This time they improve mostly in planting and watering their little
gardens, which are their only source of revenue. The negroes on this
estate had formed a society amongst themselves for the accumulation of
money; and our friend, the manager of the plantation, told us that they
had on his books two thousand dollars to their credit. One man alone
had amassed six hundred dollars, a very considerable sum, under the
circumstances. We visited also the house of the mayoral, or overseer,
whose good face seemed in keeping with the general humane arrangements
of the place,--as humane, at least, as the system permits. The negroes
all over the island have Sunday for themselves; and on Sunday
afternoons they hold their famous balls, which sometimes last until
four o'clock on Monday morning. Much of the illness among the negroes
is owing to their imprudence on these and like occasions. Pneumonia is
the prevalent disease with them, as with the slaves in our own South;
it is often acute and fatal. Everything in Cuba has such a tendency to
go on horseback, that we could not forbear asking if dead men did, and
were told that it was so,--the dead negroes being temporarily inclosed
in a box, and conveyed to the cemetery on the back of a horse.
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