Well seated on his chesnut charger, Don Severiano conducts us by a circuitous path up an exceedingly steep hill. The trees are tall and ponderous; the leaves are, for the most part, gigantic and easy to count; the fruits are of the biggest; the mountain tops are inaccessible; and the rivers contain fish for Titans. Surely giants must have peopled Cuba, long before Columbus found out the colony! Don Severiano takes little or no interest in the landscape, his attention being wholly absorbed by the small round berries, which may before long be converted into grains of gold, if the coffee crop yield as it promises.
The pickers are at their work. A score of them are close at hand, with their baskets already filled. Observe how they choose the dark red, and eschew the unripe green, or the black and overdone berry. The second overseer, whip in hand, is ever behind, to see that the pickers do not flag. He is a genuine white; but his complexion is so bronzed, that you would scarcely distinguish him from a mulatto, save for his lank hair and thin lips. He volunteers explanation. He points to the big fruit of the cacao, or cocoa plant, and shows which are the bread, the milk and the cotton trees. Learning that I am a foreigner and an Englishman, he offers some useful information respecting certain trees and plants which yield invaluable products, such as might be turned to good account by an enterprising European, but which are unnoticed and neglected by the wealthy independent native. At our request, he unsheathes his machete and cuts us a few odd-shaped twigs from a coffee bush, with which we may manufacture walking-sticks. He exhibits one of his own handiwork. It is engraved all over, polished and stained in imitation of a snake; and, as it rests in the green grass, it looks the very counterpart of such a reptile, with beady eyes and scaly back. On closer acquaintanceship, I find the second overseer to be a great connoisseur in canes.
It is our breakfast hour, and Doña Belen and the other ladies will not like to be kept waiting. So we return to the barbacué, where the powerful odour of roasting coffee is wafted towards us. The black cook is roasting a quantity of the drab seed, in a flat pipkin over a slow fire. She is careful to keep the seed in motion with a stick, lest it burn; and when it has attained the approved rich brown hue, she sprinkles a spoonful of sugar over it to bring out its flavour, and then leaves it to cool on the ground. Near her are a wooden pestle and mortar for reducing the crisp toasted seed to powder; and a small framework of wood in which rests a flannel bag for straining the rich brown decoction after it has been mixed and boiled.
Substantial breakfast over, some of us carry our hammocks and betake ourselves to the adjacent stream. Here, beneath the shade of lofty bamboos, within hearing of the musical mocking-bird, the wild pigeon and the humming-bird, in the midst of sweet-smelling odours, we lotus-eaters encamp, affixing each a hammock between a couple of trunks of trees. Here, we see nature under her brightest and sunniest aspect, and, divesting our imagination of oil and canvas landscape, arrive at the conclusion that trees and plants are very green indeed, and of an endless variety of shade; that stones do not glitter, save where water damps them; and that a Cuban sky is far bluer than the most expensive ultramarine on a painter's palette.
CHAPTER XX.
COUNTRY LIFE AT A SUGAR ESTATE.
An Artist's Tent—Early Sport—An 'Ingenio'—Sugar and Rum—Afternoon Sport—A Ride through the Country—Negro Dancing—An Evening in the Country—'La Loteria.'
With my companion Nicasio Rodriguez y Boldú, behold me passing the sultry months of August and September at the plantation of our worthy friend Don Benigno, who, with his wife and family, have encamped for the summer season at a farm-house on his sugar estate.
Our host's party is somewhat larger than usual, consisting of, besides his wife and family, his eldest daughter's intended, Don Manuel, and his family. After our arrival, it is found that Don Benigno's premises cannot accommodate us; we therefore obligingly seek a lodging elsewhere, and as in the tropics any place of shelter serves for a habitation, we do not greatly sacrifice our comfort.
Assisted by a stalwart negro, Nicasio and I improvise a lodging on the banks of the river which flows near Don Benigno's country house. Our rustic bower consists of a framework of roughly cut branches, and has an outer covering formed of the dried papyrus-like bark of palms. The interior is not spacious, but it meets all our requirements. In it we can swing our hammocks at night, and assume a sitting posture without inconvenience during the day. Our implements for sketching, together with a couple of double-barrelled guns and some fishing-tackle, distributed about the apartment, form agreeable objects for our gaze, while, at the same time, they are within our easiest grasp. Plenty of good fishing may be obtained in the deep, wide river which flows at our feet, and our guns may be equally well employed with sport in the opposite direction. As for our more peaceful instruments of art, there is abundant scope for them on every side; and thus we can shoot, angle, or sketch, as we may feel inclined, without moving from our shady retreat, which, during the sunnier hours of the day, we dare not desert.