The negroes, direct descendants of imported Africans, were more or less stupid and stolid, like “dumb-driven cattle.”
The sad experience of our predecessors, the Royos, with small-pox, when they lost forty of their laborers, one year’s entire sugar-crop, and suffered months of complete isolation from quarantine, which precipitated their destruction, already imminent from long years of prodigality and mismanagement, made us anxious to protect ourselves as far as possible from the loathsome disease that ravages Cuba, notwithstanding government precautions. We applied to all the physicians in the neighborhood, but none were licensed to vaccinate; then sent to Havana for virus, but our merchant replied that it could not be procured, as it was in official hands. Not to be baffled in our humane undertaking, some was obtained through a friend in New York, and my brother seemed likely to raise another rebellion when he applied the lancet to every one on the plantation.
Our good-natured doctor was surprised and amused when he called, a short time after, and was shown the array of swollen and scarred arms in the hospital. He said he presumed, as we were foreigners, that we could do as we pleased, but no Cuban would have dared disobey the law. The patients recovered, however, and nothing was said or done about the committal of such a flagrant act.
There is an infinitesimal insect in the tropics that bores into the toe at the very edge of the nail, producing by that action the very slightest sensation of itching; but if the owner of that toe does not employ instanter a pair of keen eyes and a fine needle to extract the vicious insect that is entering the flesh, wo to him! Once under the skin, all sensation of uneasiness ceases, but in a few days the toe becomes inflamed and swollen to twice its normal size, and a sac of matter forms that must be cut open and allowed to discharge. The poor sufferer hobbles around for days, unable to put the injured foot to the floor. Sometimes, neglect of warning leads to fearful results, even lock-jaw supervening. One of our earliest experiences at Desengaño was to stand helplessly by and see a child, twelve years old, die of that surpassingly horrible disease tetanus, utterly unable to account for its cause until a physician’s examination revealed the condition of her feet. Application of coal-oil was considered the best preventive, disagreeable as it is. The care of seventy feet belonging to the Chinese gang, who did not appreciate the danger of neglect, was a worry. Every morning they were marched to the infirmary, their feet examined, and then dipped into a pail of coal-oil. The coal-oil foot-bath is a very simple thing, but, as the oft-referred-to contract did not include that ceremony, it was always attended with remonstrances and threats.
CHAPTER XX.
CIRIACO—PLANTATION GARDEN—TASAJO—NEGRO MUSIC AND DANCING.
From that band of Chinese, one with a good countenance and neat appearance was selected for a cook. It is surprising how quickly and accurately the Chinese imitate. Before Ciriaco could understand the language, he had already learned to cook quite well. A cloth, some ashes, and a rub or two from Martha, explained that “cleanliness was next to godliness,” and that we delighted in clean pots and pans. Martha made a pot of soup; solemnly and silently he watched every ingredient and every motion; the next day he made soup, and the only mistake was a seasoning of dog-fennel which he mistook for parsley! He was given a portable grate once used to heat flat-irons. Martha measured the coffee into the pan, tempered the heat, and showed him with a stick how to stir the coffee till it was properly roasted. To the last day at Desengaño that fellow three times a week put the grate in the same spot, measured the coffee into the same pan, stirred it with the identical stick, and I doubt not gave it the same number of stirs each time. I never saw any servant so systematic, so methodical, so quiet, so solemn, so intent, so clean. During the eight years he was in the kitchen, there was not an hour in the day when Ciriaco could not be found. He brought his wood from behind the sugar-house at the same hour every afternoon, drew the water from the cistern with the same regularity, carrying it Chinese fashion in pails swung at each end of a pole.
The meals were always promptly served. He was like a machine wound up when he kindled the morning fire, and run down when he turned the key in the court at night.
There was a large area on the mountain planted in yams, malangas, bananas, and other vegetables for plantation use. Wagon-loads were brought to the store-room daily, to be weighed out to the cooks, of which there were three—one for the house, one for the Chinese, and one for the negroes. Green bananas of a very large and coarse variety, such as are rarely seen in the United States, roasted in ashes, and a thick mush, called funcha, made of yellow-corn meal, were the universal substitutes for bread, and thousands, both white and black, in Cuba never had any other. We ground corn daily in such a mill as Sarah used when Abraham bade her “to make ready quickly three measures of meal and make cakes”—i. e., a big stone worn hollow by the operation of grinding: the upper stone is grasped by both hands, and the weight of the body brought down upon it as it moves over the lower stone, producing golden meal of excellent flavor, that was daily very acceptable on our table in varied forms. Cuba is no corn country, though there is no month in the year when green corn can not be had; but the stalks are low and spindling, the ear small, somewhat tasteless, and invariably yellow. We planted white corn of various kinds obtained from both the Northern and Southern States; experimented with broom-corn and pop-corn; but never succeeded in producing an ear from any other seed than the native yellow corn of the island. We endeavored to introduce a change of diet among our hands by making a portion of the meal into bread to vary the regular rations of mush, but neither negroes nor Chinamen relished it. More success, however, attended our importation of navy-bread from the States for the same purpose.
Rice of a cheap grade was imported from India, and frequently issued to the Chinese in place of mush. The meat used was tasajo (jerked beef) cut in great slabs a half-inch thick, and sun-dried on the elevated table-lands of South America—baled like skins, tied with rawhide ropes, and sent to Cuba by ship-loads. It is cut into chips and stewed. Hashed very fine and prepared with tomatoes, it makes an appetizing diet, found on every table. Flour was from seventeen to twenty-five dollars a barrel, and always of inferior quality. Large bakeries in the cities supplied the inhabitants with crusty little rolls; but I was unable to procure yeast, or any preparation of yeast-powders or cakes that would keep in that climate. Ciriaco sometimes succeeded in making an eatable though tasteless loaf of bread, by a mixture of new milk, flour, salt, and sugar, fermented in the sun. Bread made with this yeasty preparation, and also “raised” by a couple of hours’ exposure to the sun, was “fair to look upon,” and in lieu of better, we ate it. One enterprising member of the family electrified us on several occasions by presenting buckwheat-cakes of marvelous lightness for breakfast. The secret of the “raising” power that produced the delicacy was strictly kept; even Ciriaco, who had the honor of cooking them, was not initiated into the mystery of their preparation. When the sedlitz-powders gave out, the secret was “out” too! The first attempt at these buckwheat-cakes caused a great laugh. We had been prepared for a feast, the nature of which was kept a profound secret; but Ciriaco baked the batter and served it in a pudding-dish!
Besides granting small patches of land to the negroes, where a few thrifty ones cultivated tobacco, and such vegetables as they desired, they were permitted to raise hogs. A piece of ground was set apart for that purpose directly behind their barracoon. Each negro had his own pen, and during the year fattened his animals, and every facility was afforded him for an advantageous sale. But such arrant rogues were they, that frequently they stole each other’s hogs during the night, carrying them off on Lamo’s horses! So we had to appoint, every night, two of their number to watch the pens, and one to watch the horses.