[Subsection]

How beautiful it is here, my little heart; how good it is to be here! In this glorious air, fanned by balmy zephyrs, in this light, excellent, and, in every respect, comfortable home--the house of Mr. and Mrs. B--where I am now staying, I feel myself, as it were, living anew. I have now been here for a whole week, which has passed like one bright, beautiful day.

It seemed to me pleasant to leave that hot, dusty Havana early on the morning of Monday the 16th, and there also I left my headache. I parted with it the night before, when I went to bed, and had a sound sleep. That kind, cordially good Mrs. F. was up with me at five o'clock the next morning, and had coffee brought for me and herself from a Restaurateur's, because she would not disturb her slaves so early; and after having taken a heartfelt leave of her and her husband, I seated myself in their volante, accompanied by one of the youngest sons of the house, and my favorite Frank. The calashero cracked his whip in the air, and we rapidly swung away to the   [p. 291]   rail-way station. I was glad when I, with the help of my young conductor, had got safely through all the difficulties and impediments of the rail-way, and was seated quietly in a spacious carriage. The carriages are built in the American fashion, because Americans constructed the rail-way and built the carriages at Cuba. All the windows were down, to allow the glorious morning air free ingress; and although all the gentlemen who were in the carriage--from forty to fifty in number--smoked cigars or cigaritos, there was no smell of smoke, and scarcely any to be perceived. The air of Cuba seems to have the power of annihilating smoke. I was the only lady in the carriage, and sat solitarily on my sofa, and nearly solitarily in my portion of the carriage; but all the more uninterruptedly could I see around me, and--ah! that morning, when I flew over the new earth, beautiful as a paradise, through a paradisiacal atmosphere, and saw around me new and enchanting scenes and objects--it was only by inward and deep thanksgiving that so much enjoyment could be sanctified.

There had been rain in the night, and splendid clouds piled themselves in masses along the horizon, and grouped themselves in fantastic shapes above the blue mountains. Now they lifted themselves in heavy draperies above them, to flee from the ascending sun; then formed a magnificent portal, with a frame of gold; and beyond it shone a sea of soft, rose-colored light; it lightened above the tops of the mountains, and--the sun rose. The fantastic little blue and yellow villas, with their splendid gardens full of splendid flowers and strange plants; the palm-thatched cottages in the fields, the lofty, green palm-trees above their yellow-gray roofs; groves of mango, plantain, orange, and cocoa-trees, the verdant hedges and fields, all shone fresh and beautiful amid the gushing sunshine in the moist, mild morning.

Along the whole course of the way new and lovely objects   [p. 292]   met my eye; flowers, plants, gardens, dwellings, all bade me good-morning as we sped past them. But a potato-field and a large cabbage-ground greeted me as fellow-countrymen and old friends. The whole country looked like an immense garden; beautiful palms presented themselves at all distances, waving their crowns in the morning wind, and along the edge of the horizon before me arose a chain of dark blue mountains, the heights of Camerioca.

I was quite well; no human being could be better; both body and soul had wings, and I flew over the beautiful, brilliant earth.

The villas disappeared by degrees, and plantations of sugar-cane, and other vegetable growths which were unknown to me, took their places. We traveled through whole forests of planted banana-trees. After that the landscape became wilder, and parasite plants showed themselves on tree and meadow. Presently those got the upper hand, and seemed to choke vegetation. The crowns of many trees bore whole gardens of orchids and aloes on their branches. The appearance was queer rather than beautiful, although various of these parasitic plants had very lovely flowers, but the whole looked heavy and unnatural. In one field not far from the road I noticed a lofty, half-dead ceiba-tree, around the gigantic stem of which the parasite Yaguay embra, a female fig-tree, had flung its hundred-fold arms in an immense embrace, entwining the tree from root to head, until it had nearly destroyed its life. This death-struggle between the ceiba-tree and the female parasite, which grows and nourishes itself with its life, and finally destroys it, is a frequent sight in Cuba, and it is a very remarkable and really unpleasant spectacle. There is a complete tragedy in the picture, which reminds one of Hercules and Dejanira, of King Agne and Aslög.

The first part of the day and the journey were full of   [p. 293]   pleasures, among which I must reckon some excellent sandwiches and bananas which good Mrs. F. provided me with, and as I ate them I thought of her, so motherly, so kind, so thoughtful for me and for all who belong to her. Gratitude and joy in human beings is the best food of the soul. In a while the day became too warm, and the whole of nature too much overrun with parasitic growths. It oppressed me, and made me drowsy.

Some ladies with Spanish physiognomies entered the carriage at one of the rail-way stations. They seemed to be country people, but were well dressed, and wore no covering on the head. Two of them were very handsome, were stout, and bore themselves proudly and with great hauteur and ungraciousness to a couple of gentlemen, evidently their admirers, who attended them, and who, at the last moment, presented bouquets with an air which did not look despairing, but rather full of roguishness, as they withdrew, without obtaining a glance from the proud beauties. This woke me up a little. And I was wide awake when we, in the afternoon, left behind us that region of ensnarement, and the landscape suddenly expanding itself, the city of Matanzas was before us, its glorious bay now blue--clearly, brightly blue--and in the background the lofty mountain ridge, Pan de Matanzas, so called from its form, and the opening to Yumori Valley. The freshest, the most delicious breezes met us here; and at the rail-way station I was met by two gentlemen, with mild, agreeable countenances, who bade me welcome. It was my countryman, Mr. F., from Götheberg, now resident at Matanzas, and Mr. J. B., who conveyed me in his volante to his handsome house. Here I was received most kindly by his handsome young wife, a Creole, but with such a fair, fresh Northern appearance, that she needed merely a helmet on her brow to have served as a model for a Valkyria.

With this agreeable young couple I am spending my   [p. 294]   time quietly and pleasantly, and invigorating myself, both soul and body, partly in their fresh pleasant home--(my young hostess is the daughter of an Anglo-American, and every thing in the house bears the impress of that cleanliness, order, and excellent management which distinguish the housewives of that race)--and partly by my solitary rambles in the neighborhood of the city, although it is so unusual for a lady out of doors--especially with a bonnet on her head--to make use of her own means of promenade, instead of those of the horse or volante, that little negro boys and girls run after me shouting and laughing, and grown-up people stand and stare, and horses and oxen are sometimes frightened. People are, however, beginning now to be used to me, and to seeing me go out; and I will not, without very good reasons, give up my solitary rambles of discovery.

Will you accompany me on one of them, the first, the most charming which I have yet made, and when I, early in the morning, visited alone the valley of Yumori? As a matter of course, you must understand that the morning was beautiful; but how beautiful nobody can understand who has not experienced the early morning hour, and the caresses of the spirit of the sea from Matanzas Bay. The valley of Yumori lies about two hundred paces from Matanzas. You see a gorge between two lofty crags, and through the gorge a bright little river, which flows between verdant banks to unite itself to the sea--I do not say throw itself into it, because it is too tranquil for that. It is clear and calm as a mirror. Let us follow the little stream through the rocky portals, outside of which is open meadow, and the broad blue Bay of Matanzas, with ships from all the nations of the world sailing in, or lying at anchor far, far into the distance.

We walk along the banks of the Yumori River, and pass the mountain portals; and within, a wonderfully beautiful valley expands, the green-sward overgrown with   [p. 295]   palms and verdurous shrubs, and inclosed on each side by lofty mountain ridges. The shadows of the hills lie cool and dusk upon that portion of the valley along which our path runs. How beautiful it is here in the cool shadow! On our left is the mirror-like river, which begins to withdraw, under our gaze, into a wood of mangrove--a species of shrub which grows in the water, and increases by throwing its twigs down to the bottom, where they take root and spring up afresh into green shrubs. On the opposite side of the river rises abruptly, but with a soft, waving outline, Pan de Matanzas, and on our side run sloping upward the heights of Combre. The rock shoots out on the hillsides in bold basaltic colonnades, scoops itself into grottoes, mysterious porticoes, and arches which are alone visited by the birds of heaven. The bold heights are here and there crested with palms, and heavy trails of creeping plants hang around them. Lower down, and at their feet, the vegetation becomes still more luxuriant; it is one rich mass of beautiful trees, shrubs, and flowers, among which I lost myself in delight and ignorance. I know the popular names, however, of some of the flowers. There glows the fever - flower, in gold and flame, indescribably brilliant; there is the wild heliotrope, luxuriant in growth, but as modest in color and form as our northern hot-house heliotrope; there is the beautiful white blossom of the mangrove, with a chalice half of the convolvulus and half of the lily form, and diffusing a delicious fragrance; and there, along our path, at our very feet, see that little shrub, full of small, splendidly crimson flowers, with hundreds of little mouths or bills gaping on its stalk, upward when they are young, and downward toward the earth, upon which they fall, still quite crimson and fresh, as they become older; and see how little velvet green humming-birds flutter around them--how enamored they are of them, how little afraid of us; how they dip, hovering on the wing, their long bills into the open bills of the   [p. 296]   flowers--animal life and vegetable life here meet and kiss--it is most beautiful! This plant, with its crimson, falling flowers, is Cupid's tears, Lacrymos cupido. But Lacrymos cupido are not the pale tears of sorrow. They are the glowing tears of an overflowing, blissful heart. They are wept by the heart of Nature, and winged lovers sip their sweetness.

The valley still lies before us, but its extent is hidden. The bend of the hills closes the view. Now, however, our path suddenly turns to the right, and the valley reveals itself. Before us on the right lies, in the bosom of the hills, and amid the most beautiful grove of palms, a little farm, a Cuban farm, with palm-leaf-thatched roof, and our path leads through groups of cocoa-palms, laden with. fruit. Now we descend a little hill, and now on the right of the descent, at a short distance from the path, we find the ruins of a stone wall and a well. All around grow, in picturesque confusion, cocoa-palms, mamay, and mango-trees, cypresses, ceibas, and many other species of trees. We advance down the little hill, and toward the farm; but just below it the path winds round to the left, and now proceeds more straightforward up the valley. The valley opens to us like a vast and beautiful palm-grove, inclosed by an elliptical frame of hilltops. We still advance for a little distance; the valley becomes broader, with softly undulating ground; and, whichever way we turn, we see only palms--palms. Beneath such trees, such groves, beautiful, immortal beings might wander!

Here again lies a little farm not far from the path, with its straw-thatched house and brushwood cottage, between which shines out a large blossoming oleander. We enter to look around; we must beg a draught of water. La fermičre, a thin, shriveled, brown-eyed woman, looks as if she would give us every thing which she possesses; but she does not understand us, and we do not understand her. But we obtain water for all that, and a great bunch of   [p. 297]   blossoming oleander, which she breaks off for us with a hearty good-will. The sun is now beginning to be hot, let us therefore return; we will come hither again, for we must become still better acquainted with the valley of Yumori.

And see, here come Monteros, with their heavily-laden horses, the packages being laid straight across their backs. They salute us kindly with melodious voices, halt, and inquire good-humoredly where goes la signora, and what she wants. La Signora says that she comes from Svecia. The Monteros look at her perplexed, and then at one another. They do not know such a place as Svecia, and can not understand the wanderer. She tells them that she is from un paeso sotto la estreja del Norte! And now they believe she says that she comes from the north star, and they say, "Oh!" and look at one another, and smile significantly, and wrinkle their brows; they now comprehend that la signora is somewhat wrong in the head, and, compassionately shaking their heads, they drive on their horses. I can not tell you how gentle and good-hearted they seem; and, slowly following them, we pursue the road back to Matanzas. Still the lofty mountain wall casts its shadow over the cocoa palm grove by the well. We seat ourselves on the broken stone wall, and breakfast on bananas, which we have taken with us; an incomparable breakfast, in that delicious morning air, in that wonderfully beautiful valley! Gentle and happy people ought to live at the farm among the palm-trees, up among the hills. Amid such beautiful, joy-giving objects in that delicious air, human beings should become gentle and good.

The sun climbs over the hills, and it is quite hot before we reach Matanzas; but we have thus spent a beautiful morning in the valley of Yumori.

I have made some acquaintance in the city of Matanzas, and, through one of these, have been able to visit a large coffee and sugar plantation in the neighborhood of the city.   [p. 298]   There I saw avenues of many rare tropical trees and plants; a kind of palm-tree, which twists its gigantically strong branches like cork-screws, and bears gigantic fruit; a kind of citron-tree, which bears immense citron-like fruit, but which are not valued as such. I was most interested by making acquaintance with the sago and date palms, with arrow-root, with the guava-tree and its pleasant fruit, as well as with the wonderfully beautiful hibiscus flowers; and nothing delighted me more than to be surrounded with little fluttering humming-birds, which are, on the island, so remarkably fearless of man, and continually hover around the splendid red flowers with which Cuba seems to adorn herself rather than with flowers of any other color. Their rapid, arrow-like flight hither and thither, the fluttering movement of their wings while they are sipping from the flowers, are a perpetual astonishment and delight to me. They correspond with nothing which I have seen of animal or human life, and they seem to me not to be made of this earth's dust. A favorite place of resort for their building seems to be on the banks of lovely little purling brooks, shaded by thick masses of foliage, where the nests are concealed among the trees. Among the curiosities of the place, I observed many orchideous parasites hanging from the trees, as well as a large ceiba-tree, encircled by its hostile mistress, Yaguay embra, and killed by its dangerous embrace.

The plantation, for the rest, had a very forlorn appearance, in consequence of the two last tornadoes, which came in rapid succession, and left it in perfect desolation; besides which the cholera had carried off a great portion of the negro slaves.

"The Lord punishes our sins, punishes our sins!" said the owner of the plantation, with an expression half of levity, half of repentance and acknowledgment of the justice of the punishment. He was an elderly man, with French manners and nervous excitability, but a very polite   [p. 299]   host. I would very willingly be his guest, but not his slave. The slave-rooms, in a low wall or building, were no better than dark pig-styes with us. There was also a hospital. It was a large, dark room, in which stood some wooden bedsteads, but without coverlets or pillows, nor was there a ray of light in the room. He was himself, he said, the only physician of the sick: he could himself let blood, &c. I could not help shuddering. The plantation seemed almost a desert. I saw a shriveled old negro cripple steal past us, with a shy, submissive look. A little sharp lad waited at table with an unconcerned air, and who seemed not to trouble himself in the least about his master's violent exclamations and movements.

This gentleman was at one time very wealthy, but he has during the last, few years suffered great losses, which he is said to bear with great equanimity.

Matanzas is built in the same style as Havana, but has a more open and cheerful appearance; the streets are considerably wider, although not paved. The house of my friends here is two stories high; a piazza runs round the upper story opening into the street, and here I walk in the evenings inhaling the air, while my hostess in the drawing-room plays Cuban contra-dances in exquisite time, and full of abounding life. One hears these dances sounding at all distances from the houses of the city. Wherever one may be, or wherever one goes in Matanzas, this dance-music may be heard. The time and measure are derived from the children of Africa, the peculiar music from the Spanish Creoles of Cuba, and one hears in it Spanish seguidillas, national songs, and marches. Both Mr. and Mrs. B. are musical, and it is a pleasure to me to hear him play, on the organ notes of the piano, the Catholic anthem, Adeste Fideles, and to hear him play the Spanish dances, Hauta Arragonesa, El Sabbatheo, &c. The most sparkling Champagne of life exists in these national   [p. 300]   dances. It is amusing to compare with these our polkas and other popular dances; they are not deficient in this abounding, sparkling life, but they want refinement and grace. These dissimilar national dances stand in the same relationship as Champagne, and ale, and mead.