“Den I set down, and chopped my hand as hard as I cud wid de hatchet, and cut one finger clean off (holding up the left hand, with the shockingly mutilated fingers). Dat little finger I tuck up and put in my mouf, and smoked it for a cigar, till de blood from it run down my lips. Dat I sewed too, and den tole ’em if that wouldn’t do, I would cut open my belly, and pull out de entrals before ’em. But dat I wouldn’t go down to New Orleans for a slave agin, for I was free. “Dey den tuck me—not de whites, dey not come near me, afeared, but de brack people—and wheel me home on de wheel-barrow, wid de utensils. “I was down sick two months. After dat could go about on crutches. “My ole massa was Wm. Eggleston, of Cambridge, Maryland. I waited on him. I never worked in de field, not I, till I was thirty year old. Wen he die, my young massa gave me my time for $83 a yeah. Dat was about $40 more dan common people paid. I couldn’t get along fast at dat in Maryland, but de Company (the Railroad Company) offered me $600 and findin’, if I’d cum to Florida, and work on de Railroad. Dat look to me big as de moon. Lily and me made nuff to buy ourselves in nine yeahs, and considerable beside.” CHAPTER XX. Among the Cubans—The Impending Downfall of Cuban Slavery. The absence of certain officers compelled the officials of our party to make a delay of nearly a week at Key West, which we improved by steaming across to Cuba. Looking back now over the delightful days spent in the “Ever Faithful Isle,” I recall, out of all the pleasant memories, one or two only of which it seems needful here to speak. The bull fight in Havana, with which the pious Spaniards closed their celebration of Ascension Day; the witchery of dark-browned, liquid-eyed Senoritas; the fashion and beauty of the evening fulldress display on the volante-crowded drive around the Plaza del Armas, and to the Captain-General’s country palace; the mysteries of shopping before breakfast, with clerks bringing out the goods into the street to your volante; the delicious absurdity of doing business in English or French with a shopkeeper who knows nothing but Spanish; the tropical scenery of the interior, the glorious palm groves, the lordly sugar plantations, the miseries of the slaves and the profits of their masters—have not all these been faithfully written down in every book about Cuba for the last dozen years?