His Manners, Compared With Those Of His Steward, Were Exceedingly
Frosty And Forbidding, And When We Told Him Of The Civility Which Had
Been Shown Us, His Looks Seemed To Say He Wished It Had Been Otherwise.
Returning to our inn, we dined, and as the sun grew low, we strolled out
to look at the town.
It is situated on a clear little stream, over which
several bathing-houses are built, their posts standing in the midst of the
current. Above the town, it flows between rocky banks, bordered with
shrubs, many of them in flower. Below the town, after winding a little
way, it enters a cavern yawning in the limestone rock, immediately over
which a huge ceyba rises, and stretches its leafy arms in mid-heaven. Down
this opening the river throws itself, and is never seen again. This is not
a singular instance in Cuba. The island is full of caverns and openings in
the rocks, and I am told that many of the streams find subterranean
passages to the sea. There is a well at the inn of La Punta, in which a
roaring of water is constantly heard. It is the sound of a subterranean
stream rushing along a passage in the rocks, and the well is an opening
into its roof.
In passing through the town, I was struck with the neat attire of those
who inhabited the humblest dwellings. At the door of one of the cottages,
I saw a group of children, of different ages, all quite pretty, with oval
faces and glittering black eyes, in clean fresh dresses, which, one would
think, could scarcely have been kept a moment without being soiled, in
that dwelling, with its mud floor.
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