Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/104

Rh of rest for two nights, owing to the heat and the mosquitoes, and I saw everything in a half slumbering state. The little town reminded me of a miniature picture of Havanna, the houses built and painted in the same style, with the same flat roofs, and even ornamented azoteons, but all less and lower. The country exhibits still the same expanse of billowy plain scattered with palms and small farms, and with a background of that lofty mountain chain, which runs from east to west, and which is everywhere a fine prominent feature of its landscape. The highest peaks of these mountains, Patullo and Cobre, are said to be upwards of 3000 feet.

The natural fortresses and strongholds of the island have their own gloomy, romantic significance. Fugitive slaves live in these mountains, and have fortified themselves in their innumerable grottoes and caves, so that any pursuit of them is impossible. They have there built dwellings for themselves and obtained firearms, and at one time amounted to so large a number—it is said many thousands—that the government of Cuba entertained serious apprehensions from them. The difficulty, however, of obtaining food for themselves in these remote fastnesses have caused them of late greatly to decrease in number. Nevertheless, they prefer to live free, amid those free stern mountains, than to come down and live amid still sterner men.

The palm always constitutes an important feature in the landscape, especially when it stands singly or scattered in small groups. It strikes me as being the noblest and most human-like of all trees. On our homeward drive from Guanabacoa, I observed, in the clear moonlight, two palm-trees standing solitary in a large field. They stood a little apart, but the stems had more and more inclined towards each other, and their crowns met. Thus they stood, embracing each other with whispering branches, beneath that beautiful vault of heaven, themselves