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.
