The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1884-08-23 00:00:00

"UPON THE BARAtiiii: Etitta.

An entertaining writer says: It vrp one tinnily
afternoon in February when We stArte4, three of us,
for a little tour of discovery Up one of the small
rivers which drain the beautiful island of Cuba.

We left the vessel in Oud. dori,iiae*Oitly, ernall boat
we had, and rowed past a Spanish .gun-bbat and
through a swarm of fruit-lighters to the Wharf, by. the
side of which the river enters the harbour. As we
*ent Up by the wharf, the Mi.%) guards who ire always
on watch there, came to the side and looked into our
boat to see that we smuggled nothing asbore, but
being satisfied of our peaceful intentions, they saun-
tered back to a crowd of loungers, while We passed
on. _ _ _

We pass first the fruit-houses of the different ship-
ping firms, 4-here we see cocoanuts piled up, as we
here are accustomed to see coal in the sheds, and then
past a battery of back doors which open right on to
the river. Here we have a grand chance to study the
domestic life of the Cubans, and in some instances the
sights that we saw were very amusing. One thing
that we noticed which struck us as being rather Neu-
liar, was that all the ladies smoked, not the dainty
little cigarettes which some of our American girk
have been known to indulge in, but real long, strom,.
cigars, " casadoras "as they call them. It was like
listening to music to hear them talk, for such a melo-
dious language I never before heard.
The next object of interest that we pass is the
'cocoanut mill where all broken or bad nuts, and in
fact everything that wotlld otherwise be wasted are
ground up to make cocoa or palm oil. This is on
the outskirts of the town, and soon after leaving itwo
pass a narrow, deep channel in the river, with a
banana grove on one side and a tangled mass of wild
grape on the other. Here the sea breeze is broken
and the stream is as still as a pond. There is no
sound except the plash of our oars or the occasional
whistle of a bird, and as we float lazily onward it
seems hard to believe that it is not all a dream. Still
more unnatural does it seem as we come to an open-
ing and see ahead of us a gro-ve of tall, stately palm
trees, and it is no wonder that to our unaccustomed
eyes the scene is one of delightful surprise.
Just beyond the palm-grove is a ford in the river
where we expected to be obliged to drag our boat,
but we pass it all right, and here a novel sight pre-
sents itself to our view. All along both sides of the
river, standing in the water are women and children,
mostly black, washing clothes. Their. manner of
washing is very different from what we had seen any-
where else, and is certainly one of the most peculiar
features of the people. They stand in the river and
rinse their clothes, and then pound them on the
smooth, flat rocks which line the edge of the water,
and hang them to dry on the bushes all around.
We kept on through the files of washers, who paid
no particular attention to us, so that we had a good
chance to watch their operations. We noticed that
almost all of them after washing their clothes took a
ducking themselves, which is quite an advantage they
have over the American washerwoman.