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I have lived for the last three days at a rural abode in the little rural village, or small town of Serro, two miles from Havana, with a German-American family of the name of S., who have kindly invited me to spend a few days with them, to know something of life in the country, which I greatly wished, and to make a closer acquaintance with the Bishop's beautiful garden, which lies very near their home. I have a little newly-built house to myself, consisting of two airy rooms. Below the window of my sleeping-room stands a little clump of banana-trees laden with their beautiful fruit, and the light green ell-broad leaves, which are as soft as velvet, are wafted by the wind, and immediately beyond them roars a little mountain stream. Beyond our little garden, and just opposite to it, I see, within a blue-painted inclosure on a little hill, a group of glorious cocoa palms, poplars, and bamboo-trees, beneath which a fountain falls into a magnificent marble basin. The whole village is composed of gardens with their little dwellings, and beyond them the extensive plain is scattered over with king and cocoa palms, and trees, the names of which I am yet unacquainted with.

The first night that I slept here on my cool camp-bedstead,   [p. 272]   I heard the stream roaring along, and the banana leaves whispering outside my window, and felt the delicious night-winds around me like the wings of angels; it was to me enchantingly beautiful--so beautiful that I could scarcely sleep. I was obliged to get up many times to contemplate the heavens and the earth. I thus beheld a constellation of incomparable magnificence and brilliancy ascend above the hill of the cocoa palms. Could it be the ship Argo or the constellation Sagittarius? I do not as yet know. I am still ignorant what constellations of the southern hemisphere may be seen here. I have not yet met with any one who can tell me. People here think a deal more about trade and pleasure than about the stars. When the blush of morning appeared, amid beautiful gold and rosy clouds, I saw the morning star standing above the earth, wonderfully bright and large. I do not know why, but it produced in me a melancholy effect. It seemed to me like an eye full of a bright but sorrowful consciousness, gazing calmly, with deep earnestness, down upon earth, as if it knew of the sin and the sorrow of earth. That bright star stood above the beautiful island like its clear, accusing conscience.

There had been for the last two days cold weather, with rain in torrents; but the morning was bright and beautiful, and I wished after breakfast to visit the Bishop's garden, which lies only a few minutes' walk from our Serro. Mrs. S. said, "You will not be able to get there; you will stick fast in the mud after all this rain."

I would not believe her, and persisted in going. But she was right. I actually could not get along; at every step my feet stuck fast in the thick mud, the quality of which I had never before had any conception of. I was obliged to return, and wait till the sun had dried the earth, which it is not very long in doing. These torrents of rain which have met me in Cuba, and which are a little inconvenient to me, are, it is said, the parting salutations   [p. 273]   of the rainy season, which is now just at an end, and which gives place to the dry season, la Secca, which extends from the present time into May. Both yesterday and to-day there has been unremitting sunshine, so that I have to-day been to the Bishop's garden; and wandering under palms, bamboos, and many kinds of beautiful tropical trees, among splendid unusual flowers and butterflies, have celebrated alone the most glorious morning, a spirit of thanksgiving among the silent spirits of nature. Ah! when the Creator allows us here on earth to behold such beauty, allows us to experience such joy, what treasures of His kingdom has He not in store for His children, risen again and enfranchised from dust on the other side the grave!

The beauty of these trees and flowers, and of this air, give me a foretaste of a glory of creation, a fullness of existence in the consciousness of natural life, which exceeds all that I have hitherto imagined. When nature, in a perfected world, becomes a thanksgiving song of beauty, harmonious delight, and magnificence, what will not life become, what praises shall we not sing? We are not bold enough, we are not rich enough in imagination, as we glance toward the kingdom of heaven beyond the grave; we are too poor in faith to conceive of the power and affluence of the Creator.

Palms, laurel-trees, groves of bamboos, yellow jasmines, which fling their fragrant branches from stem to stem; the beautiful air filled with the purest life, all these whispered to me words and thoughts of that morning which is to be. And I walked alone through these magnificent avenues, amid those silent groves, where hundreds of splendid butterflies, all unknown to me, fluttered up out of the moist grasses, and I praised God in the name of all existence! How happy I was that morning!

"But the slaves--the slavery which surrounds this Eden!" you will say. Yes, I know; but slavery must   [p. 274]   cease, and the fetters of the slave fall from him; but the goodness and magnificence of God will remain forever. I lived here in the contemplation of this, and a day will come when the slave shall do so too.

The garden, or, more correctly speaking, the park, is much neglected since the death of the old bishop, and since a terrible hurricane in 1848, which entirely destroyed the house, of which merely a ruin now remains, and injured many trees and statues; but I am pleased with the less trim condition of the park, because it all the more resembles, from that very cause, a beautiful natural scene.

I dined yesterday at the villa of Mr. and Mrs. S. with a select party. The dinner was served in the veranda opening into the garden, which afforded us a glorious view beyond it over the island. This garden was, like other ornamental gardens which I have seen here, very ornamental, but stiff. Palms of many kinds, splendid flowers in beds, bordering well-graveled or flagged paths, marble basins with gold fish, &c. A beautiful little boy of two years old is the best treasure of the house.

In the evening I was once more with the F. family; saw amiable and cheerful young people dancing in the joy of their hearts, and heard again that enchanting Cuban dance-music. It has a broken, strange, but extremely animated movement. My kind, agreeable host, Mr. S., plays it on the piano-forte with the musical genius of a German.

Feb. 11th. Yesterday was Sunday, and although our little village of Serro did not go to church--because there is no church there--it still had quite a holiday appearance. At noon I heard from various distances the living cadence of the African drum, not unlike the sound of the flail in the barns around us at threshing time, only that here it has a much more animated life. This was the sign that the dances of the free negroes were now commencing   [p. 275]   at their assembling-places in the neighborhood. My host had the kindness to accompany me to one of these, very near our Serro. I found a large room, very like those of public houses among us, in which I saw these negroes naked to the waist, wild, energetic figures and countenances, who were beating drums with energetic animation. These drums were hollowed tree-stems, over the openings of which was stretched a parchment skin, on which the negroes drummed, in part with sticks and in part with their hands, with their thumbs, with their fists, with wonderful agility and skill, a wild, artistic perfection, or, I should rather say, a perfected natural art--they drummed as bees hum and beavers build. The time and measure, which sometimes varied, was exquisitely true; no one can imagine a more natural, perfect, lively precision in that irregular regular time. The drum was held between the knees; they held in their fists a large ball filled with stones or some other noisy things, and ornamented outside with a tuft of cock's feathers. They seem to me to create as much noise as possible. Some dancing couples assembled; ladies of various shades color, dressed in ragged finery; men (negroes) without any finery, almost without any attire at all on the upper part of the body. A man took a woman by the hand, and then began to dance, she turning round on one spot with downcast eyes, he surrounding her with a vast many gambols, among which are most astounding summersets and leaps, remarkable for their boldness and agility. Other negroes, in the mean time, set up, every now and then, wild cries, and strike with sticks upon the walls and doors. The sweat pours from the drumming negroes, who look desperately in earnest. When the hall began to be crowded, I would not any longer detain my friend and his little daughter; but I shall do all in my power to witness again and again these African dances, with their peculiar wild life, at the same time so irregular and yet so rhythmical.

On our return we heard, both near and afar, the wild sound of the drums. It is only, however, the free negroes of the island who hold their dances at this season. During the whole time of la Secca the grinding of the sugar-cane is going forward on the plantations, and the negro slaves can not then dance, scarcely have time to sleep. There are, however, in Cuba a considerable number of free negroes.

As we entered the village, we met two young men who were playing a lively air on the guitar, and who were accompanied by several other young men. They were celebrating the birth or name-day of some of their friends--a beautiful poetical custom!

I have rambled about a good deal in this neighborhood, and have become acquainted with some of the beautiful trees of the island. Among these I must introduce to you the ceiba-tree, one of the loftiest and most lovely trees of Cuba. It shoots aloft, a strong and softly undulating stem, to a height exceeding that of the palm, and without any branches, until, all at once, it spreads out in a horizontal direction three or four arms, sinuous like those of the oak, but less abrupt; these subdivide themselves into lesser branches, and bear aloft the most beautiful crown of palmated rich green leaves. It is one of the most lovely trees I ever saw, and I know nothing to which I can compare it. But this beautiful tree has its grudging enemy, and upon the small, thorn-like excrescences with which its stem is covered a parasite is apt to fix itself, which by degrees embraces, and finally kills the tree. I observed also the beautiful dark green trees, Mamay Colorado and Mamay Santa Domingo, now covered with fruit, gray-brown outside, and within filled with a reddish-yellow flesh, very sweet, but to my taste insipid; and the sapota-tree, also with dark green leaves and brown fruit, about the size of small oranges, and, like these, consisting of juicy segments, very sweet, and extremely   [p. 277]   agreeable to my taste. The mango-tree has a thick, leafy head, which reminds me, both in form and compactness, of our chestnut-tree. The mango fruit is yet green, and hangs in long racemes, several upon a stalk, like colossal almonds in form. They are said to be of a beautiful golden yellow when ripe; they are called the apples of Cuba, and are much liked on the island. The mango-tree affords a thick, impenetrable shadow; the tamarind-tree, on the other hand, spreads out above your head like a fine, transparent, embroidered green veil, through which you see the blue sky. It bears pods with small beans in them, which have an acid, but very agreeable and fresh flavor.

The gourd, or calabash-tree--(N.B.--I tell you the names of the trees as I hear them called here, for I have no access to any botanical work)--resembles an apple-tree in its growth, has its branches overgrown with thickset leaves, and bears fruit round as a ball, without any stem. This fruit, which will grow as large as a man's head, and which has a very hard rind, furnishes the poorer, people with their most useful domestic utensils, and becomes, when cut in two, their bowl, dish, plate, drinking vessel, water cask, dipper, ladle, their all in all. The calabash, or gourd, is especially the negro's house furniture, and it is the calabash also which adorns his fists, and which occasions pleasure and noise at their dances. I might mention other trees, and many there are, of which as yet I do not know the names; but I must tell you how my beloved banana-tree blossoms and sets its fruit; for it is a peculiar story, which for a long time has puzzled me when I saw it from a distance, and now I have studied it near.

You see the banana-tree--you shall see it in my album--a tree of low growth, with a palm-like crown not much above your head in height. The stem shoots up straight, surrounded by leaves, which fall off as the stem increases   [p. 278]   in height, and which leave it somewhat rugged, and with rather a withered appearance. When the tree has attained the height of four or five ells, it ceases to grow, but unfolds and expands a crown of broad light green leaves, as soft as velvet, and from two to four ells long, and which bend and are swayed gracefully by the wind. The wind, however, is not quite gracious to them, but slits the leaves on each side of the strong leaf-fibre into many parts, so that it often looks tattered, but still preserves, even amid its tatters, its soft grace and its beautiful movement. From amid the crown of leaves shoots forth a bud upon a stalk, and resembling a large green flower-bud. This shoots up rapidly, and becomes as rapidly too heavy for its stalk, which bends under its weight. The bud now bends down to the stem, and grows as large probably as a cocoa-nut, its form being like that of a Provence rose-bud, and of a dark violet color. I saw upon almost all banana-trees, even on those which bore rich clusters of ripe fruit, this immense violet-colored bud hanging, and was not a little curious to know all about it. And now you shall know! One of the outer leaves or envelopments of the bud loosens itself, or opens itself gently at the top, and you now perceive that its innermost side glows with the most splendid vermilion red; and within its depth you see peeping forth, closely laid together side by side, six or seven little light yellow figures, not unlike little chickens, and very like the woolly seed-vessels in the single peony-flower. The leaf encasements open more and more to the light and the air, and those little light yellow fruit-chickens peep forth more and more. By degrees the leaf, with its little family, separates itself altogether from the bud and a length of bare stern grows between them. The little chickens now gape with pale yellow flower-beaks, and put out their tongues (they are of the didynamia order) to drink in the sun and the air; but still the beautiful leaf bends itself over their heads like a screen, like a   [p. 279]   protecting wing, like a shadowy roof. The sun would as yet be too hot for the little ones. But they grow more and more. They begin to develop themselves, to plump out their breasts, and to raise their heads more and more. They will become independent; they will see the sun they need no longer the old leaf. The leaf now disengages itself--the beautiful maternal leaf --and falls to the earth. I have frequently seen these leaf-screens lying on the ground beneath the tree, and taken them up and contemplated them with admiration, not only for the part they act, but for the rare beauty and clearness of the crimson color on their inner side; one might say that a warm drop of blood from a young mother's heart had infused itself there. The young chickens, which are cocks and hens at the same time, plume themselves now proudly, and with projecting breasts, and beautifully curved backs and heads, and beaks raised aloft, range themselves garland-like around the stem, and thus, in about two weeks' time, they ripen into delicious bananas, and are cut off in bunches.

The whole of that dark, purple-tinted bud-head is a thick cluster of such leaf-envelopes, each inclosing such an offspring. Thus releases itself one leaf after another, and falls off; thus grows to maturity one cluster of fruit after another, until the thick stalk is as full as it can hold of their garlands; but, nevertheless, there always remains a good deal of the bud-head, which is never able to develop the whole of its internal wealth during the year in which the banana-tree lives; for it lives and bears fruit only one year, and then dies. But, before that happens, it has given life to a large family of young descendants, who grow up at its feet, and the eldest of which are ready to blossom and bear fruit when the mother-tree dies.

Such is the history of the banana-tree, Musa paradisiaca, as it is called in the Tropical Flora. And of a certainty it was at home in the first paradise, where all was good.

One can scarcely imagine any thing prettier or more perfect than these young descendants, the banana children; they are the perfect image in miniature of the mother-tree, but the wind has no power upon their young leaves they stand under the wing of the mother-tree in paradisiacal peace and beauty.

It has been attempted to transplant the banana-tree into the southern portion of North America, where so many trees from foreign climates flourish; but the banana-tree will not flourish there; its fruit will not ripen; it requires a more equal, more delicious warmth; it will not grow without the paradisiacal life of the tropics.

Roasted banana is as common a dish at the breakfasts of the Creoles as bread and coffee; but I like it only in its natural state.

The ladies in this country have very light house-keeping cares. The cook, always a negro woman, and if a man-cook, a negro also, receives a certain sum of money weekly with which to provide the family dinners. She goes to market and makes purchases, and selects that which seems best to her, or what she likes. The lady of the house frequently does not know what the family will have for dinner until it is on the table; and I can only wonder that the mistress can, with such perfect security, leave these matters to her cooks, and that all should succeed so well; but the faculty for, and the pleasure in all that concerns serving the table, is said to be universal among the negroes, and they compromise their honor if they do not serve up a good dinner.

Mrs. S. sits during the morning and reads with her two little girls in a hall, the doors of which open upon the piazza, and thence to the street or high road, and as the country people (Monteros, as they are here called, and who are always men) pass with their little horses heavily laden with vegetables, fruit, or poultry, now and then one of them will stop at the door and call to la signora,   [p. 281]   inquiring whether she will purchase this or that, and she says a couple of words in reply in that melodious Spanish tongue, and the whole is done in few words, without her needing to rise from her seat. Life might be very easy here. In the evening, after tea, we sit in rocking-chairs in the piazza, dressed as lightly as propriety will allow, and enjoy the air and the dolce far niente. All is then quiet in the little village; to breathe here is to live and enjoy!

My kind friends have taken me to the beautiful gardens of some of the aristocracy of the neighborhood--they are splendid, but formal. Every thing is set in rows along the graveled walks; and the tropical trees, the forms of which are regular by nature, add to the formality, when they are not grouped with some artistic and poetical feeling. In the lovely garden, for instance, of El Conti Hernandinos, it was this feeling which led to the planting of a circle of king-palms. In this way the most beautiful columned rotunda was formed which can be imagined; the crowns being all at the same height, locked their branches into each other, and formed a gigantic verdant garland, which waved and rustled in the wind, while the blue vault of heaven shone brightly through it.

I have taken a walk every morning into the Bishop's garden; but I was one morning persecuted there by a couple of half-naked, horrible-looking negroes, who probably said witty things while they begged, although I did not understand them, and they disturbed my comfort. Another morning I was so very unwell from something which I had taken, though I knew not what, that the joys of Paradise could not have pleased me; a third morning I was free and at peace, and again enjoyed life, but not as I did on the first morning. But neither was that needful; I was happy and thankful: one single morning such as that is enough for an immortal memory.

I have every night again saluted that large, magnificent   [p. 282]   constellation above the palm-tree mound, and have seen the quiet, melancholy, clear glance of the morning star over the earth. These nights, with the roar of the mountain stream and the rustling of the banana-trees, I shall never forget.

This morning Mrs. S. and myself went into the park. I observed some verses in Spanish inscribed upon a bamboo-tree, and asked her to read them to me. She could not do it, because their meaning was of the grossest kind. Again the old serpent!

One sees in the country around here small farms, on all of which are houses built of palm-trees, and thatched with tawny palm-leaves; the roofs are all, pointed, and frequently taller than the cottages themselves. But all the dwelling-houses of the island are low, on account of the hurricanes, which otherwise would destroy them. Many small cottages are built of bark or of woven brush-wood. The palm-tree, however, is the principal tree of the poor; it supplies them with material for their houses, and the calabash furnishes them with household wares. The little farms have a peculiar, although not ornamental appearance; still, they adorn the landscape with their own character.

I have heard a good deal of what occurred during the last hurricane. One spot was pointed out to me, near here, where stood a little peasant farm. The whole family were assembled in the house, twelve in number. The tempest shook the dwelling; the father admonished them all to pray; they threw themselves on their knees around him; he stood upright in the middle of the room, and prayed in the name of all. The tempest tore open a hole in the roof, and in the same moment overturned the house, leaving the father standing upright, but burying his wife, his children, and servants. Not a single one escaped excepting himself!

I shall, in the morning, return to Havana. If I could   [p. 283]   but some time give pleasure to the excellent, kind people who have, by their hospitality, given so much to me! I am sorry to leave them, and, in particular, the youngest, most charming little girl, the dark-eyed little Ellen!