Other than Apollinaris and the conventional black coffee of
the train, and oranges bought by Lee at a junction, no breakfast was
possible; and they watched uninterruptedly the leisurely passing land.
Marks of sugar planting multiplied, the cane, often higher than Lee's
head, was cut into sections by wide lanes; and announced by a sickly
odor of fermentation, he saw, with a feeling of disappointment, the
high corrugated iron sides of a grinding mill. It was without any
saving picturesque quality; and the noise of its machinery, a heavy
crushing rumble, was perceptible on the train.
However, Savina was attracted by the high carts, on two solid wheels,
and drawn by four or six oxen, hauling the cut cane. But the villages
they passed, single streets of unrelieved squalor in a dusty waste,
they decided were immeasurably depressing. No one who could avoid it
walked; lank men in broad straw hats and coat-like shirts rode meagre
horses with the sheaths of long formidable blades slapping their
miserable hides. Groups of fantastically saddled horses drooped their
heads tied in the vicinity of a hands-breadth of shade by general
stores. "I could burst into tears," Savina declared. But he showed her
pastures of rich tufted grass with herds of well-conditioned cattle. "I
wish we were there," she said. But, when the train stopped at Cobra,
Savina, hesitating on the step, proposed that they go on into Camag?ey,
hardly more than an hour distant.
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