This was my favorite resort. A wood of cocoa-nut and other trees shaded the place, and made it so dark that I have seen the fire-flies glance about at noon. The cocoas are about the height of Dutch poplars, and are covered with oblong leaves, which, when young, are of a pale red. As spring drew on, the branches became covered with scarlet and yellow flowers.
Over these, the vast coral-tree spread its protecting foliage, whence the Spaniards, in their beautiful language, name it La Madre del Cocoa, the smallest of which has at times a thousand lovely scarlet blossoms.
CHAPTER XX.
AN EVIL SPIRIT.
We sailed from the bay of Matanzas at two A.M., on the 3d of April, bound for the Cape of Good Hope, which we were fated never to reach.
The Eugenie had been freighted for that colony with a rich cargo of molasses, sugar, coffee, and tobacco; and arrangements had been made that from Cape Town she would be chartered for London; thus I had a fair prospect of seeing nearly a half of this terrestrial globe before I repassed my good old father's threshold at Erlesmere.
I earnestly hoped that we might encounter no more water-spouts or tornadoes, as they were not at all to my taste; but from other causes than phenomena or the war of the elements, it was my fortune, or rather misfortune, to undergo such peril and suffering as were far beyond my conception or anticipation.
By eight o'clock on the morning of our departure, the light on Piedras Key was bearing south by east, sinking into the waves astern, and going out as we bade a long farewell to the lovely shores of Cuba.
Three of our men had died of yellow fever in hospital, so we sailed from Matanzas with ten able-bodied hands, exclusive of three ship-boys, the captain, first and second mates.
In these waters, after the rainy season, the sky is so cloudless in the forenoon that the heat of the sun becomes almost insupportable; thus we were soon glad to resort to the use of windsails rigged down the open skylight to an awning over the quarter-deck for coolness, and to skids for the prevention of blisters on the sides of the brig; but in the starry night the land-wind which comes off these fertile isles, laden with the rich aroma of their spice-growing savannas, is beyond description grateful and delicious.