The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba

'These poor Span – ' I begin. The barrel trembles visibly.

'Por Dios,' hisses the manager, bobbing up from the barrel like an undecided Jack-in-the-box – 'for Heaven's sake, don't compromise me!'

The audience begin to show signs of impatience. Again the prompter maddens me by giving the text.

Myself (aside to prompter): 'Bar – ajo! sir, I know my part.'

Mister Charleys (very loud to audience): 'These poor Spanish brutes want civilising badly!'

'Bravo! Muy bien!' from the Cuban party.

Groans and loud whistling from the Spaniards.

'That was well said!' observes a voice.

'Fuera!' (Turn him out!) observes another.

'It was a good home-thrust!' cries the first.

'Fuera ese hombre!' (Turn out that man!) shrieks voice number two.

'Polizia!' The theatrical president rises angrily from his box and summons the police.

The male spectators who occupy the pit-stalls begin to be as unruly as they are at a bull-fight. The ladies move from their boxes to the lobbies.

The censor is sent for by the president. The manager is charged to appear by the censor; and anon Ramon, alias Don Baltazar Telon y Escotillon, his face and dress besmeared with charcoal, steps into the president's 'palco.'

'Bravo! Bien!' from the audience, whose good-humour is at once restored by this new and unexpected diversion.

A mighty conference is held in the president's box, and the matter of dispute is warmly discussed with suitable gesticulations. The question is, however, finally decided in favour of the manager.

Order being now established, the president's box is cleared, the actors resume their positions on the stage, and the farce, which proves a great success, terminates happily.

When the performances are over, and I have attired myself in the costume of the country, I join my friends in the front of the house.

Don Benigno and his family congratulate me on my successful début and express a hope that it will not be my last appearance on the Cuban stage.

Tunicú, Bimba and others of my Pollo friends overwhelm me with compliments, and as soon as I am at liberty, they hurry me and Nicasio off to the nearest café, where a substantial supper is soon provided.

Cachita and her relations are equally warm in their praises, and Cachita's father, Don Severiano – to whom I am for the first time introduced – very much rewards my efforts, by inviting me to pass a few days, during the approaching summer, at his coffee estate, whither he and his family are bound.

As for Don Baltazar, the manager – he is so rejoiced at the success of his plan of presenting the public not only with a 'real Yankee from the United States,' but with one of the 'original' followers of the divine art of Apelles, that he induces me to repeat the performance; and 'Los Mocitos del Dia' is forthwith announced for another evening.

CHAPTER XIX.

COFFEE GROUNDS OF CUBA

Going out of Town – On the Road – A Wayside Inn – A Cane Field – West-Indian Fruit Trees – The Arrival – A Dinner in the Country – The Evening Blessing – Tropical Reptiles – A Farm-Yard – Slave Flogging – Coffee – Tropical Scenery – A Siesta

My experience of the Spanish West Indies warrants me in the assertion that a tropical climate has but one season throughout the year, and that season is summer. The months of August and September, however, are favoured with a special season of their own; but the prevailing temperature can scarcely be defined by mounting mercury, neither can it be adequately described. It is during these blazing hot months that the ever-azure firmament seems to blink with blue: that the roads and pavement blister the soles of your feet; and that the gay-coloured house-fronts scorch your clothes of white drill and tan your Anglo-Saxon complexion. The Cubans have a mania for painting the fronts of their town residences a celestial blue, a blinding white, or a feverish yellow ochre: colours singularly trying to the eyes, and figurative eyesores to artists in search of the harmonious. It is at this oppressive season of the year that I would relieve my exhausted vision with the grateful greens of the dusky olive, the pale pea, and the lively emerald. I pant for a plantation which shall shelter and not suffocate.

The realisation of my desire is kindly brought about by Cachita's father, Don Severiano, who hospitably places at my disposal his hacienda in the country. Thither he himself is bound, with Doña Belen his wife, his children, certain friends and domestics. So I make one of his party. Don Severiano is a wealthy planter, with I know not how many acres of rich soil, where the coffee-plant grows, yielding a couple of crops or so per annum to the labour of a small battalion of blacks.

On the morning of our departure for Don Severiano's coffee estate, Don Severiano himself is in the patio, presiding over the saddling and harnessing department; for some of us are to bestride horses. The ladies and children are to drive; and mules, and carts drawn by oxen, are reserved for the conveyance of the luggage and the domestics. By way of dispelling our lingering somnolence, and fortifying us for the heavy journey before us, cups of strong coffee are handed round; and, with a view to getting over as much ground as possible before blinding daylight shall appear, we start at three o'clock to the minute.

The quitrins – light gig vehicles on wheels six yards in circumference, with shafts sixteen feet long, and drawn by mules bearing negro postilions in jack-boots – lead the way. The equestrians follow at a jog-trot; the extreme tips of their buff-coloured shoes lightly touching the stirrups; their knees firmly pressed against the saddles; their figures bolt upright and immovable. Then come the carts with shady awnings of palm leaves, drawn by oxen with yokes fastened to the points of their horns. The drivers probe them with long iron-tipped lances, and further goad them by shouting their names and adjective titles. But they move slowly, and are soon left miles behind. In their rear are about a dozen mules with well-filled panniers, linked together in line by their tails and rope reins, and led by a mounted driver with a long whip, who grasps the end of the cord by which they are united, and shouts ferocious menaces as he goes.

It is still dark. The dew lies thick on everything; myriads of frogs and night insects yet hold their croaking concert; and the fire-fly cucullo, with its phosphorescent lantern, darts about here and there, like falling stars and fireworks. A stony stream has now to be forded. Into it splash the gigs; our horses following willingly, for they are thirsty, poor beasts, and the cool spring water is inviting. The roads are, so far, favourable to our march; but we have arrived at a piece of ground where muddy puddles lie horse-leg deep. A bridle road invites, but the thoroughfare being intercepted by brushwood and overhanging branches, it is not easy to effect a passage. Our leader, Don Severiano, accordingly unsheathes the long machete, which he wears like a sword, and hacks him an avenue for self and followers. The thicket is even darker than the high-road we have deserted, and our leader curbs his horse with caution while he lights a taper of brown wax; for the ground is slippery, and abounds in deep holes and unexpected crevices. From my position in the rear, the effect produced by the rays of the solitary illumination is agreeable to the sight. The dark outlines of the riders who precede me, appear like black silhouettes against a background of green and brown, and nature by candle-light looks like stage scenery.

We emerge again upon the main road, and at full speed gallop after our friends. We fall in with them at a tienda, or wayside inn, at which they have halted. Dismounting from our horses, we assist the ladies to alight from their carriages. Of course I attend upon the fair Cachita, whose agreeable society I enjoy till our departure from the tienda. The tienda is a queer combination of tavern, coffee-house, chandler's shop, and marine-store dealer's. The walls and ceiling are completely concealed by miscellaneous wares. Spurs and sardine boxes; candles, calico, and crockery; knives and nutmeg-graters; toys, tubs, and timepieces; rows of sweet hams, sheathed machetes, pulleys, coils of rope and farming implements; Panama hats, buff-coloured country shoes; tin spoons, preserves, and French brandy. The innkeeper or shopkeeper of this out-of-the-world store is a native of Barcelona – by name Boy – who pronounces Spanish with a very broad Catalan accent. We travellers are his sole customers at present, and as we require only hot coffee at a medio the cup, aguardiente brandy at a creole penny the nip, a handful of cigars, and a packet of paper cigarettes, the profits derived from our patronage cannot be very great.

We are off once more, not to halt again until a cane field stops the way. The growing cane, with its bamboo-shaped fruit, and waving leaf of long grass, crops up to the right and left of us for miles, and terminates in the 'ingenio' or sugar-works. The entrance to the proprietor's grounds is by a five-barred gate and a wigwam, both of which have been designed and constructed by an aged and decrepit African who occupies the latter. He crawls out of his domicile as we approach, and his meagre form is barely covered by a grimy blanket fastened to his girdle by means of a strip of dried palm bark. To all our questions his solitary response is 'Sí, sñor, miamo,' being exactly the creole Spanish for the creole English 'Yes, massa.' Having by this means satisfied ourselves that 'miamo,' his massa, is at home and willing to receive us, we proceed until we hear the clicking of a whip, and observe indistinctly a row of naked blacks, who are engaged in some earthy occupation. A big bronze-faced man, in a white canvas suit and a pancake Panama hat, stands behind them and holds a long knotted whip, which he occasionally applies to their backs as a gentle reminder that time represents so many Spanish doubloons. This is the 'mayoral,' or overseer. He seems to pride himself upon his masterly touch with the thong, for when no black skin forms an excuse for the practice of his skill, he flicks at nothing, to keep his hand in. The sorrow of this sight is greatly augmented by the dead silence; for whenever the chastising weapon descends, the sufferer is mute.

The lawful owner of these lashed shoulders and of a couple of hundred more, has turned out to greet us. His unshaved countenance wears a sleepy expression, but the stump of a lighted cigar is already in his mouth. At a given signal, a couple of small slaves appear, with cups of hot coffee and a tray of long home-made cigars. 'Candela!' Mine host invokes fire, and a little mulatto girl, upon whom it devolves to provide it, presents each smoker with a lump of red-hot charcoal in the clutches of a lengthy pair of tongs. Daylight is appearing, and warns us that we must be on the move again.

'Adelante, caballeros!' Leaving the level cane district, for the next few hours we are winding up mountains. At every turn of the road, the ingenio we have quitted grows smaller and smaller, till the planter's residence, the big engine-shed, and the negro cottages, become mere toys under our gaze. Now we are descending. Our sure-footed animals understand the kind of travelling perfectly, and, placing their fore-paws together, like horses trained for a circus, slide down with the greatest ease.

Somebody ahead has exclaimed, 'Miren!' We look, and behold a distant view of Don Severiano's 'cafetal.' The path has become narrower, and we are encompassed by short thick hedges, dotted with red and black berries of a form not unlike diminutive olives. I pick and open one of these berries, and somebody observing, 'Que café tan abundante!' I discover that what I have plucked is coffee in a raw state.

'Que admirable es la naturaleza!' sings a Spanish dramatist. Nature is, indeed, much to be admired, especially when you are viewing her in orange groves, where oranges, for the trouble of picking them, hang invitingly over your very mouth, seeming to say, 'Eat me, stranger.' Some are small and green as gooseberries; others are big as your head, and of the bright hue to which they give a name. Next on the carte of nature's dessert are the heart-shaped, smooth-skinned mangoes, with their massive and symmetrical tree. They are followed by a procession of lime-trees, citrons, nisperos, granadas, marañones, anones, zapotes, mamoncillos, and a host of other fruits with strange shapes and equally odd Hispano-Indian appellations. I grieve to relate that the king of fruits – the princely pine-apple – is far from being the exalted personage you would have expected him to be. Like a bachelor cabbage, he grovels in solitary state under our feet! We play at marbles with pomegranates, and practise tilting at the ring with citrons. Throw into the scene a few parasite and plantain trees with slender trunks and colossal leaves; fill in the foreground with gigantic ferns, aloes, and palmettoes, and the background with spotless blue; select for yourself from the nearest hot-house where specimens of exotic plants are nursed, and you are with us, dear – and none the less dear for being imaginative – reader!

Distant barking denotes that we are within earshot of our destination; and anon a couple of Don Severiano's faithful dogs come bounding along the road towards us.

'Hey, Esperules, old girl! What, and Tocólo too?' Don Severiano caresses them in turn as each leaps to his saddle. A dozen more lie in ambush at the gate which leads to the coffee grounds, and through which we are now passing. The mayoral, with his wife and children, turn out to meet and welcome us. Crowds of Africans pay us homage and grin with delight. We halt in the patio, and a score of half-naked grooms assist us in alighting, and watch and help us at our lightest movement. As it is evening dusk when we arrive, and as we are exhausted with our day's pilgrimage, we betake ourselves to our dormitories without a word. Here we are served by stalwart domestics, who bathe our burning feet in luke-warm water, and sponge our irritated bodies with diluted aguardiente. A clean shirt of fine linen; a fresh suit of whity-brown drill; a toy cup of black coffee; and we are refreshed and ready to do justice to dinner; to the 'aijaco' of chicken and native vegetables; to the 'bacalao' or stock-fish, with tomato sauce; to the boiled meat, cabbage, 'chocho,' bacon, and 'garbanzos'; to the stewed goat, with accompaniment of yams, baked bananas, pumpkin and Indian corn; to the guava jellies and guanavana preserves mashed up with insipid creole cheese; to the juicy mangoes cut up in slices in the midst of Catalan wine and sugar; to the excellent black coffee, and home-made cigars. These we discuss in the broad balcony without, where, seated on leather-bottomed chairs, we pass the rest of the evening.

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.