In the misfortunes of my French friends, I see clearly exemplified the advantages of a good education. Every talent, even if possessed in a slight degree of perfection, may be a resource in a reverse of fortune; and, though I liked not entirely their manner, whilst surrounded by the festivity and splendour of the Cape, I now confess that they excite my warmest admiration. They bear adversity with cheerfulness, and resist it with fortitude. In the same circumstances I fear I should be inferior to them in both. But in this country, slowly emerging from a state of barbarism, what encouragement can be found for industry or talents? The right of commerce was purchased by the Catalonians, who alone exercise it, and agriculture is destroyed in consequence of the restraints imposed on it by the government. The people are poor, and therefore cannot possess talents whose acquisition is beyond their reach; but they are temperate, even to a proverb, and so hospitable that the poorest among them always find something to offer to a stranger. At the same time they are said to be false, treacherous, and revengeful, to the highest degree. Certainly there are here no traces of that magnanimous spirit, which once animated the Spanish cavalier, who was considered by the whole world as a model of constancy, tenderness and heroism.
They feel for the distressed, because they are poor; and are hospitable because they know want. In every other respect this is a degenerate race, possessing none of the qualities of the Spaniards of old except jealousy, which is often the cause of tragical events.
A young gentleman of this place fell in love with a beautiful girl who rejected him because she was secretly attached to another. Her lover was absent; and she feared to avow her passion lest his rival might use some means to destroy him, for she knew he was cruel and vindictive; but her lover returning, she declared her attachment, and declined receiving the visits of him who had pretended to her hand. A few evenings previous to that fixed on for her marriage, she was returning from church with her mother, when at the door of her house a man, wrapped in a large cloak, seized her arm, and plunging a dagger in her breast, fled, leaving her lifeless on the ground. The cries of her affrighted mother brought people to her assistance, but the blow was directed by a secure hand; she breathed no more. Every body was convinced that the perpetrator of this abominable act was her rejected lover; but, as no proofs existed, the law could not interfere. Shortly after he was found dead in the street; and probably it was the hand of him he had driven to despair, that inflicted the punishment due to his crime.
Nothing is more common than such events. They excite little attention, and are seldom enquired into. How different is this from the peaceful security of the country in which I first drew breath, and to which I so ardently, but I fear hopelessly, desire to return.
LETTER XXI.
St. Jago de Cuba.