Cuba Past and Present Part 8

As the night was exceedingly clear, before retiring to rest we went for a stroll in the gardens. It was my first experience of the transcendent beauties of a full moon in the tropics. Even the glories of an Italian moonlight must fade before such radiance as I now admired. The light shed by this southern "orb of night" was almost as golden as that of the sun, and yet the shadows remained quite dark; hence a vigorous contrast of light and shade, such as I have never seen elsewhere. The effect as we pa.s.sed under the long avenue of palm trees was most striking. We might have been in the nave of some giant Gothic cathedral,--its columns were represented by the grey stems of the towering Royal palms, whose interlaced foliage, high above our heads, suggested the wonderful roof of Henry VII.'s chapel at Westminster. Some of the hedgerows in the garden were quite white with the "moon flower," a sort of snowy night-blooming convolvulus, the flowers of which are of immense size, and as flat and thin as a sheet of paper. This flower is an annual; several of its seeds which I carried back with me to England have succeeded very well.

The next sugar plantation we visited was near Matanzas; but although I saw several other sugar estates, they did not particularly interest me, as they were, though perhaps on a larger scale, almost exactly like the first we had inspected. I was, however, delighted with my first coffee plantation: I shall not easily forget its fresh beauty and delightful odour. The coffee berry was introduced into Cuba from Hayti, in 1742, and has flourished greatly, but the trade has of late considerably diminished in importance. Nothing can exceed the beauty of a coffee field. The plants are grown from seed, and are planted in rows sometimes covering a thousand acres. To screen the shrubs from the prodigious heat, they are carefully protected by other plants, such as the banana and the pomegranate tree, under whose shade the shrubs grow freely. Very often the cocoa plant is grown on the same plantation as the coffee shrub. There are three kinds of chocolate-producing plants--the caracas, the pods of which are red; the guayaquil, which bears purple pods, whereas those of the criolla are yellow. The tree is not pretty: it looks too much like a small stunted pear-tree, and the fruit grows in a very odd manner, not in cl.u.s.ters among the leaves, but along the trunk, from the ground upwards, the seeds being protected by thick, heavy pods, which, sticking out as they do at regular intervals, produce a most whimsical appearance. The fruit is ripe for gathering between June and December, at about the same time as the coffee, the blossoms of which are in full glory early in February,--distinctly the best month in which to visit a coffee estate, and enjoy its loveliness to the full.

The _hacienda_ to which the plantation I first visited was attached, belonged to a Cuban gentleman, and was a great contrast to the finely-appointed mansion we had recently left. There was no garden, and the front door was usually enc.u.mbered by a noisy group of stark-naked little darkies of both s.e.xes, whom we generally caught tormenting some queer-looking animal which they had caught in the fields--a land tortoise or a baby iguana. They were always sprawling between our feet, but though they sometimes got more kicks than ha'pence, they seemed perfectly happy, and as jolly as sandboys. The entrance-hall was occupied by a double row of rocking-chairs, and by a large deal table, on which our breakfast and dinner were served, invariably without tablecloth or napkins. There were, however, any number of looking-gla.s.ses, gorgeous French clocks, artificial flowers under gla.s.s shades, and stupendous bronze lamps, such as you buy at the Louvre or the Bon Marche, by way of works of art; there was a collection of framed but extremely primitive chromos, representing scenes in the life of the Blessed Virgin, and others in gay Parisian life, as it appeared at Mabile and at the Bal de l'Opera, in the golden days of Muger. No books or newspapers were anywhere to be seen; on the other hand, there was a plentiful supply of playing-cards and dominoes, with which we contrived to amuse ourselves during the evening, or, as I ought rather to say, throughout the night, for n.o.body dreamt of going to bed till two o'clock in the morning. The planter was a very hospitable man, who gave us the best of wines, and we had several very palatable Cuban dishes, the dinner always winding up with the inevitable roast sucking-pig, strongly flavoured with garlic. The Senora was a very stout lady of forty, who lolled about the house all day long in an old red flannel dressing-gown: when she was not rocking in a chair, she was swinging in a hammock, with four or five negresses in attendance on her. They all seemed on the best of terms, but as they spoke patois, I could not understand their jokes, possibly made at our expense, for they used to look at us slyly, and then burst into roars of ill-suppressed laughter. Be that as it may, the Senora was a very different personage in the evening from the rather disorderly-looking, middle-aged female, without shoes and stockings, who was so busy doing nothing all day long. By supper-time she was gorgeous, dressed up in the very latest of Parisian toilettes, her magnificent glossy black hair carefully dressed, her podgy fingers blazing with diamond rings, and her face so thickly coated with rice flour that you could scarcely distinguish her features, except her lips, which were painted cherry red, and her eyebrows, which were artificially arched.

She had a rather pretty daughter, called Dolores, who spent her days much after her mother's fas.h.i.+on. There was yet another daughter, at a convent in Havana, and a third, about seven years of age, who played with the little n.i.g.g.e.rs on the doorstep. There was a really fine grand piano in one corner of the room, every single note of which was out of tune, and on this delightful instrument the Senorita and a long, thin young German, whose exact position in the family I never could define,--I think he must have been the agent's son,--played airs from Luisa Miller, Ernani, and other pre-historic operas, systematically disarranged for the piano, for four hands, by a certain Signor Campara.

They were exceedingly proud of their performance, and, once started, there was no possibility of stopping them until the cards were produced.

Then they flew to the table and took a most active interest in a game at "Nap," at which I lost a considerable sum of money the first night, and won it back again the second, to the Senora's extreme and evident annoyance.

The most extraordinary part about this house was that there were no single bedrooms. They were replaced by two dormitories on opposite sides of the house, one for gentlemen and one for ladies. It was all very odd and amusing, but the hospitality was unbounded. On the last evening of our stay a _baile_ or dance was given in our honour, to which some of the neighbours came, and danced the _creola_, and a very elaborate country-dance in which I was forced to join. I am afraid I did not acquit myself with much grace, for I was perpetually mistaking the figures, which provoked much laughter. The ball ended at about two o'clock in the morning, and most of the company went home on horseback, after a supper at which no less than four infant pigs were consumed. I never saw such a people as the Cubans for pork and sucking-pig,--about the very last dish I should have expected to have come across in those lat.i.tudes. We took leave of our friends with no little regret, for though they were primitive and very superficially educated people, their manners were excellent, most courteous, kindly, and well-bred. The Senora, however, could never keep herself from laughing at our Spanish, and at the evident reluctance with which we endeavoured to make believe we enjoyed certain impossible dishes,--a roast iguana among the number.

I did overcome my repugnance to partaking of so unpleasant-looking a reptile, and found it tasted exactly like tough roast chicken.

Whilst we were staying with this amiable family we were initiated into the mysteries of guava jelly-making by a tall mulatress, who acted as cook to the establishment, and who was evidently held in great respect by every member of the community, especially by the darksome urchins, who, although they haunted her kitchen in the hope of purloining t.i.tbits, constantly received sharp raps on their woolly pates, from a prodigiously long iron spoon. There was no very great mystery about the guava jelly,--the process is exactly like that of compounding any other fruit-jelly; and as to the paste or cheese, I think that between the making of it and damson cheese there is only the difference which exists between Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee. However, I frankly admit my devotion to guava paste. And as to the jelly,--the Easterns say we may hope to enjoy in the next world those things which we like best to eat in this,--therefore pray I, that when I shuffle off this mortal coil, I need not relinquish all hope of an occasional treat of guava jelly!

A sketch of Cuba which contained no mention of tobacco would be very much like "Hamlet" without the Prince of Denmark. The name of the dusky chief whom Christopher Columbus found inhaling the fragrant leaf of the _tabaco_, as he called it, should have lived even to our days. But, like that of many another unknown hero, his t.i.tle is unrecorded, and probably neither Columbus nor his savage friend ever imagined the prodigious results that were to grow out of the conversation, in the course of which the Indian instructed the discoverer of the New World as to the value and properties of the strange weed, the soothing properties of which he seemed so greatly to enjoy. Little did they foresee that within a hundred years a Mahommedan Kaliph and a Christian Pope were both to fulminate excommunication against such of their followers as ventured to indulge a taste they deemed unworthy and unclean. The aboriginal Indians did not smoke tobacco after our present fas.h.i.+on. They inhaled the fumes through a forked cane, the two p.r.o.ngs of which they applied to their nostrils, whilst the longer end was plunged among the burning leaves. Such implements are still used, I am a.s.sured, by the negroes in Cuba, and elsewhere, when they desire to forget their sorrows in the dreamy sleep thus artificially produced.

Like the vine, tobacco depends for its quality on certain peculiarities of soil and climatic influences, which have hitherto baffled investigation. Thus the Cuban tobacco grown in the Vuelta Abajo district is the finest in the world; and, though the plant grows luxuriantly in other parts of the island,--as at San Juan dos Remedeos and at Rematos,--its quality never attains the perfection of that which ripens in the immense fertile plain which extends westward from Havana. This part of Cuba is known as the Vuelta Abajo, or "lower valley," in contradistinction to the upper end of the island called Vuelta Arriba, or "higher valley." Fortunately for the tourist, the best tobacco plantations in the island are within an easy journey from the capital, and close to a village called Guanajay, some twelve miles from the sea, and accessible by train. It is situated in the midst of very pretty scenery, of an essentially sylvan character, the numerous tobacco fields being dotted with magnificent palms and tropical trees. Few tobacco plantations exceed a size of thirty acres. Each is provided, as a rule, with a dwelling-house, some cattle-sheds, and a few drying-houses. The processes of growing and preparing the plant are of the simplest character, and do not require any special machinery. The tobacco is not sown in the open field, but in small prepared plots, whence the seedlings are transplanted when they are a few inches high, and set out at regular distances in the fields. The Nicotiana,--now common in most English gardens,--grows taller in Cuba than in this country, usually reaching a height of from 6 to 8 feet. Each plant is carefully tended until it is ready for harvesting. All superfluous and ill-shaped leaves must be removed, and the greatest care taken to protect the plants from the _vivijagua_, a very large and malicious ant, which is quite capable of destroying a whole crop within a few hours. The field hands employed in this cultivation are almost all blacks, who possess an instinctive knowledge of the needs of each plant, and gather the leaves with an astonis.h.i.+ng delicacy of touch, and absence of over-handling. When the harvesting and curing time arrives, the leaves are gathered into bundles of from thirty to forty each, for the best, and from twenty to thirty, for the second quality.[19] Some eighty to a hundred of these bundles, when pressed and tied together, form a tercio or bale, weighing about 200 lbs., in which form the tobacco is transported, on muleback, to Havana. A tobacco plantation is a very pretty sight, and the fragrance is delightful, for a certain number of plants in each plot are allowed to flower for seeding purposes. The sowing-time lasts from June to October; the harvest begins in December and goes on till May.

Some idea of the importance of the tobacco trade is conveyed by the fact that one hundred million cigars, valued at about two million sterling, are annually imported into England alone. The earliest s.h.i.+pments take place in June and July, and are mostly sold to Germany; the British market being supplied in October and November, when the tobacco is thoroughly mellowed.

Almost all the Cuban tobacco planters are Spaniards, and the trade, with few exceptions, is entirely in their hands. Two great foreign firms, however, stand out prominently. The first, that of Messrs Bock & Co., is English, and world renowned; the second is German, Messrs Behrens & Co., who are the owners of the cigar connoisseur's latest "pet," the brand "Sol." With hardly any exception, all the other brands of any renown--the Flor de Cuba, Corona, Villa y Villa, Flor de J. S. Murias, Pedro Murias--are in the hands of the Spaniards. It is a curious fact that hitherto no American firm has risen to exceptional renown among the cigar manufacturers of the world, although the neighbouring isle of Key West has lately sprung into prominence as a tobacco land of much promise, and several important firms have been established there with a fair measure of success. The true Havana cigar is made in Havana only.

Some of the large firms, such as Bock & Co., employ from three to five thousand hands, almost all Spaniards and Cubans, white labour being preferred, on account of the delicate processes through which the tobacco has to pa.s.s before it is converted into a cigar. Although there are certainly more than a hundred cigar manufacturers in Havana, only two or three of the factories are really worth visiting. The _Corona_ is perhaps the most striking, because it is located in what was until quite recently the gorgeous palace of the Aldama family, in the Campo Marte.

The magnificent marble staircases and saloons, with their splendidly frescoed ceilings, are now turned "to viler purposes," the tesselated pavements are trodden by the _zapatos_ of the cigar makers, and the Court of Olympus, in the vaulted roof of the state ballroom, looks down upon busy groups of tobacco sorters and cigar makers. Each cigar maker sits before a low table. He begins operations by taking the tobacco leaf and spreading it smoothly before him. Then he cuts out certain hard fibres which might interfere with the shape of the cigar. Next he rolls up the leaf into the correct shape, and if he be a skilful workman he will do this without further recourse to knife or scissors. The cigars vary in length according to the brand: they were made much longer formerly than they are at present. Some used to measure eight inches, but now four inches is the most usual length. Prices vary from thirty to one thousand dollars per thousand cigars.

No women are employed in the manufacture except for arranging the cigars in boxes and pasting down the lids with their well-known and brilliantly printed labels. The boxes, which are made of cedar wood, form another important branch of Havanese industry. The Cubans themselves never smoke cigars: they all use cigarettes, which most of them make and roll, with a delicacy and grace peculiar to themselves. It is somewhat remarkable that although the Cubans literally live with a cigarette between their lips--they begin smoking the first thing in the morning, and continue until they go to bed--they seem absolutely impervious to any form of nicotine poisoning. May not its prevalence in European countries be the result of smoking inferior and dirty tobacco? I was much struck, when visiting the various tobacco factories in Havana, with the scrupulous cleanliness everywhere observed. The cigar makers are obliged to wash their hands constantly all through the day, and no dust or dirt is tolerated anywhere.

CHAPTER XII.

AN ISLE OF JUNE--A CONTRAST.

It was early on a bright winter morning that our good s.h.i.+p "San Jacinto"

steamed into the harbour of Na.s.sau, the capital of New Providence. As I leaned over the side and looked down into the waters over which our vessel moved, I could scarcely believe my eyes. It seemed impossible that water deep enough to float the s.h.i.+p should be so marvellously clear. We appeared to be gliding over a sheet of sea-green crystal. Not a pebble, bit of sponge, sh.e.l.l, fish, crab, or coral, but was distinctly visible, as if but a few inches below the surface. It was like floating in ether, for the glint of s.h.i.+mmering sunlight alone proved it was fluid. But water it was, and nothing else, for, as we neared the wharf, a score or so of dusky forms splashed into the briny mirror, breaking up its gla.s.sy surface, sent a spray of diamonds into the air, and then dived into its pellucid depths in quest of coppers liberally scattered by the amused pa.s.sengers. "Please, Boss, deeve (give) us a small dive,"

was the entreaty shouted by a good dozen or so of dusky urchins, who, on the least encouragement, jerked off their coats and s.h.i.+rts and plunged into the sea. Sometimes they caught the coin before it touched the bottom, at others the diver remained quite a time searching for his prize, looking, as seen from above, with his wriggling arms and legs, like a huge black spider.

When Christopher Columbus landed on the sh.o.r.es of "Guanahane," on October 17th, 1492, and named the present island of New Providence San Salvador, he wrote a letter to the Spanish Sovereigns, full of his usual expressions of delighted enthusiasm. "The loveliness," says he, "of this island is like unto that of the Campana de Cordoba. The trees are all covered with ever-verdant foliage, and perpetually laden with flowers or fruit. The plants in the ground are full of blossom. The breezes are like those of April in Castille." Due allowance made for the exaggeration of an explorer, in love with the treasure he has found, it must still be confessed that his words, all glowing as they are, scarcely overpraise the charm of the peaceful scenery which so stirred his poetic ardour. For truly the Bahamas are islands like unto that chosen by Shakespeare for the scene of the "Tempest,"--

"Full of infinite delight."

New Providence is about twenty miles long by seven in breadth, and is the most important, though by no means the biggest, of the Bahama group, which numbers over 600 islands and cays, and contains some 45,000 inhabitants, of whom 20,000 reside in Na.s.sau and its neighbourhood.

The history of the island since its discovery by Columbus, down through the Buccaneer period, is only interesting to its government and inhabitants. However dark may be the memories of its old pirate days, it is now a remarkably respectable place, not even a murder having thrown a shadow during the past twenty-five years on its nearly untarnished reputation. It would be difficult to imagine a quieter spot. On Sundays, especially, is it peaceful, when not only all the shops, but the majority of the house-shutters also, are closed, and the tranquil air is laden with church music of the most sober and orthodox description.

The impression produced upon the tourist arriving from Cuba is very striking, for it brings the different influences of the Spanish and the Anglo-Saxon races, upon the negroes, into vivid contrast. Personal observation only can, as I have already said, give any idea of the filth of the dwellings of the lower cla.s.ses of Cubans, and especially of the blacks. The coloured folk of Na.s.sau are, generally speaking, clean and tidy. Most of the Cuban towns are more or less squalid. The city of Na.s.sau is, if anything, too prim, and its inhabitants are models of order both in their dress and habits. A glance reveals the fact that the coloured people here have been disciplined and trained by a race which is as certainly superior to the Spanish, in all that concerns practicality and common sense, as it is inferior to it in natural artistic instinct. I never saw anything--no, not even in the Whitechapel and Drury Lane districts of London--to surpa.s.s the unutterable disorder and general abomination of the interiors of the Cuban cottages. But as you pa.s.s along the roads at Na.s.sau, and glance into the windows of the negroes' cottages, you will almost invariably see tidy interiors worthy of the brush of a Teniers or a David Wilkie; a floor on which you could eat your dinner; walls neatly papered with framed chromos symmetrically arranged upon them; spotless curtains; s.h.i.+ning bra.s.s lamps and cooking utensils, and a bed covered with a counterpane as white as driven snow.

If you peep in at meal times you will note a clean cloth covered with orderly-arranged plates and dishes. I am speaking of the dwellings of the negroes, of those self-same coloured people who, in the same climate, only a day and a half's journey away, in Cuba, dwell, under another race and civilization, in a condition too nasty to be described here.

Straws show how the wind blows. I saw a poor coloured woman, the day after I arrived in Na.s.sau, soundly box her little girl's ears because she appeared in public with a few fluffs of cotton sticking in her wool.

The ordinary afternoon occupation of the coloured ladies in Havana is to sit in the shade of the big plantain leaves, picking something rather more animated than cotton fluffs off each other's heads. The Cuban negresses dress flaringly. They trail a yard of skirt behind them in the dust, cover their shoulders with a vivid embroidered China c.r.a.pe scarf, and deck their heads with a mantilla. The effect is picturesque enough, but look down at their ankles, and you will soon perceive untidy petticoats and shoeless feet. The coloured girls at Na.s.sau are remarkably neat and clean, especially on Sundays. The influence of the Sunday school teacher, preaching, and not in the desert, the gospel of those four great evangelists, soap and water, comb and brush, is everywhere manifest, even to the detriment of the picturesque.

As you drive through Grant's Town, the negro quarter of Na.s.sau, you see so much to gladden you that it does more real good to an invalid than many a cunningly-prepared draught. Charmingly picturesque wooden huts, thatched with palmetto, and as neat as you please, overshadowed by cocoa-nut-trees and exquisite flowering creepers, border either side of the road. On the thresholds are laughing groups of women and children of every shade of black, mahogany, and "yullar." Then, when the shades of evening grow long and deep in the thickets of the banyan-trees, coloured Pyramus courts coloured Thisbe over the garden wall, and the roads swarm with little darkies, romping, laughing, and chasing each other round and about, whilst neatly-dressed women, standing at their doors, or leaning out of their open windows, watch the return of their "men," as they boldly call their husbands. The air is still and laden with the penetrating perfume of the stephanotis, the white blossoms of which gleam like stars amidst the dark foliage, and of the crimson and pink oleander, which flowers here to great perfection. It is difficult to imagine a more peaceful scene--the cheerful sounds of greeting, the merry chatter of the negroes, the tuning of the banjoes, whilst overhead the beautiful sunset-lit clouds shed rosy tints abroad, and set forth in bold relief the tall stems of the waving palms and of the strange-named trees, whose bizarre foliage arouses wonderment, and between whose gnarled boughs we catch glimpses of the high-roofed houses of the city, of the cathedral spire, and of a sea blue as a turquoise, now s.h.i.+vering beneath the gentlest of breezes.

The town of Na.s.sau itself is not particularly interesting, inasmuch that, with the sole exception of the cathedral, it cannot boast of a single monument of artistic importance. The houses, mostly built of stone, faced with wood, have high slated roofs and wide verandahs, which surround each storey, and afford some shade during the sunny hours of the day. The public buildings are clean, but unpretentious, and evidently modelled after those of some English county town, in which the st.u.r.dy Georgian architecture predominates. There are few traces, anywhere, of the influence of the higher art, although the cathedral itself is a fairly handsome Gothic building, wherein the services of the Church of England are admirably conducted.

The gardens are trim and pretty, but, notwithstanding their profusion of tropical plants, they lack the luxuriant charm which renders the ill-kept gardens of Havana so romantic and picturesque. Very few of the gardens belonging to private houses are of great size, and even Government House is a modest-looking dwelling, erected on the highest of the surrounding hills, and commanding a fine view of the town and harbour.

The chief monument of Na.s.sau is not one built by hand, but a silk-cotton-tree, planted, some two hundred years ago, by one John Miller, Esq., opposite the present "public buildings." It is a stupendous tree of t.i.tanic proportions. The roots, unable to find their way down through the rocky soil, swell up like b.u.t.tresses, radiating round the trunk some fifteen yards, and, rising six and eight feet from the ground, form part of the actual bulk of the tree, and give the huge veteran the appearance of a web-footed monster, standing in solemn reverie. Amongst the gnarled and weird-looking roots are ravines, in whose dark hollows a legion of elves might dwell and hold their revels.

High above this root-work spreads a canopy of leaves of the most exquisite, tender green. Singular to say, the gigantic growth flattens at the top, and is nearly squared off in correspondence with the aspect the paucity of earth has forced the roots to a.s.sume. Had Shakespeare seen this mighty monster,--which travellers from California declare to be even more imposing than any of the Mammoth trees,--he would have immortalised it in a few grand lines, or made it the background of some quaint fairy scene, the home of another Herne the Hunter, Oberon and t.i.tania, Ariel, or Puck. There are several other fine silk-cotton-trees on the island, and in Cuba this tree grows to perfection, but the specimen I have attempted to describe is universally acknowledged to be the finest known. I was much surprised to notice the rapidity with which the silk-cotton tree burst into leaf. On my arrival I noticed one in the grounds of the hotel which seemed to be dead. The rest were green, but this one was quite barren. In three days it was lost to sight, hidden in its own foliage, developed within the s.p.a.ce of two nights. The silk-cotton-tree is so called because it bears a pod full of flossy silk, which is used instead of down for pillow cases, but the fibres are too short to be woven.

Na.s.sau and its neighbourhood are really not unlike an open-air museum of botanical and marine curiosities. As you drive, or walk, through the woods and lanes, your attention is constantly attracted to some tree or shrub remarkable for its curious shape, leaves, and flowers. If you ask its name you will be told it is either the gum-arabic-tree, the guava, the banyan, the ipicac, the pimento, the spice, the cinnamon, the pepper, the caper, the castor-oil, or, in short, any one of half the plants which stock our drug or grocery shops. One day I noticed an onion-like-looking plant, with somewhat curious leaves, and asked its name. It turned out to be my old acquaintance "squills," of syrup-fame.

Lady Blake, who is not only a distinguished artist, but an exceptionally learned botanist, has executed a complete series of exquisite drawings of the flora of the Bahamas. It would be difficult to overpraise the artistic, as well as the scientific value of this collection, exhibited in the Bahama Court of the Colonial Exhibition of 1886. During the Governors.h.i.+p of her husband, Sir Henry Blake, Lady Blake rendered a like service to the flora of Jamaica.

The cocoa-nut tree is a recent introduction into the Bahamas. Forty years back there were few in the whole island of New Providence. The orange-tree is indigenous to the island, and there is other fruit of exceedingly fine quality. A very extraordinary fact about the local vegetation is, that the roots are entirely exposed. The island is of coral formation, and only very lightly covered with earth; but such is the abundance of the dews, and so great the fertilising quality of the atmosphere, that a plant with one or two feelers caught in the pores of the coraline rock will grow and flourish. There are big trees with all their roots, save one, above ground. Some trees may be noticed growing astride the public walks, with one half of their roots on one side and the rest on the other. The immense amount of decayed animal matter in the coraline makes it one of the richest of soils, and the heavy dews which fall immediately after sunset, and of which I shall speak presently, increase its fertility. A number of "air-plants" grow in the woods, and of course derive their nourishment entirely from the abundant dews. These curious plants are, for the most part, a species of wild pine. One of the most remarkable of them is the "green snake," which looks exactly like a long serpent. The common life-plant of the tropics grows everywhere, and, together with the air-plants, rouses much curiosity among visitors from Europe and North America. If you take one of its thick, waxy leaves, and hang it on a nail, it will live for months, and shoot forth others without needing either water or earth.

The useful sizel plant--a fibrous hemp yielding aloe--of great commercial value, is now extensively cultivated, and with excellent results. Great impetus was given to its culture by Sir Ambrose Shea during his prolonged and popular Governors.h.i.+p.

The scenery round Na.s.sau is of pancake flatness, and uninteresting, except close to the town, where there are some little hills of inconsiderable height, which might vie in alt.i.tude with a certain Mount Cornelia near St Augustine, Florida, advertised as one of the attractions of a watering-place called Mount George, because it is ninety feet high. Verily a dwarf is a giant amongst pigmies, and Mount Cornelia is a Mount Blanc in flat Florida. If it is ever planted with the eucalyptus-tree, now extensively cultivated in the south, and which often attain the extraordinary height of 300 and 400 feet, the trees will in due time be taller than the mountain.

There are some pretty little lakes in the interior of the island. One of these, Lake Killarney, is a very charming spot, with a fine view of the western coast. The lake is about three miles long by one in breadth. All along the sh.o.r.es are pineapple plantations, which are uncommonly effective when the pines are in bloom. The plants are set in rows all over the field, about one or two feet apart, and what with their variegated foliage--bright green and deep purple--and their vivid scarlet flowers, they make a striking foreground to any picture. The Bahama pines are considered the best in these lat.i.tudes, and are s.h.i.+pped in large quant.i.ties to Europe and North America.

The crowning glory of Na.s.sau is the unrivalled bay, with its enchantingly clear, crystal water. Many a happy day have I spent, sailing round the pretty sh.o.r.es of this pleasant island. We usually had for "captain" a certain remarkable darkie, by name "Cap'en" Tannyson Stump, one of those sable worthies you read about, full of drollery, shrewd and witty withal, and a capital sailor into the bargain. The Cap'en is reputed wealthy, for he is a great favourite with the visitors, and, moreover, is considered, by the inhabitants of Grant Town, the greatest "dissentin' minister" on the island. Amongst other natural wonders the "Cap'en" took us to see was the "sea garden." I wish Victor Hugo could have studied it, for possibly he might have been tempted to describe it, in his vivid language, as a pendant to his sea-monster, the devil-fish of the "Toilers of the Sea." Thus should we have had a glowing word picture of the beautiful instead of the hideous--the paradise of the sea, and not its h.e.l.l. They give you a box with a gla.s.s bottom to look through. You put it over the side of the boat, and dip it beneath the waves. Lo! you behold the garden of the sea-nymphs, the home of Aphrodite. Beneath you, seen through the pellucid waters of this vast aquarium, is a lovely sea-garden, full of every imaginable delicate-tinted sea-flower. Some are pale pink, others light yellow, and some brown as leaves in autumn, ma.s.sed round the vivid purple and scarlet sea-anemones, which cling to the summits of beds of pearly coral. Here purple sea-fans wave gently to and fro. There are groves of trumpet sponges, and beds of marine blossoms of all kinds and shapes. Fish as brilliant as hummingbirds--red, blue, metallic-green, and orange--peep knowingly in and out of the branches of this strange submarine vegetation, which is crossed and recrossed in all directions by pathways of sparkling, silver gravel. Nothing more fascinating, more fairy-like, can be imagined. You expect at any moment to see Venus or one of her nymphs--or, perchance, old Edward's Sable Aphrodite--rise suddenly to the surface from this abode of cool delights.

Involuntarily the world-renowned description of the bottom of the sea was brought to my mind,--

"Methought I saw ...

Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl, Inestimable stones, unvalu'd jewels, All scatter'd in the bottom of the sea.

Some lay in dead men's skulls, and, in those holes, Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept (As 'twere in scorn of eyes) reflecting gems, That woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep, And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter'd by."

A scene very similar to the one described by Shakespeare has been seen in these clear waters after a wreck. Many years ago, when a hurricane of unusual violence swept over the islands, and there were several s.h.i.+ps lost in the usually gla.s.sy harbour, people, when calm set in again, had the horror of studying, from their boats, the tragic condition of the wrecked vessels at the bottom of the bay. They could see the drowned dead below, whom some weight oppressed and forbade to rise. I well remember, though 'tis long years since, the dread impression produced upon me by the sight of the "phantom s.h.i.+p." In the days of the Spaniards, a vessel of importance, a man-of-war, was wrecked and sunk opposite a place called Hog Island--Horace Greely's lovely daughter, Gabriele, re-christened it Isle of Porcina. This vessel fell a victim in due time to the greed of those wondrous ants of the sea, the coral insects, who, with infinite industry, soon contrived to coat it with their microscopic huts, and now you see it lying full five fathoms deep beneath you, all white and h.o.a.ry in its coraline encas.e.m.e.nt. The deck, the hull, the tattered rigging, ropes and chains, are all white with corals, and around the ghastly s.h.i.+p rise the pale blue walls of its sea prison.

The moonlight nights at Na.s.sau, although marvellously beautiful, are not a little dangerous to fresh arrivals, on account of the heavy dews. I remember one evening we all went out to see the ruins of the fort built in 1788 by the Earl of Dunmore, memorably connected with the American Revolution. It certainly was a lovely sight, and the old grey walls and tower looked as well as any ruin on Rhine or Nile by that argentine radiance, approaching sunlight in its tropical brilliance, which renders things more or less romantic, be they ever so commonplace. The tall palms rustled in the breeze, and the bay was like a sheet of s.h.i.+vering quicksilver, just over where the imprisoned phantom s.h.i.+p rests, five fathoms down, "woo'd for ever to the slimy bottom of the deep." The sight was exquisite. The price more than one visitor ultimately paid in aching head and stiff rheumatic bones was anything but light!

And with this glimpse at an Isle of June, as New Providence has been aptly called--introduced into this book merely as a contrast--I take my leave.

Vale--gentle reader!--fare thee well.

APPENDIX I.

THE BOYHOOD OF COLUMBUS.

No historical question has been more keenly disputed than that of the real place where Christopher Columbus was born. The majority incline to believe him to have been a native of Genoa, or else of the neighbouring town of Savona. One learned gentleman has even a.s.serted in a very elaborate pamphlet, published not long ago, that he came from Cremona.

The Abate Casanova of Ajaccio, in another pamphlet, attempts, on the strength of a very ancient but equally obscure tradition, to prove that Columbus was a Corsican. He goes so far as to point out the very house in the Vico del Filo at Calvi, in which he firmly believes the Discoverer first saw light. His statements, ingenious as they are, lack contemporary evidence to substantiate them, and very little research suffices to scatter them to the winds. I have lately seen a curious and rare French pamphlet, in which Columbus is declared to be a native of Ma.r.s.eilles, and yet another, the author of which endeavours to convince his readers that the Discoverer was born at Albenga. In short, a voluminous literature has sprung out of this vexed question, but to the serious student of the life and times of Columbus Genoa and Savona alone appear worthy of respect.

To the Marquis Staglieno of Genoa, one of the most enterprising of modern Italian historians, and to Mr Henry Harrisse, a learned and indefatigable American student of the life of Columbus, the definite determination of the great Navigator's birthplace is really due. He was born in Genoa, in a house standing still, near the ancient and recently restored gate of St Andrea, at the top of a long, steep street known as the Portorio, in the parish of San Stefano.