CHAPTER VIII 



Cub; 



o, 



N OUR first trip to Soledad, Cuba, arrangements 

 had been made for Rosamond and me to stay with a Cap- 

 tain Beal at Guabairo. He was a retired Danish sea captain 

 who had charge of the colonia or section of the plantation 

 with the lovely name, "The Whippoorwill." We went over 

 from Soledad on a track car and walked up to the house. 

 It was late in the afternoon. We ensconced ourselves very 

 comfortably, found that evening that the captain had a 

 most excellent cook, and looked forward to what the mor- 

 row might bring. 



We arose early to a hurried breakfast and set out afoot 

 as dawn was breaking, that loveHest time of a tropic day. 

 Wisps of fog were rising from the fields of cut cane. Far 

 away on the horizon a feather of smoke could be seen above 

 the tall smokestack of the mill of the adjoining planta- 

 tion, "Hormiguero," where we knew that before long 

 Dona Luisa Ponvert would be having her armchair brought 

 out to where her highly efficient eye could survey the trains 

 of cane coming in and the sacks of sugar pouring from the 

 centrifuges, as she had managed this great plantation for 

 many years. The house at Guabairo was on the edge of a 

 rough, scrubby woods, which grew on soil so rocky that 

 it could not be put into cane but was useful for producing 

 fence posts and firewood for charcoal. 



It had rained during the night, and we turned and walked 



