Due South; or, Cuba Past and PresentBallou, Maturin M. (Maturin Murray)
History
Due South; or, Cuba Past and Present
Ballou, Maturin M. (Maturin Murray)
Cuba
The colored people of Nassau, as we were assured by one competent to
speak upon the subject, form a religious community, according to the
ordinary acceptation of the term. They are very fond of church-going,
and of singing and shouting on all religious occasions. Nervously
emotional, they work themselves up to a hysterical condition so
furious as to threaten their sanity, but having naturally so little of
that qualification, they are pretty safe. No people could possibly be
more superstitious. They shut up and double lock the doors and windows
of their cabins at night to keep out evil spirits. There are regular
professional man-witches among them, persons a little shrewder and
more cunning than their fellows. The very ignorant believe in a sort
of fetichism, so that when a boat starts on a sponge-fishing trip, the
obeah man is called upon for some coöperation and mysticism, to insure
a successful return of the crew. The sponge fishermen have several
hundred boats regularly licensed, and measuring on an average twenty
tons each. On favorable occasions these men lay aside their legitimate
calling, and become for the time being wreckers, an occupation which
verges only too closely upon piracy. The intricate navigation of these
waters, dotted by hundreds of small reefs and islands, and which can
be traversed by only three safe channels, has furnished in former
years a large amount of shipwrecked merchandise to Nassau. The
wrecking business at best is extremely demoralizing, unfitting any
community of men for legitimate industry, as we know very well by the
experience gained on our own Florida shore. Men who have cruised
fruitlessly for months in search of a profitable wreck will sometimes
be tempted to decoy a ship from her proper course, and lead her upon
the rocks, by a display of false lights.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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