Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/258

 singing with rhythm and time: “Uno, duo, trio, quadro, quinto.” When the work was over they had a dance, playing on instruments made of a gourd with a stick through it and ornamented with carvings. I prevailed on one of the performers to sell to me two of the instruments.

From Barraçoa, we went to Mata and Yumuri, two other little ports in eastern Cuba to secure bananas. At the latter the Yumuri River, flowing from the mountains, empties into the sea. We went up this river for a mile or two in a rowboat. The limbs of the palm trees were covered with vines and mosses, the forests were a complete tangle, impenetrable except to one carrying a machete, and in the crevice of every rock left bare by the stream some plant had started to grow. We saw women washing clothing along the banks of the river and using for soap the juice of a plant. The wife of the agent of the fruit company at Yumuri invited us to breakfast. She could not talk a word of English. The dishes were all strange but palatable. The pigs ran around over the floor, but it must be remembered that the rooms were all open to the air. On the bottom of the cup from which I had drunk the coffee I found half a dozen drowned ants, but then it must likewise be remembered that Cuba is prolific of insects and it is, I suppose, impossible to be protected from them. Along the shore of the sea there was a refreshing sea breeze, but a few rods inland it was so hot as to be stifling. Josephine and I gathered sea shells and sea beans along the sands and a naked negro boy came out of a hut built of palm and roofed with palm leaves and brought us specimens which were beautiful. We left Cuba at midnight in the full of the moon, shouting “buena noche” to those who rowed to the shore. On the way home the captain was bitten by a tarantula, and we enjoyed eating the little fig bananas (those on their way to market being contemptuously called plantains) and a species of pineapple vastly better than any of those offered for sale. 244