A curtain with curious embroidery at the bottom conceals this door which separates this sala from my chamber. There I find plenty of finest linen and the clean odor which should always sanctify bedrooms. Canvas stretchers across the cot-like bedsteads make a delightfully cool and clean mattress. Carefully embroidered pillow-cases endeavor to excite our admiration, and brightly colored pictures of saints and martyrs on the wall, our devotion.
At three comes a Spanish jumble of sounds which mean, “Dinner is ready.” We walk out on a back piazza, overlooking the pretty courtyard with its shrubs and flowers, while we are sheltered from the sun by thickly-growing and blossoming vines.
Our chairs are a curious kind of wooden frame covered with some sort of hairy skin stretched tightly across the back and bottom; our floor is of clean cement; our soup is colored a bright yellow with saffron; our fish is fresh and white from the Carribean Sea; our rice is pearls set in sweet oil; our green peas have lost their identity by the same process; our water—unlike the quality of mercy—is strained, and through a filter; while our beef, like all the beef we have found in Cuba, is suspiciously dark and tough. Yet we have faith, remembering that the colored bipeds are much higher in the market than the quadrupeds. In addition to all this, our table is loaded with nondescript dishes of Creole names and ingenuity, and all are ranged in one stiff row down the middle of the table. Opposite me sits a Creole gentleman who has not only belonged to the army (it has been asserted that Creoles are not permitted to enter the army in any capacity), but has been an officer in Spain. We strike up a conversation in French, and imagine my admiration for the flexibility of his politeness, when he inquires how long I lived in Paris. Between dessert and coffee he leaves the table to smoke, apologizing to Mr. S—— by saying he is so much of a Spaniard that he must smoke before taking coffee, and he does not like to do it at the table in the presence of an American lady.
I confess it made me feel a little peculiar to see our French landlord sitting complacently at the head of the table with his bona-fide negro wife standing as complacently behind his chair to serve us.
After dinner I am attracted to the water-filter standing in one corner. It is a large moss-covered porous stone, with a cavity in the top where the water and charcoal are placed; the water creeping through the stone drop by drop, into the vessel below. I wish I could remember the name of the island where it is found, and, indeed, of which it is the foundation.
V.
A Palm-grove—A Planter’s Household—Coolies as compared with Negroes—Anecdotes of Coolies—Robbers—Heterogeneous Dinner—Creole Politeness.
Thursday, March 22d.