And the next day comes the bustle of departure, and packing of trunks, for we are to take the afternoon train down to Havana. Doña Tomasita sends a parting gift of fruit, as much as one man and one stout boy can carry. The fruit is as follows: one bushel of golden, honeyed oranges,—oh! the glory of all oranges are those of this island,—the same quantity of chaimitos and mameys, and a huge fagot of sugar-cane. We hasten to share these good creatures with those immediately at hand, having lauded Doña Tomasita to the skies and paid her messengers. What could be carried away we took with us. Then came the parting with Polonia, who wrung her hands as usual, and cried out: "Know thou, girl, that I shall miss thee much." "And I thee, too, thou dear old half-mad charcoal figure,—thou art human, though black, and canst ache over the ironing-table as well as another. Let these few reals console thee, as far as may be, for the loss of my sympathy. If we ever get the Island, I will help thee to ease and good wages.
"But not so to thee, roguish Antonio. 'Art thou not free and perfidious? We intrusted a sum of money to thine hand to pay the negro baggage-carrier, and to slightly fee thyself, and we ascertain all too late, by the complaints of the injured negro, that thou didst slightly fee him, and pay thyself for services never rendered. Wherefore dread our coming, or the Day of Justice, by whomsoever administered!'"——
We have taken affectionate leave of the family of the house opposite, promising to write, with the remainder of our mortal lives as the vague term of fulfilment. A trinket or two made the younger ones happy, while the whole family solemnly united to bestow on me a little set of vignettes of Cuba, folded fan-fashion, and purchasable for the sum of five reals. Not without much explanation was it delivered to me,—this was the Cock-fight, this the Bull-fight, this the Tacon theatre. I received these instructions without any of that American asperity which led a celebrated Chief Justice to say: "There are some things, Mr. Counsel, which the Court is supposed to know," and gratefully departed. We walked to the dépôt, in the hot afternoon sun, our smaller pieces conveyed on a barrow, and the huge trunk resting, for fifty cents, on the head of a stalwart negro.—Mem. A negro could carry the round earth on his head, if he could only get it there. And here came the discovery of Antonio's vileness,—he had had an eighth of an ounce, wherewith to pay the carriers. According to the bargain, as rehearsed to us, he was to pay them a dollar and three fourths, which would leave him three reals for himself. He professed to have done this with so ingenuous an air, that we were a little ashamed of so small a fee, and added thereto the small remnant of our change. Only at the last moment, when the train was puffing and smoking alongside, did the poor blacks venture to say that one dollar was very little for carrying all those trunks. Our hearts were stirred, but the train was there, the purse empty, and Antonio out of sight. Wherefore, let him, as before said, avoid our second coming.
But there never was a departure without an omission. Something you have forgotten that you meant to take, or you have brought with you something that should have been left. Wending your way from an English mansion of splendid hospitality, a stray towel has found its way into your portmanteau. Before you have discovered this, a confidential letter from the housekeeper overtakes you informing you of the fact, and begging you to return the missing article at once, which you do for six stamps, with a slight tingle in the cheek. In the present instance we have taken nought that was not ours, but we have left an article of domestic dignity and importance.
Stranger, if you should ever sit at that tea-table in the hotel at San Antonio, with the lamp smoking under your nose, and the three tasteless dishes of preserves spread before your sight, a cup of astringent nothingness being offered to you, and a choking stale roll forming the complement of your evening service,—if there and thus you should see a white teapot, with bands of blue, that looks as if it had seen better days, oh then remember us! For we had scarcely settled ourselves in the cars, when a pensive recollection came over us. It was too late to do anything,—we only touched the shoulder of our friend, who was as usual intent upon palms and scenery, and remarked, with a look of melancholy intelligence, "The Teapot is left behind!"
CHAPTER XVIII.
SLAVERY—CUBAN SLAVE LAWS, INSTITUTIONS, ETC.
IT is not with pleasure that we approach this question, sacred to the pugilism of debate. Nor is it worth while to add one word to the past infinity of talk about it, unless that word could have the weight of a new wisdom. We Americans, caught by the revolutionary spirit of the French, make them too much our models, and run too much to grandiloquent speech, and fine moral attitudinizing. The attitudes do not move the world,—the words do not change the intrinsic bearings of things. They whom we attack, the fight being over, sit down and wipe the dust from their faces,—we sit and wipe the sweat from ours,—something stronger than their will or ours passes between us,—it is the great moral necessity which expresses the will of God. We and they are two forces, pulling in opposite ways to preserve the equilibrium of a third point, which we do not see. We must keep to our pulling, they cannot relinquish theirs. The point of solution that shall reconcile and supersede the differences is not in sight, nor has the wisest of us known how to indicate it. Meanwhile, the calm satisfaction with which some of us divide our national moral inheritance, giving them all the vices, and ourselves all the virtues, is at once mournful and ridiculous. Why are we New Englanders so naïve as not to see this? When the representative of a handful of men rises to speak, and, alluding to the progress which a great question has made in twenty years, says: "This is all our doing,—behold our work and admire it!" we cannot, but pause and wonder if merely that irruption of bitter words can have produced so sweet a fruit. In this view, what becomes of the moral evolution of the ages, of the slow, sure help of Time, showing new aspects, presenting new possibilities? What becomes of human modesty, which is nearly related to human justice?
I preface with these remarks, because, looking down from where I sit, I cannot curse the pleasant Southern land, nor those who dwell in it. Nor would I do so if I thought tenfold more ill of its corruptions. Were half my body gangrened, I would not smite nor reproach it, but seek with patience an available remedy. This is the half of our body, and the moral blood which brings the evil runs as much in our veins as in theirs.
Looking at realities and their indications, we see a future for the African race, educated by the enslavement which must gradually ameliorate, and slowly die out. We see that in countries where the black men are many, and the white few, the white will one day disappear, and the black govern. In South Carolina, for example, the tide of emigration has carried westward the flower of the white population. In Charleston, all the aristocratic families have their mulatto representatives, who bear their names. There are Pinckneys, Pringles, Middletons, and so on, of various shades of admixture, living in freedom, and forming a community by themselves. There are even mulatto representatives of extinct families, who alone keep from oblivion names which were once thought honorable. These things are indications of changes which will work themselves slowly. Noble efforts have hemmed the evil in, and the great soul of the World watches, we believe, at the borders, and will not suffer the sad contagion to creep over them into the virgin territories. But where the Institution sits at home, with its roots undergrowing the foundations of society, we may be sad, but we must be patient. The enfranchisement of a race, where it is lasting, is always accomplished by the slow and solid progress of the race itself. The stronger people rarely gives Freedom to the weaker as a boon,—when they are able, they rise up and take it with their own hands. It is an earning, not a gift, nor can the attributes which make liberty virtual and valuable be commanded, save under certain moral conditions. A man is not noble because he is free, but noble men constituting a nation become free. Let the wounds of Africa first be stopped,—let her lifeblood stay to enrich her own veins. The enslaved population of Cuba and our own South must, under ordinary circumstances, attain in time a condition in which Slavery shall be impossible.
But our business is with what actually exists. We will leave what shall and should be to the Theorists who invent it, and to God who executes it, often strangely unmindful of their suggestions.