We enter a dark, long passage leading to this cell of midnight vigils and occult research; the door slowly opens, I reverently enter upon--heaps of tinsel leaves and flowers, with scissors and glue and all the paraphernalia for flower-making; piles of bouquets lie on the bed, all with silver leaves exactly alike, and each one with a brick-red rose in the centre. They are to decorate the church on Easter Sunday; they are the only proofs of piety and science and lore that the sanctum of our jolly priest possesses.
After dinner, Father M---- came in, bringing a gentleman who said we could have a house of his in the country. We go at once on our horses, to find a river of remarkably clear and pure water running behind the house among the trees, all most inviting; but the house is wretchedly dilapidated, kitchen to be built, and, withal, a Creole overseer is to occupy one half of it. Thus nonplussed, we resign all thought of a permanent location in the country, and decide to spend our time in travelling over the island so soon as the interest of Guiness is exhausted.
From this place we ride to Le Armistad, the _ingenio_ of Mr. D----, our first Guiness friend, with the hope of getting some _guirappa_ or cane-juice to drink. It is said to have remarkable fattening as well as curative power. But the machinery is silent, the chimneys are smokeless, the odor of nice sweet cake only regales the nostrils of the memory; and so, redisappointed, we turn again toward home, and ride through the hedges by the light of a Venus that has a halo as distinct as you may have seen around the moon. Instead of fast horsemen with dangling sword and pistol-equipped saddle, we only meet sleepy-looking market-men returning home astride the collapsed panniers, which in the morning bulged at each side of their horses like huge saddle-bags, stuffed with all kinds of fruits or poultry, and these poor horses would think themselves fortunate if fruits and ducks and chickens were all that is packed upon their devoted backs. Not only all the fodder and charcoal go to town in this way, but I saw this morning four exhausted-looking creatures wilting along through the mid-day sun with chairs, tables, and bedsteads, piled high upon their backs, and sometimes a good-for-nothing-looking negro mounted on the top of all openly rejoicing in that “bad eminence.”