We emerge again upon the main road, and at full speed gallop after our friends. We fall in with them at a tienda, or wayside inn, at which they have halted. Dismounting from our horses, we assist the ladies to alight from their carriages. Of course I attend upon the fair Cachita, whose agreeable society I enjoy till our departure from the tienda. The tienda is a queer combination of tavern, coffee-house, chandler's shop, and marine-store dealer's. The walls and ceiling are completely concealed by miscellaneous wares. Spurs and sardine boxes; candles, calico, and crockery; knives and nutmeg-graters; toys, tubs, and timepieces; rows of sweet hams, sheathed machetes, pulleys, coils of rope and farming implements; Panama hats, buff-coloured country shoes; tin spoons, preserves, and French brandy. The innkeeper or shopkeeper of this out-of-the-world store is a native of Barcelona—by name Boy—who pronounces Spanish with a very broad Catalan accent. We travellers are his sole customers at present, and as we require only hot coffee at a medio the cup, aguardiente brandy at a creole penny the nip, a handful of cigars, and a packet of paper cigarettes, the profits derived from our patronage cannot be very great.
We are off once more, not to halt again until a cane field stops the way. The growing cane, with its bamboo-shaped fruit, and waving leaf of long grass, crops up to the right and left of us for miles, and terminates in the 'ingenio' or sugar-works. The entrance to the proprietor's grounds is by a five-barred gate and a wigwam, both of which have been designed and constructed by an aged and decrepit African who occupies the latter. He crawls out of his domicile as we approach, and his meagre form is barely covered by a grimy blanket fastened to his girdle by means of a strip of dried palm bark. To all our questions his solitary response is 'Sí, sñor, miamo,' being exactly the creole Spanish for the creole English 'Yes, massa.' Having by this means satisfied ourselves that 'miamo,' his massa, is at home and willing to receive us, we proceed until we hear the clicking of a whip, and observe indistinctly a row of naked blacks, who are engaged in some earthy occupation. A big bronze-faced man, in a white canvas suit and a pancake Panama hat, stands behind them and holds a long knotted whip, which he occasionally applies to their backs as a gentle reminder that time represents so many Spanish doubloons. This is the 'mayoral,' or overseer. He seems to pride himself upon his masterly touch with the thong, for when no black skin forms an excuse for the practice of his skill, he flicks at nothing, to keep his hand in. The sorrow of this sight is greatly augmented by the dead silence; for whenever the chastising weapon descends, the sufferer is mute.
The lawful owner of these lashed shoulders and of a couple of hundred more, has turned out to greet us. His unshaved countenance wears a sleepy expression, but the stump of a lighted cigar is already in his mouth. At a given signal, a couple of small slaves appear, with cups of hot coffee and a tray of long home-made cigars. 'Candela!' Mine host invokes fire, and a little mulatto girl, upon whom it devolves to provide it, presents each smoker with a lump of red-hot charcoal in the clutches of a lengthy pair of tongs. Daylight is appearing, and warns us that we must be on the move again.
'Adelante, caballeros!' Leaving the level cane district, for the next few hours we are winding up mountains. At every turn of the road, the ingenio we have quitted grows smaller and smaller, till the planter's residence, the big engine-shed, and the negro cottages, become mere toys under our gaze. Now we are descending. Our sure-footed animals understand the kind of travelling perfectly, and, placing their fore-paws together, like horses trained for a circus, slide down with the greatest ease.
Somebody ahead has exclaimed, 'Miren!' We look, and behold a distant view of Don Severiano's 'cafetal.' The path has become narrower, and we are encompassed by short thick hedges, dotted with red and black berries of a form not unlike diminutive olives. I pick and open one of these berries, and somebody observing, 'Que café tan abundante!' I discover that what I have plucked is coffee in a raw state.
'Que admirable es la naturaleza!' sings a Spanish dramatist. Nature is, indeed, much to be admired, especially when you are viewing her in orange groves, where oranges, for the trouble of picking them, hang invitingly over your very mouth, seeming to say, 'Eat me, stranger.' Some are small and green as gooseberries; others are big as your head, and of the bright hue to which they give a name. Next on the carte of nature's dessert are the heart-shaped, smooth-skinned mangoes, with their massive and symmetrical tree. They are followed by a procession of lime-trees, citrons, nisperos, granadas, marañones, anones, zapotes, mamoncillos, and a host of other fruits with strange shapes and equally odd Hispano-Indian appellations. I grieve to relate that the king of fruits—the princely pine-apple—is far from being the exalted personage you would have expected him to be. Like a bachelor cabbage, he grovels in solitary state under our feet! We play at marbles with pomegranates, and practise tilting at the ring with citrons. Throw into the scene a few parasite and plantain trees with slender trunks and colossal leaves; fill in the foreground with gigantic ferns, aloes, and palmettoes, and the background with spotless blue; select for yourself from the nearest hot-house where specimens of exotic plants are nursed, and you are with us, dear—and none the less dear for being imaginative—reader!
Distant barking denotes that we are within earshot of our destination; and anon a couple of Don Severiano's faithful dogs come bounding along the road towards us.
'Hey, Esperules, old girl! What, and Tocólo too?' Don Severiano caresses them in turn as each leaps to his saddle. A dozen more lie in ambush at the gate which leads to the coffee grounds, and through which we are now passing. The mayoral, with his wife and children, turn out to meet and welcome us. Crowds of Africans pay us homage and grin with delight. We halt in the patio, and a score of half-naked grooms assist us in alighting, and watch and help us at our lightest movement. As it is evening dusk when we arrive, and as we are exhausted with our day's pilgrimage, we betake ourselves to our dormitories without a word. Here we are served by stalwart domestics, who bathe our burning feet in luke-warm water, and sponge our irritated bodies with diluted aguardiente. A clean shirt of fine linen; a fresh suit of whity-brown drill; a toy cup of black coffee; and we are refreshed and ready to do justice to dinner; to the 'aijaco' of chicken and native vegetables; to the 'bacalao' or stock-fish, with tomato sauce; to the boiled meat, cabbage, 'chocho,' bacon, and 'garbanzos'; to the stewed goat, with accompaniment of yams, baked bananas, pumpkin and Indian corn; to the guava jellies and guanavana preserves mashed up with insipid creole cheese; to the juicy mangoes cut up in slices in the midst of Catalan wine and sugar; to the excellent black coffee, and home-made cigars. These we discuss in the broad balcony without, where, seated on leather-bottomed chairs, we pass the rest of the evening.
The second overseer, with his staff of field slaves, fills the yard which faces us. The faithful vassals have ended their day's toil, and are come to beg the evening blessing of their lord and master. Blacks of both sexes and all ages, stand before us in a row; some with machete reaping-knives under their arms, or bundles of maloja-fodder for the stable supply; others with the empty baskets into which they have been plucking the ripe coffee berry. Their evening costume consists of a loose garment of coarse canvas. The women wear head-dresses of gaily-coloured handkerchiefs twisted and tied in a peculiar fashion; the men have broad-brimmed straw hats and imitation panamas. The second overseer, with his inseparable whip, leans against our balcony with the air of a showman, as each black approaches with crossed arms to crave his or her master's blessing.
'La ben'dicion, miamo.'