orange-trees, and are met at the door, not by simply the _mayoral_, as
we had expected, but by the son of the proprietor who, contrary to our
information, lives here with his family.
We are shown to the _sala_, the living and dining-room combined. Here
sits the pretty, pale mistress sewing on little dresses, while her child
of two years totters up to meet us, three large fourths of her
comfortable little brown delicious form visible.
Our errand is of course baffled, but we sit talking until the host
invites us to visit the grounds. They are large, cultivated with great
care and watered by a kind of inundation. Numbers of exotic fruits are
shown us among others, well grown American apples, which it has been
said, like peaches, will not grow in the tropics. Think of apples nearly
ripe in the month of March!
After having made our adieus we turn our horses’ heads towards the wild,
primitive-looking forest across the plantation. Directly we find a
serpentine path through the dark, rich, reddish-brown soil, the only
soil in which oranges and many other tropical fruits will grow; which
stains the men’s feet who work in it, or shoes if they have them; browns
the oxen, carts, everything that it touches; and which is grateful as
“music after howling,” to sun-dazzled eyes.
I have not before been so much impressed by the exquisite contrast of
palms and bamboo-trees growing together. The strange, sombre palm, with
its erect, uncompromising trunk, its long, straight, dark leaves,
looking so doric, so rich in individuality, and then, nestled quite
under its very shadow, you often see a clump of the slender willowy,
delicate bamboo, its pale green leaves, so soft and fine and feathery.
It is the vegetable masculine and feminine attraction. Or it is not
unlikely that a stern warrior, and an ethereal post would be drawn
together by the same contrasts.
As the path narrows and the forest thickens, these dull things are
obscured by densely woven vines, which everywhere hover over these
trees, making the forests at times so dense, that it must be a very
small bird or breeze to get through them: as for a man, he might as well
attempt to wedge his way into the future before the present has cut a
way for him.
But we do not care to have night shading these shadows with her black
crayons, and so, at the first opening, turn our horses’ heads, and amble
homeward, beneath the thrillings of those great ardent hearts up in the
blue bosom of the sky; those stars so large and fair that we need no
astronomer to suggest that it is only distance which keeps them from
being suns.
_Saturday, 24th._--When we had drunk the delicious coffee and milk, or,
more accurately, milk and coffee, which our landlady brings so soon as
we are awake, or should be, we hurried off for the early ride.
What can be more fresh and innocent, more externally young, than this
tropical nature! She is a robust Titaness, it is true, but always out of
her strong comes forth sweetness, and no riddle either. How readily she
justifies the taste which decks her in these early mornings with all her
jewels! And then she is so tender, so peaceful, so serene. Her tears,
thank heaven, like those of infants, are not tears of sorrow. Her
tempests, tornadoes, and straits of passion have been studiously kept
from us. It is true one misses that “sense of promise everywhere” with
which our Northern springs console their sweet virgin hearts, for nature
is always here in her fruition of beauty; “her every future is already
in her every present.” “The world,” says Plato (and he knows), “is God’s
epistle to mankind.” Here the manuscript is written in a large, generous
hand; the ink flowed freely; the thoughts are largely outlined.
Even the people, in spite of numerous reports of robberies, have almost
universally an innocent and amiable expression of countenance and the
most unoffending, respectful way in the world. Even the horses, I am
constantly assured, are never vicious. A lady might ride at random any
of the native species with safety. It may be that an habitual and
contented indolence is largely among the causes, but it strikes me that
harmlessness is the most apparent characteristic of these children of
the sun.
I must have forgotten to tell you of a remarkable phenomenon which we
met every morning coming in to market from the country, or already
arrived when we leave. It moves like an animal; its physiognomy is that
of a vegetable. The first thing you see advancing upon you is a huge
heap of corn-stalks, called fodder, I think, at home, and mollacca here.
It is very high above, and trails upon the ground below. By careful
examination, you may discover at one end of it a muzzled appearance
resembling a horse’s head; from the other extremity dangles a possible
appendage you would declare to be his tail, while sometimes, by careful
scanning and difficult investigation, you may count four feet under the
thing, upon which it seems to move. Sometimes, eight or ten of these
mysterious apparitions are fastened in a procession by a rope, pace
slowly along with one negro to drive or conduct it, often sitting
astride on the top of this superstructure. After many investigations, I
venture to affirm that the framework of this architecture is actually a
horse buried, yet alive and doing well. It would also have amused you to
see the great sun-umbrellas nearly all these countrymen carry on
horseback; not of the dark orthodox colors, but a bright light red
alternated with blue or yellow, tipped with black, or purple bordered
with green: an attempt to eclipse the sun in more ways than one.
After breakfast we with our umbrellas walked over to accept the
invitation of Father M---- to see his garden, or rather the garden in
the courtyard of the Marquis of V----, in whose vacant house the priest
lives alone and free of expense. Finding that he had not yet returned
from morning mass, we took the liberty of avoiding the scorching sun of
the garden by rambling through the great deserted corridors, chambers,
and antechambers, all built and furnished in Spanish style and only
occupied, like most of the great houses out of the cities, one or two
months of every year. Presently, after I had duly ensconced myself to
rest in one corner of a sofa behind the door of the grand drawing-room,
came in the priest, jolly as the priests of romance, saluting us with a
stunning volley of Spanish and politeness; we replying in smiles and
nods which Mr. S---- did not translate, and in English, which he did.
The reverend father is a short man even for a Creole, and when sitting
suggests the form of a pyramid; but the little twinkling gray eyes
situated near the apex of the structure suggested anything rather than
the sepulchral. After we had seen and duly admired some of the frescoes
in the rooms and all the distant views from different upper piazzas and
windows, the priest, with the air of one who is doing you an uncommon
favor, invited us to visit his sanctum. I put on a look of becoming
gravity and awe, and, with a feeling of profound grief at my ignorance
of the mysteries of science, and, alas! of art and theology, and with
profound gratification that there are some works, even in Cuba, where
science and wisdom find refuge, where learning and piety shake hands, I
follow the father and the gentlemen follow me.
We enter a dark, long passage leading to this cell of midnight vigils
and occult research; the door slowly opens, I reverently enter
upon--heaps of tinsel leaves and flowers, with scissors and glue and all
the paraphernalia for flower-making; piles of bouquets lie on the bed,
all with silver leaves exactly alike, and each one with a brick-red rose
in the centre. They are to decorate the church on Easter Sunday; they
are the only proofs of piety and science and lore that the sanctum of
our jolly priest possesses.
After dinner, Father M---- came in, bringing a gentleman who said we
could have a house of his in the country. We go at once on our horses,
to find a river of remarkably clear and pure water running behind the
house among the trees, all most inviting; but the house is wretchedly
dilapidated, kitchen to be built, and, withal, a Creole overseer is to
occupy one half of it. Thus nonplussed, we resign all thought of a
permanent location in the country, and decide to spend our time in
travelling over the island so soon as the interest of Guiness is
exhausted.
From this place we ride to Le Armistad, the _ingenio_ of Mr. D----, our
first Guiness friend, with the hope of getting some _guirappa_ or
cane-juice to drink. It is said to have remarkable fattening as well as
curative power. But the machinery is silent, the chimneys are smokeless,
the odor of nice sweet cake only regales the nostrils of the memory; and
so, redisappointed, we turn again toward home, and ride through the
hedges by the light of a Venus that has a halo as distinct as you may
have seen around the moon. Instead of fast horsemen with dangling sword
and pistol-equipped saddle, we only meet sleepy-looking market-men
returning home astride the collapsed panniers, which in the morning
bulged at each side of their horses like huge saddle-bags, stuffed with
all kinds of fruits or poultry, and these poor horses would think
themselves fortunate if fruits and ducks and chickens were all that is
packed upon their devoted backs. Not only all the fodder and charcoal go
to town in this way, but I saw this morning four exhausted-looking
creatures wilting along through the mid-day sun with chairs, tables, and
bedsteads, piled high upon their backs, and sometimes a
good-for-nothing-looking negro mounted on the top of all openly
rejoicing in that “bad eminence.”
_Sunday, March 25th._--Awoke too late and too weary for early mass this
morning. Immediately after breakfast I was attracted to the window by
martial music and a procession. The landlady came in, saying it was the
burial of an officer’s child. First came the musicians, mulattoes with
handsome serious faces; after them boys in the dress of novices, then
the priests in robes. But no relatives or mourners were to be seen, for
the immediate friends of the dead never go to the burial, do not leave
their houses on these occasions. It is not considered decent or
appropriate anywhere on the island. One is constantly impressed with the
truth that geographical nearness has little to do with real nearness.
All the customs of this country ally it much more nearly to Europe than
to America.
I stood looking carelessly on at the long procession, with only
curiosity excited, when I am attracted by the peculiarly sad and solemn
and tender expression in the faces of the soldiers who follow. I see
tearful eyes turned toward the centre of the group. I look--what an
apparition! Never shall I forget the shock, the thrill, the agony of the
sight. Upon an open litter carried in the hands of these soldiers it
lay, the little angel face of rarest possible loveliness, wreathed with
flowers that are pale and fair, but not so fair and pale as itself. The
little dead hands full of white flowers are raised and clasped in a
supplicating attitude, the little heavenly form, just the fatal and
familiar size, is robed in a trailing white satin shroud, and over this
unearthly vision shines the burning sun with mocking glare, and upon it
stare the passers-by with indifferent faces through which no broken
heart has ever looked. But with this wonderful image some mother’s soul
at home is blackened, with this wonderful image the blackness of the
grave will be brightened. Ah, that grave! It will hold another dead
infant upon its heart, _but it will give back none in return_!
_March 26th._--Again this morning from bed to horse for a little free
air, a little hour to enjoy this wonderfully sweet and delicious nature
before the sun begins his reign of tyranny, and, to all who have the
temerity to encounter his personal presence, reign of terror.
Among untried points of the compass, we remember due south as one. Here
we very soon find ourselves and the road entering upon a long avenue
formed by hedges that have grown to trees, often meeting over our heads.
These are filled with birds and flowers of all songs and perfumes;
through them we catch glimpses of scattered cocoa-nut groves and wide
cane-fields.
Presently we come upon a high, ornamented, close-locked gate, the first
of the kind we have seen, and as unlike a sketch I made of it as a
pretty gate must almost be to a bad drawing of it. On approaching more
nearly we find written upon it “_Cafetal_.” We look over the side fence
and discover a wide avenue of palms leading to the concealed house, and
on both sides the pretty coffee-plant, with its small, dark-green
leaves. All over the wide fields it is growing under the shade of a
great variety of trees,--the cocoa-nut, orange, palm etc.; for you must
know the coffee-plant has the feminine peculiarity of always needing
shelter and protection, as well as of causing palpitations,
exhilarations, trepidations, and nervousness generally.
What a shame and sin it was to turn all these shady, poetical _cafetals_
into horrid _ingenios_ with their treeless, monotonous, endless fields
of cane, their dreary smoking chimneys, their steaming engines, and
broiling machinery of men and women!
In the perpetual battles between gold and beauty, it is likely, I fear,
the latter will not win until it has the millennium for an ally.
As we were turning away from the closed gate, a huge piece of midnight,
bungled into human shape, and dressed, or rather undressed, so as to
display the herculean proportions of the entire morning and evening of
his body, having the noon in eclipse, came up to us, holding out an
immense charcoal paw, accompanied by a beseeching jumble of chopped
Spanish.
B---- put in it a piece of silver, which the black-meat looked at so
contemptuously as to quite spoil his attempt at a civil “_gracias_.”
_Evening._--We ventured to penetrate the inviting avenue of this
morning; found it leads to the beautiful _Cafetal_ of “La Providencia.”
The grounds lovely, with overgrown ornamental trees and shrubs, and
pretty brook of rural and domestic habits. Just beyond we met the
administrator with his wife and sister, returning on horseback from the
“south side.” where we had much wished to extend our own ride. The
_pros_ why we should go are:--this is just the season for the sea-cow;
they are being caught in large numbers, and I am positively assured by
those who should know, that they are the real original mermaid--the
prosaic suggestion of all the romantic ballads and traditions. But the
_cons_ that confront our enthusiasm are mostly the roads, which are so
bad as to be dangerous; the horses we met had been almost buried in the
mud, and it is a severe test of the strength of the most vigorous
person. So we yield to the urgencies of that wretched bugbear,
invalidism, and, finally, to the invitation of the party, to go back
with them to the house. Here we are urged to remain to dinner, which is
waiting in the large living-room where we sit, but the sun is already
set, and we excuse ourselves, accepting at last some fruit and a glass
of _guirappa_.
By the time we have passed the grounds night is lapping over the edge of
day without any perceptible clasp of twilight. And those hedges so high
and thickly woven! The starlight scarcely contrives to get through them.
How easily an army of robbers might conceal there and rush upon us,
unarmed as we are, and the darkness robbing us of our only
protection--my sex, and its weakness and appeal to gallantry. Our horses
even instinctively press close to each other and quicken their pace. But
the darkness, or the invisible hand and heart that fashion it, protects
us safely home. Here we are just in time for the usual evening music on
the plaza, a pretty square in the heart of the little town, made and
ornamented by concha, with much taste and expense. It is like all the
plazas I have seen, an imitation of the one at Havana; with exactly four
palm-trees, with shrubs and flowers and statues; with small
bilious-looking men, and belles with regular oriental features, soft and
dark eyes, fat forms, pretty ball dresses, and an awkward mode of
progression which they fancy is walking.
_Tuesday, 27th._--To-day we explored our way to a new sugar plantation,
the first I have seen where the cane is ground by oxen instead of the
usual steam-engine. I have always pitied those poor oxen and horses
pacing round and round in the mill, round and round with the rounding
months and years; but these wretched beings who drive them, with long
whips or rather poles in their hands, calling out to the long train of
animals at every step, as they follow them, in hideous monotonous,
guttural tones that never end; fifty in number, all young and mostly
females; night and day, day and night; and several overseers with the
invariable long whip in hand to watch at every step,--it made me
heart-sick, and glad enough to turn from the entrance of the building,
where we sat on our horses, and ride up to the house of the _mayoral_
for a glass of water. His wife, with an interesting Creole face and
Spanish tongue, insists that we dismount, which accordingly we do, and
wait while the slip-shod negress (negresses here are always slip-shod)
goes to the sugar-house for _guirappa_. We learn that the plantation
belongs to Marquise Somebody, who only comes once in two or three
years, occupying the family house across the green, which, though ample
and well built, has not a tree, a shrub, a leaf to turn it into a home.
As we wait, a small chain-gang passes by us, coolies and negroes linked
together at their work; not an uncommon appendage to a plantation, and
in fact essential with coolies, who are quite certain to commit suicide
if whipped. The lady tells me by proxy that she much prefers negroes to
coolies because they are so much more amiable.
This being the reverse of opinions frequently expressed to me, I infer
that the preference indicates the character of the employer quite as
much as that of the servants.
We return home with the eight o’clock morning sun applying itself with
the vigor and precision of a hot flatiron to the back of our necks. Here
we cool off and rest ourselves for the substantialest of breakfasts,
only to be surpassed by the substantialest of appetites.
As a daily increasing strength allows a daily increase of circuit in our
excursions, we this evening ventured toward the attractive range of
mountains stretched across the northern horizon. Our course soon led us
upon the “Royal Highway,” a broad, smooth military road leading to
Havana; presently we turned upon a wandering equestrian path, with the
appearance of once having been the rough bed of some mountain stream.
And this is not improbable, for the entire luxuriously fertile plain of
Guiness is watered by streams born and matured here; their course and
the amount of water each plantation shall receive being regulated by
the government.
The water for the towns we see carried in little casks, upon the backs
of the horses.
The soil on those barren heights being too sterile for the luxurious
tastes of the sugar-cane, Indian corn, vegetables for the markets, and
many unfamiliar plants are cultivated by the simple, contented-looking
Creoles, whom we find living in these little scattered cottages, with
their high-pointed thatched roofs, few or no windows, and multitudinous
appendages of goats and children.
Arrived at the top of one mountain, we find another still towering above
us, evidently commanding the northern view, so nothing remains but to
pick our way across the valley and its hill, and inquire the best path
of the wondering mountaineers. As we go on the squalidness increases;
the soil becomes more stony and obdurate; the whole aspect of the
country, with the exception of here and there a stray palm, Mr. S----
tells us, is precisely like that of the poorer parts of Ireland.
At one point we come across oxen toiling up a hill with an immense
hogshead of water, upon a real Yankee sled; at another we meet a dashing
horseman, who reins up to salute us. Mr. S---- praises his horse, when he
replies, with a bow full of native grace, “It is always at the service
of your worship.”
But here we are at last, upon the very pinnacle of this temple,
beholding the kingdoms of Cuba and the glory thereof.
East and west of us mountains--those pyramids of nature, which will
never, like those of man, forget their maker--are rising and falling to
suit their own ideas of grace and majesty; north and south are stretched
fair and smiling plains and valleys, with all their strong contrasts and
harmonious blendings of colors: the horizon on the south is caressed by
the soft, sunny, sky-blue waters of the Carribean Sea, looking like the
beginning of a new firmament; the northern horizon is washed by the
darker and wilder waves of the Atlantic; and over all is poured, in
bewildering floods, the glory and passion of a tropical sunset.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
VII.
_It Rains--The Effect--No Miserere--Guirappa-seeking--A Skeleton
Horse--B----’s Pantomimes--A Day More--The Bells of
Guiness--Market Day--An Invitation--Another Plantation--A
Remarkable Tree--Palm-Sunday--A Sundayless World--Dreamland--I
Didn’t Smoke--Cushioned Heads._
WEDNESDAY, 28th.
Ever since our arrival in Cuba, nature has kept in her after-dinner
mood; but to-day, for the first time, clouds are come over the sky with
another motive than that of simple ornament. If every cloud is an
angel’s face, and no angel’s faces elsewhere, then are we not blessed
with angelic physiognomies? For the first time these gauzy waves have
ceased to vagabondize over our heads like mere apparitions of loveliness
that cannot discover or remember their own errands in the world. In
short, the rain has poured in torrents, in desperate cataracts, for two
hours. Every thing, as well as the roses, is “dripping and drowned.” The
streets are rushing rivers.
But I do not see that nature is especially glad, or even conscious of
the change, unless it be in sympathy with our gladness; for it is here
that she seems always to have within her, and in the atmosphere she
breathes, a fountain of perpetual freshness and youth.
So many weeks of heat and drouth at home would calcine everything to
ashes; but now we see all vegetation bright as when it was born. Nature
is here a goddess of immortal youth sipping invisible nectar and
ambrosia, and forever ministering to her favorites from the secret of
her reservoirs.
So the rain having made us domestic, I sit behind the grates of the
swelling window, mending gloves, sewing on buttons (they foresaw the
rain), listening to ludicrous passages from Handy Andy, taking lessons
in cribbage, studying Spanish verbs, and watching the enraptured little
boys sailing miniature boats in the street; or the stately negresses
passing by with the rain dripping from umbrellas upon their bare
shoulders; or the omnipresent soldiers hurrying along to get out of the
rain and give me a glimpse of the irresistibly comical cut of their
semi-skirted coats. I do not know how better to describe these coats
than that they always remind me of the pathetic condition of those
redoubtable three blind mice after
“They all ran after the farmer’s wife,
And she cut off their tails with the carving knife.”
This evening we mustered courage, India-rubbers, and umbrellas, and went
to the cathedral to hear the _Miserere_. This being Holy Week, it was to
be chanted every night. But the rain, that could not keep away
curiosity, had quenched the fire of devotion. No one else came, and we
wandered about in the silent aisles listening to no music but the
echoings of our own voices through the high arches, and our footsteps
over the marble floor. We saw by the dim light of the wax tapers, only
vague outlines of statues and pictures draped in black crape for the
sadness of the Passion-week.