugar to the acre is considered a good yield in Jamaica,
but in Cuba three hogsheads is the average. Fertilizing of any sort is
rarely employed in the cane-fields, while in beet farming it is the
principal agent of success.
Though the modern machinery, as lately adopted on the plantations, is
very expensive, still the result achieved by it is so much superior to
that of the old methods of manufacture that the small planters are
being driven from the market. Slave labor cannot compete with
machinery. The low price of sugar renders economy imperative in all
branches of the business, in order to leave a margin for profit. A
planter informed the author that he should spread all of his molasses
upon the cane-fields this year as a fertilizer, rather than send it to
a distant market and receive only what it cost. He further said that
thousands of acres of sugar-cane would be allowed to rot in the fields
this season, as it would cost more to cut, grind, pack, and send it to
market than could be realized for the manufactured article. Had the
price of sugar remained this year at a figure which would afford the
planters a fair profit, it might have been the means of tiding over
the chasm of bankruptcy which has long stared them in the face, and
upon the brink of which they now stand. But with a more than average
crop, both as to quantity and quality, whether to gather it or not is
a problem. Under these circumstances it is difficult to say what is to
become, financially, of the people of Cuba. Sugar is their great
staple, but all business has been equally depressed upon the island,
under the bane of civil wars, extortionate taxation, and oppressive
rule.
If you visit Cienfuegos you will take rooms at the Hotel Union, as
being the least objectionable of the two public houses which the city
contains, and there you will make the acquaintance of Jane, who is an
institution in herself. Indeed, she will doubtless board your ship
when it first arrives, so as to enlighten you concerning the
excellences of the Union over its rival establishment, which will also
be sure to be represented. Jane is interpreter and general factotum of
that delectable posada, the Union, and being the only one in the house
who speaks either French or English, she becomes an important factor
in your calculations. Jane's nationality is a pleasing mystery, but
she may be classed as a Portuguese quadroon. Venus did not preside at
her birth, but, by means of the puff-ball and egg-shell powder, she
strives to harmonize her mottled features. Being interpreter,
waitress, hotel-runner, and chambermaid, she is no idler, and fully
earns the quarter eagle you naturally hand her at leave-taking. In
visiting the neighboring sugar plantation Jane acts as your guide, on
which occasion her independence will be sure to challenge admiration.
She salutes slave or master with equal familiarity, conducts you
through each process of the elaborate works, from the engine to the
crushing mill, and so on, until you reach the centrifugal machine,
where the glistening crystals of pure sugar fall into an open
receptacle ready for packing and shipment. She takes you into the
slave-quarters among the pickaninnies, hens, pigs, and pigeons,
looking on blandly and chewing huge pieces of cane while you
distribute the bright ten cent pieces with which you filled your
pocket at starting. If Jane slyly pinches a papoose and causes it to
yell, it is only for fun; she means no harm, though the dusky mite
gets smartly slapped by its mother for misbehaving. The cabin floor of
bare earth is sure to be covered with these little naked, sprawling
objects, like ants. On the way back to town Jane orders the postilion
to drive into the private grounds of a palatial Cuban residence, where
she boldly announces herself and party to the proprietor in good
rolling Spanish. It is the home of Señor N----, a wealthy merchant of
the city. We are received as though we belonged to the royal family.
The hospitable owner speaks English fluently, and answers our thousand
and one questions with tireless courtesy, takes us into his superb
fruit garden (of which more anon), then introduces us to his domestic
quarters, where everything appears refined, faultlessly neat, and
tasteful. If you go to the railroad station, as usual the evening
before departure, in order to secure tickets and get your baggage
labeled,--for the cars start in the morning before daylight,--Jane
will accompany you, riding by your side in the victoria. Excuse her if
she orders the calash thrown back, as she appears bonnetless in a
loud, theatrical costume, trimmed with red and yellow, and carrying a
bouquet in her freckled hands. It is her opportunity, and she looks
triumphantly at the street loungers in passing. If you are charged on
your bill a Delmonico price for a mythical lunch to be taken with you
on the journey to Matanzas, and which Jane has forgotten to put up,
pay without wrangling; it saves time and temper.
The tropical garden which we visited just outside of Cienfuegos
embraced a remarkable variety of trees, including some thrifty
exotics. Here the mango, with its peach-like foliage, was bending to
the ground with the weight of its ripening fruit; the alligator pear
was marvelously beautiful in its full blossom, suggesting, in form and
color, the passion-flower; the soft delicate foliage of the tamarind
was like our sensitive plant; the banana trees were in full bearing,
the deep green fruit (it is ripened and turns yellow off the tree)
being in clusters of a hundred, more or less, tipped at the same time
by a single, pendent, glutinous bud nearly as large as a pineapple.
The date-palm, so suggestive of the far East, and the only one we had
seen in Cuba, was represented by a choice specimen, imported in its
youth. There was also the star-apple tree, remarkable for its uniform
and graceful shape, full of the green fruit, with here and there a
ripening specimen; so, also, was the favorite zapota, its rusty-coated
fruit hanging in tempting abundance. From low, broad-spreading trees
depended the grape-fruit, as large as an infant's head and yellow as
gold, while the orange, lime, and lemon trees, bearing blossoms, green
and ripe fruit all together, met the eye at every turn, and filled the
garden with fragrance. The cocoanut palm, with its tall, straight
stem and clustering fruit, dominated all the rest. Guava, fig,
custard-apple, and bread-fruit trees, all were in bearing. Our
hospitable host plucked freely of the choicest for the benefit of his
chance visitors. Was there ever such a fruit garden before, or
elsewhere? It told of fertility of soil and deliciousness of climate,
of care, judgment, and liberal expenditure, all of which combined had
turned these half a dozen acres of land into a Gan Eden. Through this
orchard of Hesperides we were accompanied also by the proprietor's two
lovely children, under nine years of age, with such wealth of promise
in their large black eyes and sweet faces as to fix them on our memory
with photographic fidelity.
Before leaving the garden we returned with our intelligent host once
more to examine his beautiful specimens of the banana, which, with its
sister fruit the plantain, forms so important a staple of food in Cuba
and throughout all tropical regions. It seems that the female banana
tree bears more fruit than the male, but not so large. The average
clusters of the former comprise here about one hundred, but the latter
rarely bears over sixty or seventy distinct specimens of the
cucumber-shaped product. From the centre of its large broad leaves,
which gather at the top, when it has reached the height of twelve or
fifteen feet there springs forth a large purple bud ten inches long,
shaped like a huge acorn, though more pointed. This cone hangs
suspended from a strong stem, upon which a leaf unfolds, displaying a
cluster of young fruit. As soon as these are large enough to support
the heat of the sun and the chill of the rain, this sheltering leaf
drops off, and another unfolds, exposing its little brood of fruit;
and so the process goes on until six or eight rings of young bananas
are started, forming, as we have said, bunches numbering from seventy
to a hundred. The banana is a herbaceous plant, and after fruiting its
top dies; but it annually sprouts up again fresh from the roots. From
the unripe fruit, dried in the sun, a palatable and nutritious flour
is made.
No matter where one may be, in town or country, in the east or west
end of the island, Santiago or Havana, the lottery-ticket vender is
there. Men, women, and children are employed to peddle the tickets,
cripples especially being pressed into the service in the hope of
exciting the sympathies of strangers and thus creating purchasers. It
may be said to be about the only prosperous business at present going
on in this thoroughly demoralized island. Half the people seem to
think of nothing else, and talk of dreaming that such and such
combinations of numbers will bring good luck. Some will buy only even
numbers, others believe that the odd ones stand the best chance of
winning; in short, all the gambling fancies are brought to bear upon
these lotteries. Enough small prizes are doled out to the purchasers
of tickets, by the cunning management, to keep hope and expectation
ever alive in their hearts, and to coax out of them their last dollar
in further investments. "If," said a native resident of Matanzas to
us, "these lotteries, all of which are presided over by the officials,
are honestly conducted, they are the one honest thing in which this
government is concerned. Venal in everything else, why should they be
conscientious in this gambling game?" No one believes in the integrity
of the government, but, strange to say, the masses have implicit faith
in the lotteries.
At one corner of our hotel in Cienfuegos, there sat upon the sidewalk
of the street a blind beggar, a Chinese coolie, whose miserable,
poverty-stricken appearance elicited a daily trifle from the habitués
of the house. Early one morning we discovered this representative of
want and misery purchasing a lottery ticket. They are so divided and
subdivided, it appears, as to come even within the means of the street
beggars! Speaking of blindness, the multiplicity of people thus
afflicted, especially among negroes and coolies, led to the
enumeration of those met with in a single day; the result was
seventeen. On inquiry it was found that inflammation of the eyes is as
common here as in Egypt, and that it runs a rapid and fatal
course,--fatal to the sight after having once attacked a victim,
unless it receives prompt, judicious, and scientific treatment.
The Chinese coolies, who are encountered in all parts of the island,
but more especially in the cities, are almost invariably decrepit,
poverty-stricken mendicants, and very frequently blind. They are such
as have been through their eight years' contract, and have been
brought to their present condition by ill-treatment, insufficient
food, and the troubles incident to the climate. In the majority of
cases these coolies have been cheated out of the trifling amount of
wages promised to them, for there is no law in Cuba to which they can
appeal. There are laws which will afford the negro justice if resorted
to under certain circumstances, but none for the coolies. There are
some few Chinamen who have survived every exigency, and are now
engaged in keeping small stores or fruit stands, cigar making, and
other light employments, their only hope being to gain money enough
to carry them back to their native land, and to have a few dollars
left to support them after getting there. There are no Chinese
laundries in Cuba; John cannot compete with the black women in this
occupation, for they are natural washers and ironers. John is only a
skillful imitator. He proves most successful in the cigarette and
cigar factories, where his deft fingers can turn out a more uniform
and handsome article than the Cubans themselves. Machinery is fast
doing away with hand-made cigarettes. At the famous establishment of
La Honradez, in Havana, which we visited some weeks later, one machine
was seen in operation which produced ten thousand complete cigarettes
each hour, or a million per day! Still this same establishment
employed some fifty Chinese in order to supply its trade with the
hand-made article, for home consumption. The Cubans prefer to unroll
and readjust a cigarette before lighting it. This cannot be done with
the machine-made article, which completes its product by a pasting
process. The three machines (an American patent) at the Honradez
factory turn out three millions of cigarettes per day, and this is in
addition to those which are hand-made by the Chinese.
The landlord of the Hotel Union, at Cienfuegos, will give you plenty
of fruit and cheap Cataline wine, but the meat which is served is poor
and consists mostly of birds. Any other which may be set before you
will hardly be found to be a success, but then one does not crave much
substantial food in this climate. There is a small wild pigeon which
forms a considerable source of food in Cuba, and which breeds several
times in a year. They are snared and shot in large numbers for the
table, but do not show any signs of being exterminated. Ducks and
water-fowl generally abound, and are depended upon to eke out the
short supply of what we term butcher's meat. Three quarters of the
people never partake of other meat than pigeons, poultry, and wild
ducks. Eggs are little used as food, being reserved for hatching
purposes. All families in the country and many in the cities make a
business of raising poultry, but the product is a bird of small
dimensions, not half the size of our common domestic fowls. They are
very cheap, but they are also very poor. The practice is to keep them
alive until they are required for the table, so that they are killed,
picked, and eaten, all in the same hour, and are in consequence very
tough. As the climate permits of hens hatching every month in the
year, the young are constantly coming forward, and one mother annually
produces several broods; chickens, like tropical fruits, are
perennial.
Sunday is no more a day of rest in Cienfuegos than it is in other
Roman Catholic countries; indeed, it seemed to be distinguished only
by an increase of revelry, the activity of the billiard saloons, the
noisy persistency of the lottery-ticket venders, the boisterousness of
masquerade processions, and a general public rollicking. The city is
not large enough to support a bull-ring, but cock-pits are to be found
all over the island, and the Sabbath is the chosen day for their
exhibitions. It must be a very small and very poor country town in
Cuba which has not its cock-pit. The inveterate gambling propensities
of the people find vent also at dominoes, cards, checkers, and chess
in the bar-rooms, every marble table being in requisition for the
purpose of the games on Sundays. Having noticed the sparse attendance
at the cathedral, we remarked to Jane that the church was quite
empty, whereupon she replied with a significant leer, "True, Señor,
but the jail is full." More than once an underlying vein of sarcasm
was observed in the very pertinent remarks of which Jane was so
happily delivered.
There are comparatively few slaves to be found on the plantations or
elsewhere in the vicinity of Cienfuegos: in fact, slavery is rapidly
disappearing from the island. "Slave labor is more costly than any
other, all things considered," said a sugar planter to us. "I do not
own one to-day, but I have owned and worked six hundred at a time," he
added. "We pay no tax on the laborers we hire, but on slaves we pay a
heavy head-tax annually." An edict has been promulgated by the home
government, which went into force last year, and which frees one slave
in every four annually, so that on January 1, 1888, all will have
become free. In the mean time the commercial value of slaves has so
decreased in view of their near emancipation that they are not
appraised on an average at over fifty or sixty dollars each. The law
has for a period of many years provided that any slave who pays to his
master his appraised value shall at once receive his free papers. Many
purchase their liberty under this law, and then hire themselves to the
same master or to some other, as they may choose,--at low wages, to be
sure, but including food and shelter. Slaves have always been entitled
by law in Cuba to hold individual property independent of their
masters, and there are few smart ones who have not accumulated more or
less pecuniary means during their servitude. They have had no expenses
to meet in the way of supporting themselves. That has devolved upon
their owners, so that whatever money they have realized by the several
ways open to them has been clear profit. Many slaves have anticipated
the period of their legal release from servitude, and more will do so
during the present year. We also heard of planters who, realizing the
inevitable, have manumitted the few slaves whom they still held in
bondage, and hiring them at merely nominal wages, believed they saved
money by the operation.
It will be seen, therefore, that slavery as an institution here is
virtually at an end. Low wages will prevail, and this is necessary to
enable the planters to compete with the beet sugar producers of
Europe. In truth, it is a question how long they will be able to do so
at any rate of wages. The modern machinery being so generally adopted
by the sugar-cane planters, while remarkably successful, both, as to
the quality and the quantity of the juice it expresses from the cane,
not only is expensive in first cost, but it requires more intelligent
laborers than were found serviceable with the old process. To supply
the places of the constantly diminishing slaves, emigrants, as they
were called, have heretofore been introduced from the Canary Islands;
men willing to contract for a brief period of years, say eight or ten,
as laborers, and at moderate wages. These people have proved to be
good plantation hands, though not so well able to bear the great heat
of the sun as were the negroes; otherwise they were superior to them,
and better in all respects than the Chinese coolies, who as workers on
the plantations have proved to be utter failures. The mortality among
these Mongolians, as we learned from good authority, had reached as
high as sixty-seven per cent, within eight years of their date of
landing in Cuba, that being also the period of their term of contract.
None have been introduced into the island for several years. This
coolie importation, like the slave-trade with Africa, was a fraud and
an outrage upon humanity, and never paid any one, even in a mercenary
point of view, except the shipowners who brought the deceived natives
from the coast of China. Slavery in Cuba and slavery in our country
were always quite a different thing, and strange to say the laws of
the Spanish government were far more favorable and humane towards the
victims of enforced labor than were those established in our Southern
States. When the American negro ceased to be a slave, he ceased to
cultivate the soil for his master only to cultivate it for himself.
Not so in the tropics. The Cuban negro, in the first place, is of a
far less intelligent type than the colored people in the States;
secondly, the abundance of natural food productions in the low
latitudes, such as fruit, fish, and vegetables, requires of the negro
only to pluck and to eat; clothing and shelter are scarcely needed,
and virtually cost nothing where one may sleep in the open air without
danger every night in the year; and finally, the negro of the tropics
will not work unless he is compelled to.
There is a certain class of the Spanish slaveholders who have always
fought against negro emancipation in any form,--fought against
manifest destiny as well as against sound principles, fought indeed
against their own clear interest, so wedded were they to the vile
institution of slavery. Yet to every thinking man on the island, it is
clearly apparent that human slavery in Cuba, as everywhere else, has
proved to be a disturber of the public peace, and has retarded more
than anything, else the material and moral progress of the entire
people. It is but a short time since that the editor of a Havana
newspaper, the "Revista Economica," was imprisoned in Moro Castle, and
without even the pretense of a trial afterwards banished from the
island, because he dared to point out the fact in print that the
freeing of the slaves would prove a mutual benefit to man and master,
besides being a grand act of humanity. Two years since the slaves on a
large plantation near Guines refused to work on a holiday which had
always heretofore been granted to them; whereupon the soldiery were
called in to suppress what was called a mutiny of the blacks,
resulting in nine negroes being shot dead, and many others put in
chains to be scourged at leisure. Doomed as we have shown slavery to
be, still it dies hard in Cuba.
In the vicinity of Cienfuegos, Santiago, and Trinidad, in the mountain
regions of the eastern district, there are many lawless
people,--banditti, in fact, who make war for plunder both upon native
and foreign travelers, even resorting in some cases to holding
prisoners for ransoms. Several aggravating instances of the latter
character came to our knowledge while we were on the spot. Since these
notes were commenced five of these robbers have been captured,
including the leader of the band to which they belonged, a notorious
outlaw named Clemente Martinez. They were taken by means of a
stratagem, whereby they were decoyed into an ambush, surrounded, and
captured red-handed, as they fought furiously, knowing that they had
no mercy to expect at the hands of the soldiers. It was the civil
guard at Rancho Veloz who made this successful raid into the hills,
and every one of the prisoners was summarily shot. Such, off-hand
punishment is dangerous, but in this instance it was no more prompt
than just. It is necessary, therefore, to carry arms for self-defense
upon the roads in some parts of the island, and even the countrymen
wear swords when bringing produce to market. Residents having occasion
to go any distance inland take a well-armed guard with them, to
prevent being molested by the desperate refugees who lurk in the hill
country. Undoubtedly many of these lawless bands are composed of
former revolutionists, who are driven to extremes by want of food and
the necessities of life.
Our journey was continued from Cienfuegos to Havana, by way of
Matanzas, crossing the island nearly at right angles. The traveler
plunges at once by this route into the midst of luxuriant tropical
nature, where the vegetation is seen to special advantage,
characterized by a great variety of cacti and parasitic growth,
flowering trees and ever graceful palms, besides occasional ceibas of
immense size. Though the landscape, somehow, was sad and melancholy,
it gave rise to bright and interesting thoughts in the observer:
doubtless the landscape, like humanity, has its moods. Vegetation,
unlike mankind, seems here never to grow old, never to falter; crop
succeeds crop, harvest follows harvest; nature is inexhaustible,--it
is an endless cycle of abundance. Miles upon miles of the bright,
golden-green sugar-cane lie in all directions, among which, here and
there, is seen the little cluster of low buildings constituting the
negroes' quarters attached to each plantation, and near by is the tall
white chimney of the sugar-mill, emitting its thick volume of
wreathing smoke, like the funnel of a steamboat. A little on one side
stands the planter's house, low and white, surrounded by beautiful
shade trees and clustering groups of flowers. Scores of dusky Africans
give life to the scene, and the sturdy overseer, mounted on his little
Cuban pony, dashes back and forth to keep all hands advantageously at
work. One large gang is busy cutting the tall cane with sharp,
sword-like knives; some are loading the stalks upon ox-carts; some are
driving loads to the mill; some feeding the cane between the great
steel crushers, beneath which pours forth a ceaseless jelly-like
stream, to be conducted by iron pipes to the boilers; men, women, and
children are spreading the crushed refuse to dry in the sun, after
which it will be used for fuel. Coopers are heading up hogsheads full
of the manufactured article, and others are rolling up empty ones to
be filled.
Some years ago, when the author first visited Cuba, the overseer was
never seen without his long, cutting whip, as well as his sword and
pistols. The latter he wears to-day, but the whip is unseen. The fact
is, the labor on the plantations is now so nearly free labor that
there is little if any downright cruelty exercised as of yore. Or,
rather, we will qualify the remark by saying that there has been a
vast improvement in this respect on the side of humanity. The shadow
of the picture lies in the past. One could not but recall in
imagination the horrors which so long characterized these plantations.
The bloodthirsty spirit of the Spanish slaveholders had free scope
here for centuries, during which time the invaders sacrificed the
entire aboriginal race; and since then millions of Africans have been
slowly murdered by overwork, insufficient food, and the lash, simply
to fill the pockets of their rapacious masters with gold. Few native
Cubans are sugar-planters. These estates are almost universally owned
and carried on by Spaniards from the European peninsula, or other
foreigners, including Englishmen and Americans.
Occasionally, in the trip across the island, we passed through a crude
but picturesque little hamlet having the unmistakable stamp of
antiquity, with low straggling houses built of rude frames, covered at
side and roof with palm bark and leaves; chimneys there were
none,--none even in the cities,--charcoal only being used for cooking
purposes, and which is performed in the open air. About the door of
the long, rambling posada, a dozen or more horses were seen tied to a
long bar, erected for the purpose, but no wheeled vehicles were there.
The roads are only fit for equestrians, and hardly passable even for
them. At rare intervals one gets a glimpse of the volante, now so
generally discarded in the cities, and which suggested Dr. Holmes's
old chaise, prepared to tumble to pieces in all parts at the same
time. The people, the cabins, and the horses, are all stained with the
red dust of the soil, recalling the Western Indians in their war
paint. This pigment, or colored dirt, penetrates and adheres to
everything, filling the cars and decorating the passengers with a
dingy brick color. It was difficult to realize that these
comparatively indifferent places through which we glided so swiftly
were of importance and the permanent abode of any one. When the cars
stop at the small way-stations, they are instantly invaded by
lottery-ticket sellers, boys with tempting fruit, green cocoanuts,
ripe oranges, and bananas,--all cheap for cash. And here too is the
guava seller, with neatly sealed cans of the favorite preserve.
Indeed, it seems to rain guava jelly in Cuba. Others offer country
cheese, soft and white, with rolls, while in a shanty beside the road
hot coffee and "blue ruin" are dealt out to thirsty souls by a
ponderous mulatto woman. There are always a plenty of the denizens of
the place, in slovenly dresses and slouched hats, hands in pockets,
and puffing cigarettes, who do the heavy standing-round business.
Stray dogs hang about the car-wheels and track to pick up the crumbs
which passengers throw away from their lunch-baskets. Just over the
wild-pineapple hedge close at hand, half a score of naked negro
children hover round the door of a low cabin; the mother, fat and
shining in her one garment, gazes with arms akimbo at the scene of
which she forms a typical part. The engineer imbibes a penny drink of
thin Cataline wine and hastens back to his machine, which has been
taking water from an elevated cistern beside the track, the bell
rings, the whistle sounds, and we are off to repeat the process and
the picture, six or eight leagues further on. Take our advice and
don't attempt to make a meal at one of these stations. The viands are
wretchedly poor, and the price charged is a swindle.
As we approach Matanzas the scene undergoes a radical change.
Comfortable habitations are multiplied, passable roads appear winding
gracefully about the country, groves and gardens spring into view,
with small and thrifty farms. Superb specimens of the royal palm begin
to appear in abundance, always suggestive of the Corinthian column.
Scattered over the hills and valleys a few fine cattle are seen
cropping the rank verdure. There is no greensward in the tropics, and
hay is never made. The scenery reminds one of Syria and the Nile.
One sees some vegetable and fruit farms, but sugar raising absorbs
nearly every other interest, the tobacco leaf coming next, now that
coffee is so neglected. The farmer ploughs with the crooked branch of
a tree, having one handle with which to guide the crude machine,--just
such an instrument as is used for the purpose in Egypt to-day, and has
been used there for thousands of years. The cattle are mostly poor,
half-starved creatures,--starved amid a vegetation only too rank and
luxuriant. The dairy receives no attention in Cuba. Butter is seldom
made; the canned article from this country, thin and offensive, is
made to answer the purpose. The climate is too hot to keep butter or
cream without ice, and that is expensive. Human beings, men, women,
and children, look stunted and thin, possessing, however, wonderfully
fine eyes, large, lustrous, and ebony in hue; eyes that alone make
beauty; but the physiognomists have long since learned that eyes of
themselves are no indication of character or moral force.
The thermometer had stood since early morning at 83°, during the long
ride from Cienfuegos. It was hot and dusty. Notwithstanding the
ceaseless novelty of the scene, one became a little fatigued, a little
weary; but as we approached Matanzas, the refreshing air from off the
Gulf of Mexico suddenly came to our relief, full of a bracing tonic,
and rendering all things tolerable. The sight of the broad harbor,
lying with its flickering surface under the afternoon sun, was
beautiful to behold.
After all, these tropical regions lack the delicious freshness of the
greensward, of new foliage, and the fine fragrance of the rural North;
they need the invigorating sleep of the seasons from which to awake
refreshed and blooming. Where vegetation is growing and decaying at
the same time, there can never be general freshness and greenness;
eternal summer lacks interest; we crave the frost as well as the
sunshine. Compensation follows fast upon the heels of even a Northern
winter. The tropical loveliness of the vegetation in this attractive
land indicates what Cuba should be, but is not.
Having accompanied the reader across many degrees of latitude,
effecting a landing and reaching the interior of Cuba, let us now pass
to other considerations of this interesting and important island.