At six o’clock, the large bell tolls the knell of parting day and the call to the Oracion, which any who are religious enough can say, wherever they may be, at work or at rest. In the times of more religious strictness, the bell for the Oracion, just at dusk, was the signal for prayer in every house and field, and even in the street, and for the benediction from parent to child and master to servant. Now, in the cities, it tolls unnoticed, and on the plantations, it is treated only as the signal for leaving off work. The distribution of provisions is made at the storehouse, by the mayordomo, my host superintending it in person. The people take according to the number in their families; and so well acquainted are all with the apportionment, that in only one or two instances were inquiries necessary. The kitchen fires are lighted in the quarters, and the evening meal is prepared. I went into the quarters before they were closed. A high wall surrounds an open square, in which are the houses of the Negroes. This has one gate, which is locked at dark; and to leave the quarters after that time, is a serious offence. The huts were plain, but reasonably neat, and comfortable in their construction and arrangement. In some were fires, round which, even in this hot weather, the Negroes like to gather. A group of little Negroes came round the strange gentleman, and the smallest knelt down with uncovered heads, in a reverent manner, saying, “Buenos dias Señor.” I did not understand the purpose of this action and as there was no one to explain the usage to me, I did them the injustice to suppose that they expected money, and distributed some small coins among them. But I learned afterwards that they were expecting the benediction—the hand on the head, and the “Dios te haga bueno.” It was touching to see their simple, trusting faces turned up to the stranger—countenances not yet wrought by misfortune, or injury, or crime, into the strong expressions of mature life. None of these children, even the smallest, was naked, as one usually sees them in Havana. In one of the huts, a proud mother showed me her Herculean twin boys, sprawling in sleep on the bed. Before dark, the gate of the quarters is bolted, and the night is begun. But the fires of the sugar house are burning, and half of the working people are on duty there for their six hours.
I sat for several hours with my host and his son, in the veranda, engaged in conversation, agreeable and instructive to me, on those topics likely to present themselves to a person placed as I was;—the state of Cuba, its probable future, its past, its relations to Europe and the United States, slavery, the Coolie problem, the free-Negro labor problem, and the agriculture, horticulture, trees and fruits of the island. The elder gentleman retired early, as he was to take the early train for Matanzas.
My sleeping room is large and comfortable, with brick floor and glass windows, pure white bed linen and mosquito net, and ewer and basin scrupulously clean, bringing back, by contrast, visions of Le Grand’s, and Antonio, and Domingo, and the sounds and smells of those upper chambers. The only moral I am entitled to draw from this is, that a well-ordered private house with slave labor, may be more neat and creditable than an ill-ordered public house with free labor. As the stillness of the room comes over me, I realize that I am far away in the hill country of Cuba, the guest of a planter, under this strange system, by which one man is enthroned in the labor of another race, brought from across the sea. The song of the Negroes breaks out afresh from the fields, where they
