Our dinner is over; we bid these folks good-bye, and pronounce them the happiest set of miserably contented mortals the sun ever shone upon. Man needs excitement; he prays for ease.
We return to Pastorisa Place to spend the Sabbath. Two or three days of rest, and we start fresh again for Porto Cabello.
So ends the week—one at least in my life for which it was worth the trouble to have lived.
LETTER VI.
Dominican Republic.
ON THE WAY TO PORTO CABELLO—ANTILLE-AMERICANA—EMIGRATION ORDINANCE.
“Here in my arms as happy you shall be,
As halcyon brooding on a winter sea.”
—Dryden.
HEN the saffron sunlight lingers on the fleecy edges of these mountain clouds, there is a singular solemnity and peculiar fascination about them which can not be likened to any thing earthly. More than any thing else, the resemblance is that of a dark mourning-gown, lined with white satin and trimmed with silver tassels.
This reminds me that the sign of mourning here is somewhat novel. It is that of a spotless white kerchief worn on the head—a thing rarely seen, however, for the reason that people in this district rarely die except from sheer old age. There is near us an old man (black) whose entire grey hair and bodily appearance indicate his being at least eighty. His father died only a year ago, and for some time before the aged sire’s death it is said that fires had to be kindled for him to sleep by, in order to generate sufficient heat to keep his thin, chilly blood in circulation. His age was beyond his own knowledge.
But the great object of life here seems to be that of eating. The first thing in the morning after leaving your hammock, you are furnished with a dish of aromatic coffee, strong and excellent as a beverage, and as little like the ordinary stuff you get at hotels as pure rich cream is like chalk and water. Bah! think of your dish-water slops, made of parched peas, and supposed to be West India coffee! Oh! nation of Barnums and egregious dupes!