Before leaving Santiago de Cuba we drove out to the celebrated Cobre Mines, some four hours distant from the city, but unfortunately there had been some accident on the previous day, and we were unable to descend into them. The scenery along the road, from Santiago, is magnificent. We went a little beyond the mines, and visited the shrine of Nuestra Señora de la Caridad de Cobre, a famous place of pilgrimage, which, however, has lost a good deal of its picturesque interest since the erection of the brand new church, large and garish, in which the holy image is enshrined. As it was not a fiesta there were very few pilgrims, and I, having seen many other like shrines in Europe, was much more interested in the enormous Caruba trees growing abundantly in the neighbourhood, which were hung with giant pods, a yard long, containing casia, a dark brown paste, which is made into a syrup, and said to be very beneficial in cases of sore throat. We brought back a wonderful collection of pods and giant beans of all sorts, and some beautiful ferns and flowers, which I contrived to press as soon as I reached the hotel. However, before leaving Santiago I was presented with a large album containing a complete set of the ferns of the island. Among the commonest I noticed are our much prized gold and silver ferns, and some exquisite maiden-hairs, which, I am assured, have never been successfully transplanted. Whenever I turn over the pages of this album with its faded fern leaves, the memories of a delightful week spent in Santiago crowd into my mind, and I seem to see, as in a vision, the exquisite bay and the kindly denizens of the old City, built by Diego Velasquez, a good four hundred years ago.
The steamer which had brought us from Cienfuegos also took us to Nuevitas. The coast scenery is marvellously fine, and full of interest on account of its association with Columbus, who was familiar with every yard of it. We passed Baracoa, the oldest city in the island, with its picturesque, castle-crowned hill and its splendid mountain background.
Nuevitas is said to be the place where Columbus landed, though recent students think he really first stepped on shore at Carmello, in the neighbourhood of Havana. It is now the port of Puerto Principe, an important town some forty miles distant. The bay of Nuevitas is very fine, but we miss the lofty mountains of Santiago—this country being more or less flat, but very rich in vegetation, and beautifully green. Nuevitas does a good trade in sponges and turtles, and is the depot for the shipment of sugar and molasses, this being a great cane country.
Puerto Principe itself is the counterpart of any other Cuban town. They are all exactly alike—the same narrow streets of one-storied, brightly-painted Pompeian-looking houses, the same wide Plaza with the same rococo church with its twin towers and flat dome, and the same formal Almeida full of tropical plants, where the people parade of a Sunday evening, to the strains of the local band. It is a fairly lively place, and is reported to be a well-known centre of rebellion.[19]
CHAPTER X.
Some Weird Stories.
NO account of Cuba would be quite complete without some reference to the superstitious observances of the negro population, which have not failed to affect, by a kind of reflex action, the ideas and customs of the white inhabitants of the island.
The negroes have a smattering, of course, of Catholic teaching, and a tincture of the superstitions which affect the lowest order of Catholic mind. Super-added to these—or perhaps I should rather say, underlying them—we find a great mass of Voudistic legend and tradition, and a consequent observance and practice of those dark, weird, and blood-curdling mysteries known as the worship of Obi. The origin of this form of idolatry is lost in antiquity. It was known in ancient Egypt, where the serpent was called Ob or Aub. Traces of it appear even in Holy Writ. Moses charges the Israelites "not to inquire of the demon Ob"—described in the Vulgate as "divinator" and "sorcilegus." The Witch of Endor is called Oub or Ob in the original, and the word appears translated as Pythonessa, or Witch.
The African slaves imported their strange rites into the West Indies when they were carried into slavery, and clung to them with all the tenacity of an oppressed and cruelly handled race.
The occult power possessed by the Obi man or woman is believed to be hereditary, but it rarely develops until the individual attains an advanced age. Fetish worship is a fundamental doctrine, and the Obi man has the power of causing the Obi, or evil spirit, to pass into any object he may select, such as the jaw-bone of a horse, or the body of a monkey. To these objects, living or dead, the worshippers offer fruit, fowls, and flowers. The ceremony of calling the spirit into its new abode is full of mystery and horror, and is generally performed at dead of night, and in some lonely and sequestered spot, far from Christian and profane eyes.
Many a curious story have I heard, of strange fate and cruel misfortune, connected with the dark practices of negro witchcraft. The following tale, which was related to me by a relative of the victim, will serve as an instance of Obi power. I need scarcely say I do not ask my readers to believe it, but I am quite sure my informant, by no means an uneducated man, placed the most implicit faith in every word he spoke.