CUBAN FOREST LIFE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 2575, 12 January 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

CUBAN FOREST LIFE.

My fascination for the charms of Cuban deep woods led my host, Don Manuel, to arrantre for a few days' wandering among tho almost trackless forests which lie between the plantation districts all the way from the central mountain range of tho island to the southern shore along the Carribaan Sea. The prospect was not an exhilerating one. During the first day of our excursion our quest was rowarded with nothing in the shape of deep wood sights or tenantry, but as wo nearcd the denser forests along towards nightfall, we oame upon a little settlement of carbondros or charcoal burners. These carbcueros comprise some queer people. Most of them are inoffensive and hospitable : but many are refugees from the late revolution, for the Spanish soldiery deem it wise not to disturb anybody in these almost inaccessible haunts. So, aside from insurgent refugees in nearly every earboniSros' camp will also be found, here and there, a noted bandit who could never be taken from among his swarthy friends. Our party was known, and we were received with every manifestation of delight. The best cabin was set aside for us ; our horses were tethered and cared for ; water was brought from a cool repressa or spring for washing in pouderous ewers ; cheap wine, aguardiente and tobacco in extraordinary quantities were provided, supper of such proportions, variety and grotesqueness was provided as never before greeted the eyes of civilised man ; and during the long evening these half-wild, happy-hearted men and women danced for us and with us. Such hilarious zapatees, such outlandish Habaneras and such grotesque fandangoes as no fervid pen can describe or even lax moralist approve. ALLIGATOR KILLIN'O. The next morning after "coffee" at the carbon6ros' camp we set out at a very early hour. We had reached the San Juan river, and following its course for a rapid ride for a dozen or more miles, came to a series of wide, low bayous or lagoons, which set back from the river in some places for miles. These were filled with all manner of luxuriant tropical vegetation. I had noticed Jose, the vaquero of our party, at work upon some old pieces of blackened canvas. When we dismounted he removed his sombrero, and put one of these upon his head, placing others in the waist of his loose blouse.

"Come," said Don Manuel, " we will show you how harmless alligators are when you know them, and what a simple thing it is for Cubans to kill them !"

Moving: stealthily along the edge of the lagoon, we suddenly heard hero and there, beyond, arid again as if all about us, heavy splashes into the water, and the quick parting and subsequent trembling of countless swarths of reeds showed where unwieldy objects had made startled passages. We were among a school of alligators. Jose had a tremendous guabrahacca clumped stick in his hand. At a word from Don Manuel he glided forward and flun<* himself in a reclining posture on a firm bit of ground perhaps fifty feet from the edge of the lagoon, while the Don and myself hid in the edge of the jungle. An almost unendurable silence of perhaps half an hour ensued. Then gentle splashing among the reeds were heard. These were shortly followed by many soft, half-whistled gruntings. Directly the heads of two alligators parted the reeds near where Joss lay motionless as an Oriental study in bronze. When the bodies followed, slowly and cautiously at first, but soon with incredible rapidity, they moved upon Jose. I believe I was never so apprehensive and excitod in my life. "Silencc l " hissed Don Manuel. Instantly one flopped about, scampered to the land - edge, and whisked himself into the bayou. But tho other, with snapping l eyes and quivering jaws, was bent on having Gubin meat for breakfast. In another instant he was at Jose's side. The latter bounded into tho air like a mbber ball. Flinging his canvas hat into the alligator's jaws, which snapped and crunched it hideously, the guabrahaea stick whistled through a wide air-circle, and descended with a crash into the reptile's skull. Before its first quiver and sprawl, Jose's machete was through its shoulders a foot into the solid soil beneath, and this bull alligator, seventeen feet in length, was dead. Three alligators were dispatched in this remarkable way ; another ride of a dozen leagues brought us to an almost impenetrable forest at the base of the Trinidad Mountains ; we passed our second night with mountaineers who had never before seen a civilised man or even set eyos on a Cuban city or pueblo ; and on the morning of the third day, leaving our horses, and one of our dogs, which had been disabled, with our mountaineer friends, plunged into a trackless Cuban forest. A SNAKE STORY. Contrary to my expectation, the deep wood soil is barren of vegetation. I can, perhaps, best describe it as almost a counterpart of the shadowy coverts of Maine pine woods. These forests abound in the hutia, a lazy animal similar in appearance to our gray squirrel, but with a rabbit like face and a musk-rat's tail. A tremendous, stupid, and fangless snake from ten to fifteen feet in length, called the maja, feeds upon it, as was demonstrated to our sorrow. Several hutias had been shot. Another had been tried. The dogs, standing at the foot of

a slender mahogany, were springing" and whirling in delirious expectancy. Suddenly there was a terrific commotion in the top of the tree, and following this, with a frightful crash through the leaves and limbs, a huge rnaja, writhing and floundering in the air, fell to the earth, breaking the back of a dog which had seemed unable to move in its excited fascination. Wo dispatched both the poor brute and the loathsome serpent, which, stunned by its own fall, laid limp within the hole in the soft earth its own weight had forced. It had climbed this mahogany by coiling, and in springing upon its victim, the little hutia, had overleaped its distance. A WILD BOAR JiUN'T. Discouraged in our quest for wild boar, we retraced our way towards the mountaineers' cabins. All the afternoon Jose had at intervals loosened our remaining dog, and, giving a grunt in imitation of the wild hog, the wise animal had (founded out of sight, bnt had invariably returned without trace of our sought-for game. But suddenly, when not a mile distant from the mountaineers, he left us with a yelp and spring, and away we all went pellmell after him. A run of twenty rods brought us to the dog and a huge black boar, thirty feet away, which had turned to protect the retreat of a herd of wild hogs scampering away behind. Aqui esta un bnraco cimaron! (Here is a wild boar !" shouted Jose, wild as the clog itself with delight There stood the savage fellow, all head, bristling shoulders, legs, tail with plumy trembling end, jaws and tusks, champing and crackling his jaws, from which great rolls of foam were already working, with a hideous sucking sound, a splendid picture of ferocious brute bravery. To one side and another, he sprang as the dog crowded hira. Then he wonld charge the dog and whirl in the air, scattering the earth like an exploding shell. Closer and closer crowded the two brutes, in the air half the time, each bent on death, the dog frequently clearing the boar at a bound, and maddening him with savage snappings and lacerations of Bhnulders or hams. Over and under went the dog with marvellous agility, frequently sending the boar four feet in tho air ; but every charge from the dog brought a still more savago counter, charge from the boar. I believe no such agile and ferocious movements were ever elsewhere seen. For forty feet in every direction the forest ground looked like a freshly-ploughed field ; and it seemed to my startled eyes as though a cyclone of dog, boar, mud, bark and froth had descended into the darkening covert. I frankly confess to flight to a near fallen iree upon which, to escape Jess than hanging, J do not believe I could havp ordinary vaulted, Ths Don I

and Jose became apparently a part of the cyclone, though no mortal eyes could have followed their movements in gymnastics, Ido not know how long this lasted. I saw a flash of fire and through the roar of it all heard a shot. Then the whirlwind seemed to fall upon Jose. I saw the gleam of his machete somewhere in its very core. Then a Cuban yell went up that set the tree-limbs vibrating. We tied our grass-woven thongs to the dead boar's shoulders and tusks, and when we had dragged him to the mountaineers' cabins, great flecks of foam streaked with blood still lay upon tho brave fellow's jasjged ribs. —San Francisco Bulletin.