Pioneering in Cuba

by James Meade Adams

Our course lay to the southwest, through the deserted plantation of Mercedes, where we stopped an hour to eat oranges and chat with the colonists at work there. Resuming our march, we soon passed an inhabited Cuban shack near an abandoned sugar mill, stopping a few minutes to investigate a small banana patch near the road. We had been here before and knew the owner. A mile further on we reached another occupied shack, and called to get a drink of agua (water). We were hospitably received in the open front of the casa (house) and given heavy, straight-backed, leather-bottomed chairs of an antique pattern. The agua furnished was rain water which had been stored in a cistern, and had at least the virtue of being wet. There were at home an old man, a very fleshy elderly woman, and two rather good-looking girls, the appearance and dress of one of whom indicated that she was a visitor. This was about the only shack we saw where there were no young children in evidence. We tarried but a few minutes. After making inquiries about the road, as we did at almost every house, we continued on our way.

For the next three or four miles we had a good hard trail through the woods, but saw neither habitation nor opening. Shortly after noon we emerged from the woods into an open space, where, on slightly elevated ground, stood two shacks. We had been here before and knew the man who occupied one of them. There was no land under cultivation in sight, and the only fruit a custard apple tree and a few mangoes. There were a good many pigs roaming about, and the shack we entered contained several small children. Our Cuban friend seemed glad to see us; his wife brought us water to drink, and we were invited to sit down. Our social call would have been more satisfactory if we had known more Spanish, or our host had spoken English. We made but a brief stay, and on departing asked the Cuban to point out to us the road to Puerto Principe. Since leaving the woods we had seen no road or trail of any sort. He took us around his house and accompanied us for some distance, finally pointing out an indistinct trail across high savanna land which he said was the right one. This path, which could hardly be seen, was the "road" from the coast to the third largest city in Cuba, only about thirty miles away! Such are Cuban roads. At times you can only guess whether you are in a road or out of it.

What lay before us was now entirely unfamiliar. At about one o'clock we halted by the side of the trail for a midday rest and lunch. We were a dozen miles from La Gloria, and about an equal distance from the Cubitas mountains, through which we were to pass. An hour later we took up the march again. We soon entered the woods and found a smooth, firm trail over the red earth. We passed through miles of timber, of a fine, straight growth. In the thick woods but few royal palms were seen, but in the more open country we saw some magnificent groves of them. During the afternoon we passed only two or three shacks, but as we approached the Cubitas mountains the few habitations and their surroundings improved in character. The houses continued to be palm-thatched, but they were more commodious and surrounded by gardens in which were a few orange and banana trees, and other fruits and vegetables. Some of the places were quite pretty. Occasionally we would see cleared land that had once been cultivated, but no growing crops of any amount. This part of the country had been agriculturally dead since the Ten Years' War. How the natives live, I know not, but it is safe to say that they do not live well. They raise boniatos and cassava, a little fruit, and keep a few pigs. Often their chief supply of meat is derived from the wild hogs which they shoot. And yet these Cubans were living on some of the best land in the world.

Late in the afternoon, after walking for a mile or more along a good road bordered by the ornamental but worthless jack-pineapple plant, we came to a wide gateway opening into an avenue lined with cocoanut palms and leading up to a couple of well-made Cuban shacks. The houses stood at the front of quite a large garden of fruit trees. We called at one of the shacks, which proved to be well populated. An elderly man, large for a Cuban and well-built, came forward to greet us and was inclined to be sociable. His shirt appeared to be in the wash, but this fact did not seem to embarrass him any; he still had his trousers. Of a younger man we bought a few pounds of boniatos (sweet potatoes) and after some urging persuaded him to go out and get some green cocoanuts for us from the trees. He sent his little boy of about twelve years of age up the tree to hack off a bunch of the nuts with his machete. We drank the copious supply of milk with great satisfaction; there is no more refreshing drink in all Cuba. As the boy had done all the work, we designedly withheld our silver until he had come down the tree and we could place it in his hands. We wondered if he would be allowed to keep it. Climbing the smooth trunk of a cocoanut tree is no easy task.

We camped that night among the trees by the side of the road a quarter of a mile further on. We had made twenty miles for the day, and were now on high ground near the base of the Cubitas mountains. The rise had been so very gradual that we had not noticed that we were ascending. The trunks of all the trees around us were stained for a short distance from the ground with the red of the soil, caused, as we believed, by the wild hogs rubbing up against them. Our supper of fried boniatos and bacon was skilfully cooked by Jeff Franklin, who used the hollow trunk of a royal palm, which had fallen and been split, for an oven. For drink we had cocoanut milk. By the vigorous use of Dave Murphy's machete we cleared away the underbrush so that we could swing our hammocks among the small trees. Franklin had no hammock, but slept under a blanket on a rubber coat spread on the ground. The night was comfortably warm and brilliantly clear. It was delightful to lie in our hammocks and gaze up through the trees at the beautiful star-lit sky. There were mosquitoes, of course, but they did not trouble us much, and we all slept well.

We were up early the next morning, a perfect day, and after eating a substantial breakfast proceeded on our journey. We felt little exhaustion from the long walk of the preceding day, but I was a sad cripple from sore feet. I had on a pair of Cuban shoes which were a little too short for me (although they were No. 40) and my toes were fearfully blistered and bruised. There was nothing to do, however, but go forward as best I could, so I limped painfully along behind my companions, keenly conscious that Josh Billings was a true philosopher when he said that "tite boots" made a man forget all his other troubles.

A fraction of a mile beyond our camping place we discovered a well-kept shack ensconced in cosy grounds amid palms, fruit trees, and flowering shrubs. It was one of the prettiest scenes we saw. We called for water, politely greeted the woman who served us with our best pronunciation of "buenos dias," and, murmuring our "gracias," went our way with some regrets at leaving so pleasant a spot. A mile or two further on we came to a distinct fork in the road. One way lay nearly straight ahead, the other bore off to the right. While we were debating which trail to take, a horseman fortunately came along, the first person we had seen on the road that day and the second since leaving Mercedes on the preceding forenoon. He told us to go to the right, and we were soon in the foothills of the mountains.

It was here that we found a deserted shack behind which was a cleared space in the woods of several acres. On this little plantation grew bananas, cocoanuts, cassava, boniatos, and other vegetables. As it was in the Cubitas mountains near this spot that the Cuban insurrectionists had what they called their independent civil government for some time prior to the intervention of the United States, and secreted their cattle and raised fruit and vegetables to supply food for the "Army of Liberation," we guessed that this might be one of the places then put under cultivation. It certainly had had very little recent care.

After journeying past some chalk-white cliffs, which we examined with interest, we entered the mountain pass which we supposed would take us through the town or village of Cubitas, the one-time Cuban capital. The way was somewhat rough and rugged, but not very steep. The mountains were covered with trees and we had no extended view in any direction. All at once, at about 10:30 a.m., we suddenly and unexpectedly emerged from the pass, when the shut-in forest view changed to a broad and sweeping prospect into the interior of Cuba. What we looked down upon was an immense savanna, stretching twenty miles to the front, and perhaps more on either hand, broken in the distance on all sides by hills and lofty mountains. It was a beautiful sight, particularly for us who had been shut in by the forest most of the time for months. The savanna was dry, but in places showed bright green stretches that were restful to the eye. It was dotted with thousands of small palm trees, which were highly ornamental. We could not see Puerto Principe, nor did we catch sight of it until within three miles of the city. There was no town or village in sight, and not even a shack, occupied or unoccupied. The view embraced one vast plain, formerly used for grazing purposes, but now wholly neglected and deserted. We did not then know that we were to walk seventeen miles across this savanna before seeing a single habitation of any sort.

We had seen nothing of the village of Cubitas, and concluded that we had taken the wrong pass. We were afterwards told that Cubitas consisted of a single shack which had been used as a canteen. Whether the Cuban government occupied this canteen, or one of the caves which are said to exist in these mountains, I cannot say. The revolutionary government, being always a movable affair, was never easy to locate. It was, however, secure from harm in these mountains. We noticed later that the natives seemed to regard all the scattered houses within a radius of half a dozen miles from this part of the mountains as forming Cubitas. The post-office must have been up a tree.