Anahuac | Page 4

you are a married man resident in Cuba, you cannot get a passport to
go to the next town without your wife's permission in writing. Now it
so happened that a respectable brazier, who lived at Santiago de Cuba,
wanted to go to Trinidad. His wife would not consent; so he either got
her signature by stratagem, or, what is more likely, gave somebody
something to get him a passport under false pretences.
At any rate he was safe on board the steamer, when a middle-aged
female, well dressed, but evidently arrayed in haste, and with a face
crimson with hard running, came panting down to the steamer, and
rushed on board. Seizing upon the captain, she pointed out her husband,

who had taken refuge behind the other passengers at a respectful
distance; she declared that she had never consented to his going away,
and demanded that his body should be instantly delivered up to her.
The husband was appealed to, but preferred staying where he was. The
captain produced the passport, perfectly _en règle_, and the lady made
a rush at the document, which was torn in half in the scuffle. All other
means failing, she made a sudden dash at her husband, probably
intending to carry him off by main force. He ran for his life, and there
was a steeplechase round the deck, among benches, bales, and coils of
rope; while the passengers and the crew cheered first one and then the
other, till they could not speak for laughing. The husband was all but
caught once; but a benevolent passenger kicked a camp-stool in the
lady's way, and he got a fresh start, which he utilized by climbing up
the ladder to the paddle-box. His wife tried to follow him, but the
shouts of laughter which the black men raised at seeing her
performances were too much for her, and she came down again. Here
the captain interposed, and put her ashore, where she stood like
black-eyed Susan till the vessel was far from the wharf, not waving her
lily hand, however, but shaking her clenched fist in the direction of the
fugitive.
To return to our voyage to the Isle of Pines.--All the afternoon the
steamer threaded her way cautiously among the coral-reefs which rose
almost to the surface. Sometimes there seemed scarcely room to pass
between them, and by night navigation would have been impossible.
We were just in the place where Columbus and his companions arrived
on their expedition along the Cuban coast, to find out what countries
lay beyond. They sailed by day, and lay to at night, till their patience
was worn out. Another day or two of sailing would have brought them
to where the coast trends northwards; but they turned back, and
Columbus died in the belief that Cuba was the eastern extremity of the
continent of Asia.
The Spaniards call these reefs "cayos," and we have altered the name to
"keys," such as Key West in Florida, and Ambergris Key off Belize.
It was after sunset, and the phosphorescent animals were making the
sea glitter like molten metal, when we reached the Isle of Pines, and
steamed slowly up the river, among the mangroves that fringe the
banks, to the village of Nueva Gerona, the port of the island. It

consisted of two rows of houses thatched with palm-leaves, and
surrounded by wide verandahs; and between them a street of
unmitigated mud.
As we walked through the place in the dusk, we could dimly discern
the inhabitants sitting in their thatched verandahs, in the thinnest of
white dresses, gossipping, smoking, and love-making, tinkling guitars,
and singing seguidillas. It was quite a Spanish American scene out of a
romance. There was no romance about the mosquitos, however. The air
was alive with them. When I was new to Cuba, I used to go to bed in
the European fashion; and as the beds were all six inches too short, my
feet used to find their way out in the night, and the mosquitos came
down and sat upon them. Experience taught us that it was better to lie
down half-dressed, so that only our faces and hands were exposed to
their attacks.
The Isle of Pines used to be the favourite resort of the pirates of the
Spanish main; indeed there were no other inhabitants. The creeks and
rivers being lined with the densest vegetation, a few yards up the
winding course of such a creek, they were lost in the forest, and a
cruiser might pass within a few yards of their lurking-place, and see no
traces of them. Captain Kyd often came here, and stories of his buried
treasures are still told among the inhabitants. Now the island serves a
double purpose; it is a place of resort for