University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER X.

As there are no plantations to be seen near
Havana, I determine to go down to Matanzas,
near which the sugar plantations are in full
tide of operation at this season. A steamer
leaves here every night at ten o'clock, reaching
Matanzas before daylight, the distance by sea
being between fifty and sixty miles.

Took this steamer to-night. She got under
way punctually at ten o'clock, and steamed
down the harbor. The dark waters are alive
with phosphorescent light. From each ship
that lies moored, the cable from the bows,
tautened to its anchor, makes a run of silver
light. Each boat, gliding silently from ship to
ship, and shore to shore, turns up a silver ripple
at its stem, and trails a wake of silver behind;
while the dip of the oar-blades brings
up liquid silver, dripping, from the opaque

deep. We pass along the side of the two-decker,
and see through her ports the lanterns
and men; under the stern of one frigate, and
across the bows of another (for Havana is well
supplied with men-of-war); and drop leisurely
down by the Cabaña, where we are hailed from
the rocks; and bend round the Morro, and are
out on the salt, rolling sea. Having a day
of work before me, I went early to my berth,
and was waked up by the letting off of steam,
in the lower harbor of Matanzas, at three
o'clock in the morning. My fellow-passengers,
who sat up, said the little steamer tore and
plunged, and jumped through the water like
a thing that had lost its wits. They seemed to
think that the Cuban engineer had got a machine
that would some day run away with
him. It was, certainly, a very short passage.

We passed a good many vessels lying at
anchor in the lower harbor of Matanzas, and
came to anchor about a mile from the pier. It
was clear, bright moonlight. The small boats
came off to us, and took us and our luggage
ashore. I was landed alone on a quay, carpetbag
in hand, and had to guess my way to the

inn, which was near the water-side. I beat on
the big, close-barred door; and a sleepy negro,
in time, opened it. Mine host was up, expecting
passengers, and after waiting on the very
tardy movements of the negro, who made a
separate journey to the yard for each thing the
room needed, I got to bed by four o'clock, on
the usual piece of canvas stretched over an
iron frame, in a room having a brick floor, and
windows without glass closed with big-bolted
shutters.

Tuesday, February 22.—After coffee, walked
out to deliver my letters to Mr.—, an American
merchant, who has married the daughter
of a planter, a gentleman of wealth and character.
He is much more agreeable and painstaking
than we have any right to expect of one
who is served so frequently with notice that
his attentions are desired for the entertainment
of a stranger. Knowing that it is my wish
to visit a plantation, he gives me a letter to
Don Juan C—, who has an ingenio (sugar
plantation), called La Ariadne, near Limonar,
and about twenty-five miles back in the
country from Matanzas. The train leaves at

2.30 p.m., which gives me several hours for
the city.

Although it is not yet nine o'clock, it is very
hot, and one is glad to keep on the shady side
of the broad streets of Matanzas. This city
was built later and more under foreign direction
than Havana, and I have been told, not by
persons here however, that for many years the
controlling influences of society were French,
English, and American; but that lately the policy
of the government has been to discourage
foreign influence, and now Spanish customs
prevail—bull-fights have been introduced, and
other usages and entertainments which had
had no place here before. Whatever may be
the reason, this city differs from Havana in
buildings, vehicles, and dress, and in the width
of its streets, and has less of the peculiar air
of a tropical city. It has about 25,000 inhabitants,
and stands where two small rivers, the
Yumuri and the San Juan, crossed by handsome
stone bridges, run into the sea, dividing
the city into three parts. The vessels lie at
anchor from one to three miles below the
city, and lighters, with masts and sails, line

the stone quays of the little rivers. The city
is flat and hot, but the country around is picturesque,
hilly, and fertile. To the westward
of the town, rises a ridge, bordering on the sea,
called the Cumbre, which is a place of resort
for the beauty of its views; and in front of the
Cumbre, on the inland side, is the deep rich
valley of the Yumuri, with its celebrated
cavern. These I must see, if I can, on my
return from the plantation.

In my morning walk, I see a company of
Coolies, in the hot sun, carrying stones to
build a house, under the eye of a taskmaster
who sits in the shade. The stones have been
dropped in a pile, from carts, and the Coolies,
carry them, in files, to the cellar of the house.
They are naked to the waist, with short-legged
cotton trowsers coming to the knees. Some
of these men were strongly, one or two of them
powerfully built, but many seemed very thin
and frail. While looking on, I saw an American
face standing near me, and getting into
conversation with the man, found him an intelligent
shipmaster from New York, who had
lived in Matanzas, for a year or two engaged

in business. He told me, as I had heard in
Havana, that the importer of the Coolies gets
$400 a head for them from the purchaser, and
that the Coolies are entitled from the purchaser
to four dollars a month, which they may demand
monthly if they choose, and are bound to
eight years' service, during which time they
may be held to all the service that a slave is
subject to. They are more intelligent, and are
put to higher labor than the negro. He said,
too, it would not do to flog a Coolie. Idolaters
as they are, they have a notion of the dignity
of the human body, at least as against strangers,
which does not allow them to submit to
the indignity of corporal chastisement. If a
Coolie is flogged, somebody must die; either
the Coolie himself, for they are fearfully given
to suicide, or the perpetrator of the indignity,
or some one else, according to their strange
principles of vicarious punishment. Yet such
is the value of labor in Cuba, that a citizen
will give $400, in cash, for the chance of
enforcing eight years' labor, at $4 per month,
from a man speaking a strange language, worshipping
strange gods or none, thinking suicide
a virtue, and governed by no moral laws
in common with his master,—his value being
yet further diminished by the chances of natural
death, of sickness, accident, escape, and
of forfeiting his services to the government,
for any crime he may commit against laws he
does not understand.

The Plaza is in the usual style,—an enclosed
garden, with walks; and in front is the Government
House. In this spot, so fair and so
still in the noon-day sun, some fourteen years
ago, under the fire of the platoons of Spanish
soldiers, fell the patriot and poet, one of the
few popular poets of Cuba, Gabriel de la Concepcion
Valdez. Charged with being the head
of that concerted movement of the slaves for
their freedom which struck such terror into
Cuba, in 1844, he was convicted and ordered
to be shot. At the first volley, as the story
is told, he was only wounded. "Aim here!"
said he, pointing to his head. Another volley,
and it was all over.

The name and story of Gabriel de la Conception
Valdez are preserved by the historians
and tourists of Cuba. He is best known,

however, by the name of Placido, that under
which he wrote and published, than by his
proper name. He was a man of genius and
a man of valor, but—he was a mulatto!