Service being over, the funeral will proceed to the cemetery at St. Ana's. Arrived at the gates of the burial ground, everybody will return home without waiting for the interment, which in Cuba is performed by a couple of black sextons who, unattended by either priest, mourner, or any other person, lower the remains into the hole which has been dug for it!
CHAPTER V.
CUBAN MODELS.
Tropical Birds—The Cocos—La Grulla—Vultures—Street Criers—Water Carriers.
My companion has a weakness for bird-painting, and it pleases him to have the living originals on the premises. Therefore does our spacious court-yard contain a goodly collection of the feathered tribe, with one or two animals without feathers. A large wirework aviary is filled with fifty specimens of tropical birds with pretty plumage and names hard to pronounce. A couple of cocos—a species of stork, with clipped wings—run freely about the yard, in company with a wild owl and a grulla, a tall crane-like bird five feet high. In a tank of water are a pair of young caymanes, or crocodiles. These interesting creatures are still in their infancy, and at present measure only four feet six inches from the tips of their hard noses to the points of their flexible tails. We have done our best to tame them; but they have not yet fallen into our domestic ways. Nor does time improve their vicious natures, for at the tender age of six months they have already shown signs of insubordination. If they persist in their evil courses we must needs make a premature end of them, which is no easy matter, for their scaly hides are already tough as leather, and the only indefensible parts about them are their small eyes and open mouths.
The Cocos, male and female, are meagre-bodied birds, with slender legs, and beaks twelve inches long. They are an inseparable couple, and wander about our patio and rooms in a restless nervous fashion, rattling their chop-stick noses into everything. Now they are diving into the mould of flower-pots for live food, which they will never swallow till it has been previously slain. One of them has espied a cockroach in a corner, and in darting towards the prey a scorpion crosses its path. The venomous reptile hugs the belligerent beak in the hope of conveying to it some of its deadly sting; but the tip of Coco's horny appendage is a long way from his tender points, and Scorpio must travel many an inch before he can make the desired impression. Meanwhile the stork has teased Scorpio's life out, and jerked his remains into that bourn whence no defunct reptile returns. Our Coco's chief delight is to play with our painting materials, where much amusement may be derived by upsetting a bottle of varnish, or by distributing our long brushes in various parts of the room.
A fund of entertainment is found in the displacement of every object not too weighty for Coco to convey. Thus, when a wineglass or a small coffee cup is missing, it will be discovered in the most unlikely spot, such as the balcony, on the roof, or maybe in our neighbour's dusthole. By Coco's sleight of beak, slippers part company and invite us to hunt for them, as if we were playing a certain old-fashioned game. As for the spoons, knives, and forks—they are disseminated everywhere like seeds in a ploughed field.
Has anyone seen my inkstand?
Yes; it has caught Coco's eye, and it has consequently been caught up by his chop-stick beak. With the agility of a sprite, he had hopped upon my open writing-desk, and having duly overhauled the contents and carefully transplanted each particular sheet of paper, envelope, pen and pencil, he devotes his attention to the ink; half of which he must surely have imbibed, for his beak remains parti-coloured for many days, and the inkstand, which I discover on the first fine 'retreta,' reposing within my best beaver hat, is perfectly empty!
To their credit, be it said, the two Cocos—male and female—never for an instant part company. Where one trips, there trips the other. If Señor Coco starts off on any important enterprise, his Señora gives a croak expressive of her readiness to follow, and is after him like his own shadow. Similarly, when la Señora Coco dives into the depths of an old boot in quest of emptiness, her lord assists at the investigation.