Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/188

Rh or Spanish Creole lady comprehends a whole language of signs, by which she converses when and how she will with the friend of her heart.

In the reception-rooms of Cuba stand two rows of rocking-chairs, some of the Spanish and some of the American style—the Spanish being very much more magnificent and heavier—the one against the windows, and the other within the room. Here people sit and talk, rocking and fanning themselves whilst the wind sports in through the windows. They drink tea and eat preserves. The Creole ladies have fine, soft, brown eyes; they are said to have good natural understanding and intelligence, but to be very ignorant. They are principally occupied within the house in sewing, dressing themselves, and receiving visitors.

I shall make one more excursion with my kind friends—that is to say, up the Canima, which is one of the most beautiful rivers of Cuba, and not far from this place, then I must say farewell to Matanzas.

April 13th, evening.—Yesterday morning before sunrise we set out, Mrs. B., her brother Philip, and myself, and, just as the sun ascended in all his glory from the sea, we put off from the shore at Matanzas. An elderly, weather-beaten seaman from the Canary isles, and his two young sons, were our boatmen. The sea was quite calm, or merely moved in long smooth waves without foam. This was all as it should be, for otherwise we could not have entered the Canima, which, in rough weather, is dangerous at its outlet into the sea. Cuba has many rivers flowing from the mountains, but none large, and none navigable to any great extent.

After a sail of about half an hour on the sea, we reached the outlet of the Canima, a clear little river flowing with a sweep into the sea, from between lofty, precipitous, rocky walls, covered with tropical vegetation. Fan-palms waved on the heights in picturesque groups, and along