The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba

The second overseer, with his staff of field slaves, fills the yard which faces us. The faithful vassals have ended their day's toil, and are come to beg the evening blessing of their lord and master. Blacks of both sexes and all ages, stand before us in a row; some with machete reaping-knives under their arms, or bundles of maloja-fodder for the stable supply; others with the empty baskets into which they have been plucking the ripe coffee berry. Their evening costume consists of a loose garment of coarse canvas. The women wear head-dresses of gaily-coloured handkerchiefs twisted and tied in a peculiar fashion; the men have broad-brimmed straw hats and imitation panamas. The second overseer, with his inseparable whip, leans against our balcony with the air of a showman, as each black approaches with crossed arms to crave his or her master's blessing.

'La ben'dicion, miamo.'

'It is given,' says Miamo Don Severiano with the supremest indifference.

Being in the country, and moreover tired, we retire for the night at a reasonable hour. We have to make the best of our extemporised couches, for our luggage and furniture are yet on their way, and probably will not put in an appearance before morning. Some of the guests, therefore, betake themselves to swinging hammocks, while others occupy the mayoral Don José's catres – a species of folding bedstead not unlike an open apple-stall with a canvas tray.

Not until we have fairly taken possession of our temporary couches, do we fully appreciate Doña Belen's fore-thought in providing many yards of mosquito netting. I have always dreaded a country life, no matter in what part of the world, on account of strange vermin. A shudder runs through me at the mention of earwigs and caterpillars; but give me a hatful of those interesting creatures for bedfellows in preference to a cot in Cuba without a mosquito net!

What is that sweet creature crawling cautiously towards me along the brick floor, looking like a black star-fish with a round body?

'Oh, it is nothing, massa,' says my black valet 'I kill him in a minute, massa.' Which he does with his naked heel. Only an 'araña peluda;' in plain English, a spider of gigantic proportions, whose lightest touch will draw you like a poultice. I let the 'cucurrachos' pass, for I recognise in them my old familiar friend the cockroach, whose worst crime is to leave an offensive smell on every object he touches. Neither do I object to the 'grillo,' a green thing which hops all over the room; for I know it to be but a specimen of magnified grasshopper, who will surely cease its evening gambols as soon as the light is extinguished. But oh, by Santiago or any other saint you please, I would have you crush, mangle, kill, and utterly exterminate that dark brown long-tailed brute, from whose body branch all kinds of horrible limbs, the most conspicuous of which are a pair of claws that resemble the handles of a jeweller's nippers. Only an 'alacran,' is it? Son of the tropics, it may sound mildly to thee in thy romantic dialect, but in the language of Miamo Darwin, let me tell you, it is nothing more nor less than a scurrilous scorpion, whose gentlest sting is worse than the stings of twenty wasps. If the brother of that now squashed brute should drop upon me, during my repose, from that roof (which I perceive is of 'guano' leaf, and admirably adapted for scorpion gymnastics), my appearance at the breakfast-table to-morrow, and for days after, will be hideous; to say nothing of personal discomfort and fever. Now, a mosquito net stretched over you on its frame, effectually insures you against such midnight visitors; and, if well secured on every side, will even serve to ward off the yard and a half of 'culebra' or snake, which at certain seasons is wont to invade your bedroom floor at night.

I am awakened at an early hour by Don Severiano's live stock, who hold their musical matinée in the big yard exactly under my open window. The bloated and presumptuous turkey-cock, 'guanajo,' is leading tenor in the poultry programme. First fiddle is the 'gallo Inglés,' or English rooster. Then come the double-bass pigs, who have free access to the balcony and parlour. A chorus of hens, chickens, and guinea-fowls, varies the entertainment; while the majestic 'perjuil,' or peacock, perched on his regal box, the guano roof, applauds the performance below in plaintive and heart-rending tones. Before I am up and stirring, a dark domestic brings me a tiny cup of boiling coffee and a paper cigarette, and waits for further orders. Don Severiano proposes a stroll (he tells me) through his grounds. Our horses are soon led out, and we bestride them, with an empty sack for a saddle and a bit of rope for a bridle. Better riders than the Cubans I never saw in an equestrian circus, and steadier and easier-going animals than Cuban horses I have never ridden on a 'roundabout' at a country fair.

We come upon a sorry sight at one of the 'secaderos,' or coffee-drying platforms. A young mulatto woman is undergoing 'veinte cinco' on a short ladder: in other words, is being flogged. They have tied her, face downwards, by her wrists and ankles, to a slanting ladder, while an overseer and a muscular assistant in turn administer two dozen lashes with a knotted thong. She receives her punishment with low groans; when she catches a glimpse of the spectators, she craves our intercession.

'Perdona, miamo!'

The overseer laughs, and, turning to his visitors, offers his weapon with a polite invitation that one of us will try our skill. We all appeal to Don Severiano, and, at our earnest request, that humane gentleman orders his mayoral to let the culprit off. Smarting salt and aguardiente are then rubbed in for healing purposes, and the wretched girl is conducted to a dark chamber, where her baby, five months old, is shortly afterwards brought her for solace and aliment. I venture to inquire the nature of her crime, and am assured that it is ungovernable temper and general insubordination of more than a month's standing.

Our horses are halting on one of the four secaderos, or 'barbacués' – smooth platforms on which the ripe coffee-berry is laid and raked out to be blackened and baked by the sun. Near the secaderos is a circle of ground, hedged in like a bull-ring and containing a horizontal fluted roller, turned by a crank. This roller, or pulping-mill, is made to gyrate by a mule, crushing in its perpetual journey the already baked coffee-berry, until the crisp husk peels off and exposes a couple of whity-brown, hard, oval seeds, upon which are inscribed two straight furrows. There are winnowing-machines, for separating the chaff from the already milled grain. In that outhouse a group of dark divinities are engaged in the difficult process of sieving and sorting. See with what exceeding dexterity Alicia, Ernestina, and Constancia – the black workers have the whitest of Christian names – handle their big sieves. Alicia, cigar in mouth, takes an armful of the winnowed seed from the sack at her side, and transfers it to her sieve, which she shakes until the dust and remaining particles of husk fall like floating feathers to the ground. Then, by an expert turn of the wrist, she separates the smaller and better quality of seed from the larger and coarser; and by another remarkable sleight of hand, tilts the former into its corresponding heap on the ground, and pours the latter into a sack. Constancia is scarcely as expert as Alicia though. The sieve's perforations are wide enough to admit the small seed of the 'caracol,' and she separates the two qualities by the ordinary process of sieving the small and retaining the great.

Well seated on his chesnut charger, Don Severiano conducts us by a circuitous path up an exceedingly steep hill. The trees are tall and ponderous; the leaves are, for the most part, gigantic and easy to count; the fruits are of the biggest; the mountain tops are inaccessible; and the rivers contain fish for Titans. Surely giants must have peopled Cuba, long before Columbus found out the colony! Don Severiano takes little or no interest in the landscape, his attention being wholly absorbed by the small round berries, which may before long be converted into grains of gold, if the coffee crop yield as it promises.

The pickers are at their work. A score of them are close at hand, with their baskets already filled. Observe how they choose the dark red, and eschew the unripe green, or the black and overdone berry. The second overseer, whip in hand, is ever behind, to see that the pickers do not flag. He is a genuine white; but his complexion is so bronzed, that you would scarcely distinguish him from a mulatto, save for his lank hair and thin lips. He volunteers explanation. He points to the big fruit of the cacao, or cocoa plant, and shows which are the bread, the milk and the cotton trees. Learning that I am a foreigner and an Englishman, he offers some useful information respecting certain trees and plants which yield invaluable products, such as might be turned to good account by an enterprising European, but which are unnoticed and neglected by the wealthy independent native. At our request, he unsheathes his machete and cuts us a few odd-shaped twigs from a coffee bush, with which we may manufacture walking-sticks. He exhibits one of his own handiwork. It is engraved all over, polished and stained in imitation of a snake; and, as it rests in the green grass, it looks the very counterpart of such a reptile, with beady eyes and scaly back. On closer acquaintanceship, I find the second overseer to be a great connoisseur in canes.

It is our breakfast hour, and Doña Belen and the other ladies will not like to be kept waiting. So we return to the barbacué, where the powerful odour of roasting coffee is wafted towards us. The black cook is roasting a quantity of the drab seed, in a flat pipkin over a slow fire. She is careful to keep the seed in motion with a stick, lest it burn; and when it has attained the approved rich brown hue, she sprinkles a spoonful of sugar over it to bring out its flavour, and then leaves it to cool on the ground. Near her are a wooden pestle and mortar for reducing the crisp toasted seed to powder; and a small framework of wood in which rests a flannel bag for straining the rich brown decoction after it has been mixed and boiled.

Substantial breakfast over, some of us carry our hammocks and betake ourselves to the adjacent stream. Here, beneath the shade of lofty bamboos, within hearing of the musical mocking-bird, the wild pigeon and the humming-bird, in the midst of sweet-smelling odours, we lotus-eaters encamp, affixing each a hammock between a couple of trunks of trees. Here, we see nature under her brightest and sunniest aspect, and, divesting our imagination of oil and canvas landscape, arrive at the conclusion that trees and plants are very green indeed, and of an endless variety of shade; that stones do not glitter, save where water damps them; and that a Cuban sky is far bluer than the most expensive ultramarine on a painter's palette.

CHAPTER XX.

COUNTRY LIFE AT A SUGAR ESTATE

An Artist's Tent – Early Sport – An 'Ingenio' – Sugar and Rum – Afternoon Sport – A Ride through the Country – Negro Dancing – An Evening in the Country – 'La Loteria.'

With my companion Nicasio Rodriguez y Boldú, behold me passing the sultry months of August and September at the plantation of our worthy friend Don Benigno, who, with his wife and family, have encamped for the summer season at a farm-house on his sugar estate.

Our host's party is somewhat larger than usual, consisting of, besides his wife and family, his eldest daughter's intended, Don Manuel, and his family. After our arrival, it is found that Don Benigno's premises cannot accommodate us; we therefore obligingly seek a lodging elsewhere, and as in the tropics any place of shelter serves for a habitation, we do not greatly sacrifice our comfort.

Assisted by a stalwart negro, Nicasio and I improvise a lodging on the banks of the river which flows near Don Benigno's country house. Our rustic bower consists of a framework of roughly cut branches, and has an outer covering formed of the dried papyrus-like bark of palms. The interior is not spacious, but it meets all our requirements. In it we can swing our hammocks at night, and assume a sitting posture without inconvenience during the day. Our implements for sketching, together with a couple of double-barrelled guns and some fishing-tackle, distributed about the apartment, form agreeable objects for our gaze, while, at the same time, they are within our easiest grasp. Plenty of good fishing may be obtained in the deep, wide river which flows at our feet, and our guns may be equally well employed with sport in the opposite direction. As for our more peaceful instruments of art, there is abundant scope for them on every side; and thus we can shoot, angle, or sketch, as we may feel inclined, without moving from our shady retreat, which, during the sunnier hours of the day, we dare not desert.

We rise at a very early hour; indeed, it is not yet daylight when our dark domestic brings us our early cup of café noir and cigarettes. After refreshing our bodies in the natural gigantic bath which flows before our domicile, we dress: an operation which does not occupy much time, as our wardrobe consists simply of coloured flannel shirts, brown holland trousers, Panama hats, and buff-coloured shoes. Thus attired, with ammunition affixed to our girdles, and guns shouldered, we plunge into an adjacent thicket in quest of game; the objects of our sport being chiefly wild guinea-fowl, quails, partridges, and wild pigeons. No game license is required of us in these parts, and the sporting competition is very small, if indeed it exists at all, within earshot of us; at least, at this hour of the morning we have the field to ourselves. We hear nothing as yet but the rustling of gigantic ferns, bamboos, and plantain leaves, together with the occasional song of the winged tribe, whose united harmony it is our purpose soon to interrupt. The silence of the grey dawn is eminently favourable to our sport, and the low bushes which intercept our path screen us from the penetrating gaze of our prey. The guinea-fowl, or 'gallos de Guinea' as they are styled, occupy our first attention. At this hour they emerge from their hiding-places by the score to feed among the dewy heather. We have to move with extreme caution, for the colour of their soft feathers is scarcely distinguishable from the ground which they have selected as a table for their morning meal. Nicasio is in advance of me, tracking a company of guinea-fowls, whose melodious chirp has caught his accustomed ear. They are not yet visible, but my sporting friend has halted behind a bush, and thrown away his white tell-tale panama. This means mischief. The dark-grey clothes and sun-burnt face of my companion blend naturally with the surroundings, and, as he crouches motionless on the ground, he, like the birds just described, is barely discernible. I watch him with interest and some impatience, for a covey of large pigeons challenge my weapon close at hand. Their cooing seems to proceed from a great distance, but, conscious of the enemy's ventriloquial power, his muffled music does not deceive me. My companion has now levelled his gun, and, taking steady aim, presently fires. At the sound of fire-arms my pigeons take flight, and as they rise I fire into their midst. My companion now discharges his second barrel into a covey of quails, which had been feeding unobserved within a few paces of him. I take a shot at one of these birds as it flutters incautiously over my head, and it falls with a heavy thud at my feet. The firing has reached the quick ears of Don Benigno's watch-dogs, and anon our favourite animals, Arrempuja and No-se-puede, come bounding towards us. The sagacious brutes help to bring in our wounded, which we are gratified to find are more numerous than we contemplated. Gathering together our spoil, we remove to another spot, where our performances are repeated, though scarcely with the same success. The sun has already begun to cast broad shadows along the soil, and warns us that the hour for our 'tienta pie,' or early meal, approaches; so we return to our hut, change our damp linen for dry, and join the company, who are already seated on the broad balcony of Don Benigno's house, watching the interesting process of milking cows. Bowls of warm milk are presently handed round by negroes, who bring also new milk rolls which have just arrived from the village ten miles distant.

'What luck have you had?' inquires our host of his sporting friends.

We exhibit the result of our morning's sport, which gains us much applause and approving cries of 'Ay! que bonito. Ay! que bueno.' The black cook to whom we consign our game, promises to do culinary justice to them at breakfast.

We employ the interval which precedes that late meal in a saunter through Don Benigno's sugar works, where some of us are initiated into the mysteries of sugar making and rum distilling. The operations are conducted under a spacious shed in the piazza which faces the Don's dwelling-house, and here the whole process, from the crushing of the newly-gathered cane to the distilling of the aguardiente, or white brandy, is explained to us by our host, who apologises because he cannot show everything in working condition at this time of the year. He, however, enlightens us as to the uses of all we behold, and leaves the rest to our imagination.

Here is the store-house where the freshly-gathered cane is kept ready for the crushing process. Under that spacious shed is the engine-room in connexion with the rollers that crush the cane. Near us are the tanks or boilers for the reception of the 'jugo' or cane-juice. We are shown the clarifying pans and the coolers in which the boiled liquid, after being skimmed, is transformed into sugar grains or crystals. One of the most interesting sights is the process of separating the molasses, or treacle, from the crystalline portion of the sugar, which is done by the action of centrifugal force. The sugar, still in a liquid condition, is poured into a deep circular pan, which contains a movable drum-shaped cylinder of wire gauze. The latter is whirled rapidly round by means of machinery, and in doing so drives the liquid against the sides of the gauze drum, through the meshes of which the molasses escapes, leaving the dry white sugar clinging in hard cakes to the sides. Don Benigno gives us interesting statistics on his favourite subject, informing us how twelve or fourteen tons of ripe cane may be converted into one thousand five hundred hogsheads of sugar.

The machinery and engine are at present taking their periodical doze like a great boa constrictor. The engineer – a native of Philadelphia – has gone home for the holidays, and will not return till October or November, when the cane harvest begins and his indispensable services will be required. He has unscrewed all the brass fittings, taken out the slender and highly polished steel work, and stowed them away with fatherly care, while he has greased whatever is immovable, and then wrapped it up tenderly in machinery swaddling clothes.

Being an Englishman, I am looked upon by the company as an authority in matters mechanical, and my opinion touching the merits of the engineering works is consulted. I accordingly peer into everything with the air of a connoisseur, and happening to catch a glimpse of the maker's name and address on one of the shafts, observe grandly: —

'Ah, Fletcher and Company, I have heard of the firm.'

We have yet to visit Don Benigno's distillery, where the molasses or refuse of the sugar is converted into white brandy or rum. This is a simple process. The raw liquid is first boiled, and the steam which generates passes through a complication of sinuous tubing until it reaches a single tap, where it spirts out in fits and starts into the cold colourless spirit called 'aguardiente.' A glass valve is connected with the tap, and by means of this the degrees of strength formed by the spirit are gauged. The distillers are already at work, as the operations in this department are best accomplished out of harvest time. One of them invites us to test the strength of the precious spirit, which the gentlemen of our party do with their mouths, while the ladies are content to bathe their hands and temples in the icy-cold liquid.

Everybody takes a deep interest in all that is shown by our amicable cicerone, save, perhaps, Don Manuel and his inamorata, who occasionally loiter behind congenial cogwheels, huge coolers, clarifying pans, and other objects used in the process of sugar-making. The attachment which the lovers conceive for this particular portion of Don Benigno's possessions is so great, that it is with difficulty that they are induced to abandon it. Their repeated visits to the same secluded spot upon subsequent occasions, only confirms our host's theory, that machinery has a strange fascination for persons of all ages and sexes!

Our morning's perambulations terminate with a visit to the infirmary where the sick people, employed on the estate, are tended, and a stroll through the black barracks, which consists of rows of neatly built cottages, occupied by the Don's slaves and their families.

After a substantial breakfast, which resembles dinner in the variety of dishes provided, some of our party betake themselves to their dormitories with a siesta in view, being incapable of any more active service till the hot hours have passed. Nicasio and I, however, prefer to improve the sunny moments under the grateful shade of our improvised wigwam, in which position we may sketch, fish, or shoot without much exertion: but despite our laudable efforts to do something useful, our pencils drop from our hands, our angling is neglected, and we surrender to the overpowering heat.

I am awakened by my companion, who enjoins me, perhaps because I am indulging too loudly in somnolence, to be silent.

'What is it? Fish or feather?' I ask.

'Both,' he replies, under his breath. 'Hush! it's a river bird.'

'What is its shape?'

'I haven't seen it yet; but it has been chirping among the reeds and long grasses there, for the last half-hour.'

My friend's gun is half cocked in readiness, and presented through an aperture in our hut. After a long pause the bird emerges from its hiding-place, and with astonishing velocity half flies, half skims across the river, and vanishes between the reeds on the opposite bank.

Bang! bang! go both barrels of Nicasio's 'escopeta,' and both have missed their mark. My sporting friend is, however, determined to secure his game, which is an odd-looking creature, with a long neck and longer legs, similar to a crane. He accordingly fords the river at a shallow point, and in spite of my remonstrances (for a river bird is not easy to bag) goes in quest of his prey. At the expiration of a couple of hours, Nicasio, who has followed the bird two or three miles up and down the river, returns with it triumphantly, but he is himself very wet, footsore, and exhausted.

Our fishing is not so successful as our shooting to-day, and we have soon to abandon both amusements, together with our sketching, for the day is on the wane, and the ladies have come down to the river to take their afternoon's bath before dinner. So we modestly withdraw, and betake ourselves to a neighbouring 'cocoral,' where we refresh ourselves with the cool drink furnished by the cocoa-nut.

Towards nightfall, when dinner, with its indispensable accompaniments of café and cigars, is over, our host invites the gentlemen to accompany him to the plantations of a few friendly neighbours. Horses are accordingly saddled, spurs are affixed to our boots, and away we gallop.

Our first halt is made at a grazing-farm belonging to Don Benigno, and kept by his mayoral, or overseer, a stout, bronze-faced man, who, we are told, rarely moves during the day from a leather-bottomed chair, which he places slopingly against a post of the verandah. After inspecting Don Benigno's cattle, which consist chiefly of oxen, cows, and goats, we ride over to some coffee estates and tobacco farms, whose owners, or representatives, give us a hearty welcome, and are lavish of their hospitality, offering for our acceptance everything they possess except their wives and families, whom they, however, present to us as our 'servants.'

Our time being limited, we cannot partake of their bounty to-night, but promise to return another day. On the road homewards, we dismount at a coffee estate belonging to Don Benigno's kinsman, Don Felipe, where we remain for an hour or so, and watch the performances of a crowd of black labourers, who are keeping holiday in honour of some favoured saint. Dancing, with 'tumba' or drum accompaniments, forms the leading feature in the entertainments. The negroes, in turn, take part in the drumming, which is performed by bestriding barrel-shaped tambours, and beating the parchment side rapidly with their hands. The strange measure of the dance is so varied and well sustained, that the outline of an air may be easily distinguished. This primitive music is accompanied by a performance on rattles, by singing, and by scraping the güiro. This instrument is, in the country, roughly made from a dry calabash, notched in such a manner that a hollow grating sound is produced by scraping the rough surface with a fragment of bone. The dancers warm to their work in every sense. Only two couples volunteer at one time, and when they are utterly exhausted, others take their place. The partners dance independently of one another, and only join hands occasionally. The women, attired in long cotton gowns and coloured turbans, assume a short, shuffling kind of step, which gives them the appearance of gliding on wheels, while the upper parts of their persons oscillate, or sway to and fro in a manner peculiar to their tribe. The men, whose evening costume consists of buttonless shirts and short canvas trousers, are more demonstrative than their partners. Sometimes they throw up their arms in wild ecstacy, or leap madly into the air; varying these gymnastic performances by squatting, frog-fashion, near the ground, or turning pirouettes. They get so excited and warm over their gyrations, that their Panama hats, which have been doffed and donned fifty times, are thrown away, their buff-coloured shoes are kicked off, and finally their shirts are disposed of in a similar manner.