The Project Gutenberg eBook ofRambles in CubaThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Rambles in CubaAuthor: AnonymousRelease date: October 13, 2015 [eBook #50196]Most recently updated: October 22, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by WebRover, Chris Curnow, Chuck Greif and theOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net(This file was produced from images generously madeavailable by The Internet Archive)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RAMBLES IN CUBA ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Rambles in CubaAuthor: AnonymousRelease date: October 13, 2015 [eBook #50196]Most recently updated: October 22, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by WebRover, Chris Curnow, Chuck Greif and theOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net(This file was produced from images generously madeavailable by The Internet Archive)
Title: Rambles in Cuba
Author: Anonymous
Author: Anonymous
Release date: October 13, 2015 [eBook #50196]Most recently updated: October 22, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Produced by WebRover, Chris Curnow, Chuck Greif and theOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net(This file was produced from images generously madeavailable by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RAMBLES IN CUBA ***
Some typographical errors have been corrected;a list follows the text.Archaic usages in English and incorrect spellings of Spanish have not been corrected.
Contents.
(etext transcriber's note)
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colophon not availableNEW YORK:Carleton, Publisher, Madison Square.LONDON: S. LOW, SON & CO.MDCCCLXX.Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, byGEORGE W. CARLETON,In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern Districtof New York.Stereotyped atThe Women’s Printing House,Eighth Street and Avenue A,New York.
In the Tropics—First View of Havana—Entering the Bay—Surrounded—Landed—A Street in Havana—“Queen’s Hotel”—A Breakfast—The Harbor—The Coolies—The Plaza de Armas—Cuban Women—A Volante—Fine Avenues—A Priest—Shopping.
In the Tropics—First View of Havana—Entering the Bay—Surrounded—Landed—A Street in Havana—“Queen’s Hotel”—A Breakfast—The Harbor—The Coolies—The Plaza de Armas—Cuban Women—A Volante—Fine Avenues—A Priest—Shopping.
Havana, March 1, 18—.
THE first dawn of day found me already on deck, to assure myself we had really arrived at the shores of a tropical-world.
I was not disenchanted. A mist had possessed, like a dream, the blue quiet of the entire bay, half dissolving its masts and sails, softening the picturesque battlements of Morro Castle, throwing over the walls, domes, and spires of the city an air of hoary distance so complete that I half fancied those solitary palm-trees waved their arms over some city half-buried in the mirage of deserts, or the pages of some mediæval romance.
But the dream departs, and so must we. Stirring music from the two men-of-war lying at anchor unite with the first sounds from the long, low barracks close by, and with the signal guns from the Morro, to say that the sun is risen, and consequently we may go on shore.
First comes the pilot,—a stout Spaniard in supernaturally white trousers and inexplicably thick overcoat. He sits under the awning of his boat, and is rowed by twelve bronze, attenuated creoles, dressed in wide-mouthed jackets, bare feet, much hair,—a few wearing turbans.
The steps are lowered; the pilot comes on deck, says good-morning to the captain, in dislocated English, and goes forward to his duty.
We make the difficult entrance of the bay, to find ourselves assailed by every species of small craft. All have awnings, are rowed by negroes, black to hyperbole (B—— says coal would make a white mark on them), or by coolies, or creoles; and all are importuning us, with frantic gestures, imploring or menacing looks, bad Spanish or worse English, to let them carry us ashore.
Here come boats laden with oranges, or shells, corals, and sponges for sale; there a pocket edition of a steamboat brings the health-officer,—without whose inspection no one can come here, even for his health,—and presently a more elegantly ornamented boat, with oarsmen in livery, brings the Captain-General’s aid-de-camp, dressed as if freshly emerged from a Paris bandbox, and anxiously inquiring ifthere is news from Spain. Captain —— replies that there is a victory over the Moors, and that he brings important dispatches from the Spanish minister at Washington, which he must deliver in person. Therewith he accompanies the officer to the Government House, the bundle of documents under his arm.
Meanwhile the passengers are in great perplexity what hotel to go to, and I am beginning to feel that sense of desolation and isolation so natural to a stranger in a strange land, when B—— appears, bringing a gentleman with a kindly English face, and introduces Mr. S——. At once we are at home and in safe hands. His boat waits for us. In five minutes we are in the Custom House to get a permit in exchange for our passports (for both an enormous fee is demanded), and to await the luggage. This is soon ranged on great tables before us; all the trunks are opened at once; travellers, servants, Spaniards, negroes, anybody, as well as the officials, can critically inspect the mysteries of ladies’ linen and laces.
The hotel being distant but a block, we walk in the street. A Cuban lady would as soon think of walking a rope, and would do it as well.
Do not figure to yourself Broadway: when I talk of a street in Havana, I mean a fissure; an opening, in extremely straitened circumstances, between two stone walls, which the Cubans, being diminutive people, are able to get through. The sidewalks are in proportion. By dint of cautious and careful attention to the exigencies of my centre of gravity, I was able much of the time to get a foothold onthe outer edge of them, while my crinoline, repulsed by the wall on one side, attracted in self-defence Mr. S——, who walked down in the street on the other.
We have not even time to glance at the inconceivable novelties on every hand, for “Queen’s Hotel”, the first English sign we have seen, is here over the arched gateway. We walk through an open passage leading to the court, and up the marble steps to an elegant saloon. This hotel, like every other in the city, is overflowing; so we are obliged to take, for a few days, “the room behind the curtain;” that is, one end of the parlor, with only a calico wall between our prospective sleep and the rows—not groups—of English, Irish, French, but mostly American guests. I say rows, because the chairs here are always placed in two straight lines in front of the long open windows, thus bringing their occupants in a perpetualvis-à-vis.
Meantime, Creole and negro waiters are bringing in breakfast to the adjoining room, which, is partitioned from the airy courtyard only by high arches and pillars. Every thing looks temptingly fresh and clean,—quite the reverse of all we have heard of the filth and bad cooking of Cuba. Fried fruits in great variety, numerous mosaics from the animal, vegetable, and I know not what kingdoms of nature, of which I can only remember the namepicadille, vary the bill of fare.Café au laitcomes in after breakfast is over.
Night.—All day guns have been firing, flags flying from balconies, windows, and housetops, andendless preparations for a grand illumination to-night in honor of the victory.
This afternoon we took the steam ferry across the bay, to get a view of the harbor decked with its flags, and to see the sugar storehouses on the other shore.
This is our first sight of coolies in native costume and usual Cuban occupation. They look not only small, but weak, and extremely feminine in face and form. They are mostly naked to the waist, where some sort of a sash confines short loose trousers, and, in the boys, nothing at all. The faces, more cheerful and adroit in expression than those of the negroes, are of a brown reddish hue, as if the light came upon them from a bright copper sun.
To-night we walked to the Plaza de Armas. It is filled with trees, four of them palms, and with blooming flowers, mostly large, brilliant, odorless, and unknown to me. During all this time, the band played sweetly from the opera of Lucia de Lammermoor, and swarthy, moustached and cigared men, and gaudily-dressed and ill-walking ladies, promenaded round and round the walks, while their carriages waited outside the gates.
How opaque are these faces! The outside is well enough, admirably chiselled and toned, but it does not hint of anything behind. They too often lack the only beautiful features that can be in a man’s face,—intellect and sensibility. I wonder where Cuban people keep their souls! Yet for all that, this is a scene of enchantment,—the intense light in those stars, buried so deep in the intense blue; the dazzlingbrightness of the vertical moon, that makes everybody walk upon his own shadow; the pure breeze, coming fresh from over the sea; the many lights from the palace balconies, revealing high, open windows, and through them gay forms and foreign aspects.
Friday, March 2.—This morning stayed in my room to rest, for I have commenced with too large doses of the tropics. But who can rest in the midst of thunderings like these,—guns, bands of music, shouts of rejoicing? I hope the Spaniards will not gain any more victories over the Moors until I get away from them.
This evening my first ride in a volante. Cuba is more Spanish than Spain itself: for here we have the quaint, the characteristic Spain; the Spain as it was when Don Quixote created it and was created by it; the Spain isolated; the Spain which Paris and European civilization have little touched or tainted; the Spain which, in want of religion, has the absence of progression. But these grotesque volantes! They strike me as something saved whole out of the general change and wreck of the past. They consist of two long shafts, with a little low-seated and low-topped kind of atête-à-têteat one end, which usually contains three bright, gauzy clouds, enveloping three plump, dark-eyed ladies in bare head, neck, and arms,—the youngest and prettiest always between and a little in front of the other two. At the other end of the shafts is fastened a minute horse; his tail is carefully braided, and tied with a string to the left side of the saddle, upon which sits,the postillion, in boots and livery. Sometimes a second horse is added, upon which the postillion sits to guide the first; but this is superfluous, and merely, like the rich mountings of silver on the horse and volante, to display the wealth of the owner.
The gait of these horses is peculiar and indescribable. It is not a trot, nor a pace, nor a canter, but a kind of combination of all, and disdainful avoidance of each. It is a parody on quadrupedal peripatetics. They are born to it. It is hereditary. It never entered into the head—or rather feet—of a Cuban Rozinante, that there are horses in the world not orthodox in this mode of locomotion. It gives the rider, too, the most ridiculous motion imaginable,—as if the saddle were a cushion, but a pin-cushion, with the pins stuck the wrong way.
Mr. S——, who accompanied us, said, on our return, that, when paying thecallisero, he asked him if he had anescudoin change. “Oh, yes!” said the darkey, and took the coin out of his ear.
We drove at once past the walls of the city, upon thePaseo de Isabel Segundaand thePaseo Tacon,—said to be the finest avenues in this hemisphere,—with their five or six rows of magnificent palms, their smooth, broad roads, statues, fountains, and gardens, and, far in the distance, the luxurious plains, the graceful green slopes of hills and mountains, the wonderfully tall, solitary palms and cocoa-trees, standing like imposing sentinels to keep the voluptuous vegetation from running riot, and over all the doting sunlight bathing its pet island in a never-ending tide of fervor.
No wonder these people love gay hues, paint their houses in the brightest colors, wear dresses and carry umbrellas dyed in rainbows; for nature sets the example of brilliancy everywhere. The phosphoric waters surrounding the island reply to every touch, every question, of oar, with “colors dipped in heaven.” Even the smallest fishes have, almost without exception, selected their scaly wardrobes from prismatic excesses.
Last evening a game of whist, with a Catholic priest to complete the party. He is a charming, accomplished Irishman; is more clever at repartee, and more graceful in compliment, than any man I ever saw. What infinitely delicate things he said! and all with as much feeling as if he had learned both flattery and feeling in courts, instead of catechisms. But he is so extravagantly fond of the game, and scolded B—— so tempestuously, yet politely, for little mistakes, that I was thankful to have the indulgent face of Mr. S—— for partner, instead of that of the charming priest. He deplores the religious condition of Cuba, and ridicules every thing else in it; shrugs his shoulders sententiously at all these patriotic ebullitions, and declares that volantes are just fit to carry chickens in. I even heard him, yesterday, at breakfast, imitating the sing-song tone of the Cuban priests in their masses, the comical expression of his face equalling the irresistibly funny intonations of his voice.
Saturday evening, March 3d.—A shopping excursion, with Mr. S—— for guide and interpreter. In some shops they knew a little French, but less English.I was obliged to use French for articles of attire which Mr. S—— could not manage in Spanish, and, among us all—three or four clerks usually looking on to help and laugh—I think a linguistical hash was concocted as droll as any vegetable or animal arrangement that comes on our hotel tables; and that is saying a great deal, when you consider the oils, peppers, and garlics that are pressed into the service.
Here merchants do not name the shops after themselves, as Americans do, but more modestly and tastefully. The shop is christened with a name of its own, as in Europe. For instance, on one corner you havePobre Diablo(Poor Devil), and on the corner oppositeRico Diablo(Rich Devil); then we have all the saints—and sinners—in the Calendar, so that the shop can change hands without losing its identity. Shops containing magnificent goods have often a very humble appearance, because ladies do not walk the streets, or leave their volantes—those darling volantes, which are their feet, their couches, their homes, the body of which they are the soul, and which I have many times seen standing, much at home, in the corners of their parlors! So all the goods are kept in great boxes, and carried out to the volantes, where my lady condescends to sit in state and in attire to inspect, and, without knowing it, to pay twice the value of all she buys.
On coming home, we took another turn in thePlaza de Armas, where festivities still continue. We are fortunate to be here at this time, for it is a continual holiday, and will be so nearly all of next week. Illuminations of all sorts, fine bands ofmusic, awnings and flags of red and yellow,—the national colors of Spain,—carriages and volantes full of richly-dressed people, promenaders in Sunday-costume—all these are to be met in every street of the city. I have been much amused at promiscuous Moors in effigy, hanging out of the windows, in the centre of huge doorways, or dangling from a cord over our heads in the middle of the street. They are usually in full Moorish costume, and pierced pathetically through the heart. Our driver flourished his whip vigorously in passing, mostly ending by a patriotic cut at the devoted images.
Close by this promenade we found a refreshing seat and ice-cream in the famous Dominica. The cream was fruit-flavored and built up pyramidally in an overgrown wineglass. On the plate under it, lay a long brown coil, looking like a cigar, and tasting like a baked combination of brown sugar, well-beaten eggs, and flour. This is designed as a spoon to eat the towering cream with, and to eat with the towering cream. Many ladies sit at the tables, but more remain before the doors and windows in their volantes, receiving sweet liquids from the waiters, and dispensing sweeter and more liquid glances to the admiring cavaliers gathered around them.
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Celebrating a Victory—General Serrano—a Cuban Sacristan—His View of Mary Magdalene—Sunday—The Theatre de Tacon—General Serrano’s Wife—A “Norther”—The Fish Market—Brilliancy of the Fish—A Venerable Cosmopolite—The Slaves—The Chain Gang—The Cerro—A Count’s Country-house—No Twilight—Oranges—Polyglot Dinner—Lottery Ticket.
Celebrating a Victory—General Serrano—a Cuban Sacristan—His View of Mary Magdalene—Sunday—The Theatre de Tacon—General Serrano’s Wife—A “Norther”—The Fish Market—Brilliancy of the Fish—A Venerable Cosmopolite—The Slaves—The Chain Gang—The Cerro—A Count’s Country-house—No Twilight—Oranges—Polyglot Dinner—Lottery Ticket.
Sunday, March 4th.
THIS morning high mass was celebrated, and theTe Deumsung in the Cathedral. As this is in honor of the victory, all the church dignitaries and officers of state were in attendance, dressed in their respective uniforms. First came Captain-General Serrano, whose title in Spain is Marquis de San Antonio. He is heralded by a grand flourish of martial music from the band, which had just played the national air of Spain. He is a rather fine-looking man, with a massive bald head and penetrating eye; the countenance expressing weight of character, stirring experiences in life, a consciousness of power and responsibility. He is said to be the father of two of the children of the Queen of Spain. Her marble statue has just been erected in one of the principal squares, and is nightlyilluminated to receive the admiration and homage of the loyal multitude. Following him, as next in office, comes the Governor of the Island, whose resemblance to Mr. S—— has often caused them to be mistaken for each other; the latter sometimes finding honors thrust upon him of which he is wholly unambitious. Then come all the military, civil, and marine officers, in gold lace, epaulets, ribbons, stars, and decorations of all devices, the whole retinue filling the church, except the centre, where a few ladies in black veils kneel upon bright-colored mats, which servants in livery bring under their arms and spread for the ladies’ dainty dresses to cover. A few of these mats are brought by negresses with shawls thrown over their heads instead of veils. As soon as the mat is spread, the mistress drops upon it, crossing herself too rapidly and adroitly for Protestant eyes to follow, all the time saying her prayers and looking devoutly at the image of the Virgin standing in the centre of the altar. The negress kneels respectfully upon the bare floor by her side or behind her. Mr. S—— pointed out to me several counts, marquises, and other notabilities, refreshing to the republicanism of Yankee optics. Meanwhile the chancel is filling with bishops, priest, and friars, in magnificent costumes, and soon the grandTe Deumswells over the kneeling multitude. Governor, lords, ladies, and soldiers, bowed on the same floor with the negro slave. It floats on over the floating incense; then it ascends and seems to pause like a halo around the painted heads of saints and apostles listening in the ceiling.Just in front of us knelt Count——, a friend of Mr. S——, leaning upon a diamond-headed cane, and looking incessantly at his watch, to see how soon the ceremonies and unaccustomed posture would come to an end.
After all was over, the sacristan, dressed in a blue woollen gown and wide embroidered white cambric collar, escorted us over the edifice. Its external, so quaint and unique, so like a relic of the middle ages, with towers and walls marred and rent, and crumbling with the rapid effects of the moist climate rather than of time, did not indicate so much beauty and art as existed within. It is chiefly in the Moorish style, the numerous paintings mostly from Rome, and nearly all copies from the best masters. The sacristan made himself jolly; offered to robe me in the bishop’s vestments and ornament me with the crosiers, and staffs, and mitres, and what-nots, in the robing-room. But I, being less familiar with these sacred emblems than he, felt less contempt, and declined the honor. One of the paintings, a dark old dilapidated affair hanging in an ante-room, represents Christ talking earnestly to Mary Magdalene. She turns her coquettish head from him in a most coquettish way, and with a look of more affected than real shame and sorrow. The old fellow pointed it out to us, and, with a significant twinkle, said to Mr. S——, in Spanish,—
“That was Jesus Christ’swoman.”
To Mr. S——’s exclamation of astonishment, he replied,—
“Of course he was a man, like the rest of us.”
We paused before the modest tomb of Columbus, whose remains were interred in the chancel of the Cathedral many years ago, with respectful ceremonies and magnificence. His bas-relief in marble is placed in much the same position as the bust of Shakspeare in the Avon church. From the Cathedral we passed to the miniature garden separating it from the seminary. This contains flowers, trees, shrubs, a fountain in the centre. The sacristan picked me a bouquet of pretty purple and pink blossoms without odor, bowing to my “gracias” most graciously, and upon receiving a little fee, instead of “begging for two reals more,” as D—— says he did upon his departure, the old man seemed surprised that he received anything at all.
Staid American eyes are struck by the spiritual stolidity of these people. Favorites of nature, crowned forever by her flowers, inspired by her fresh and friendly breezes, basking always in her fondest sunlight, they receive all these gifts in forgetfulness of the giver. It being Sunday, all kinds of festivities riot in increased abandonment. The shops, unlike those of most towns in Europe, are open; tailors and shoemakers are at their work in little dark dens resembling those to which the mechanics of Naples retreat on rainy days; and, though forbidden by law, Sunday trade flourishes thriftily, as if Sundays and religions were an impertinent restriction upon a Cuban’s right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Monday, 5th.—This morning we walked on theCortinato inhale the cool sea breezes which theredefy the scorching tyranny of even this sun. How refreshing, after panting through those hot, fuming, dusty, noisy streets, to sit under that dense shade, upon the marble seats, with the tired city hidden behind you, and the blue tranquil bay sleeping in its brightness before! The Morro lies peacefully on the other side, brown, and dim, and silent as a weary lion. From the lighthouse of the castle are floating flags of various colors, to me inexplicable. But Mr. S—— explains. The different shapes and colors indicate the kind and nationality of any vessel that is descried making for the port; so that long before even the glasses of watchers in the city can discern anything, it is known by these flags that preparations must be made to receive the newcomer; that friends are approaching, or friends must be left behind; that partings and meetings are to resume their tyranny in the world.
Evening.—TheTheatre de Tacon, or Opera House, disappointed us. It is large, airy, and convenient, but plain and bare to a degree. It being “Commandment Night,”—that is, the Captain-General having signified his intention of being present, and the rejoicings not yet over—the usual opera was omitted. First, a national anthem, sung by one hundred performers. Then followed a Spanish comedy, capitally acted, I could be sure, though as good as ignorant of the language. Then came some divine airs from the opera of the Bohemian Girl, sung by Gassier. Her voice is full, sustained, in some passages, touching. But theembonpoint! Alas, why must women of the poetical Southalways be so unpoetically fat! Or why are we not blind to the incongruity of passion and adipose tissue. These Spaniards are critical and enthusiastic judges of music; never tolerate a bad thing; applaud and hiss vociferously.
But to me the attraction of the evening was the lovely marquise, wife of the Captain-General (sometimes I can understand how a port may be absolutely panic-struck with a woman’s beauty). A Creole by birth, with a fortune of several millions, she married Serrano, who became embassador to France, where he spent the greater part of her wealth in maintaining the honor of Spain, by a magnificence which is said to have eclipsed that of the Emperor. So he is sent here to recruit; that is, to rob the Cubans of a million or two, as his predecessors have done. The Governor’s box was only two boxes from ours, so that I could distinctly watch every shade of her expression. La señora looked sad, absent; she assumes a pensive attitude irresistibly charming in one so lovely and so necessarily the observed of all observers. Her personal charms are enough to excite all the enthusiasm the Cubans feel for her, but her Creole birth renders it unbounded. She wore her dark hair thrown back from a completely classical head and face; a subdued fire indicating rare power of passion and suffering burns in her eyes; her nose, mouth, and chin, are full of sensitive delicacy; in every curve of the exquisite bust and slender figure, grace achieves a very pathos of perfection. She was draped in some gauzy fabric floating about her like a dream; largedark roses on hair, bosom, and dress, the only ornament. People say she sighs for the life in Paris, and that she was for a long time the rival of the Empress. Who knows? who can unravel the web of suffering which stifles out the life and hope from any woman’s heart? The most comical scenes scarcely wakened a smile on her face; but her husband, sitting at her right, smiled and patted his white kids with very accurate and well-timed condescension. The box in which they sat is gaily hung, the national coat of arms placed over the centre. They went out between every act to receive guests in an adjoining saloon. We found more beauty among the women than writers on Cuba had promised us. Regular, I may say, exquisite, features are very common; and these, illuminated by dark, deep eyes, with effective and well-manœuvered glances, make as lovely women as is possible, where intellect and soul seem to exile themselves behind so much of what elsewhere than on a lady would be called fat. All are in full, the fullest possible, dress; all are displaying great eloquence of skill in manipulating their lace and jewelled fans; all are, or aspire to be, the magnets for the dark, handsome eyes and well-levelled opera-glasses in the pit below. It was curious, among all that tumultuous sea of masculine heads in the parquette, to see not one with fair hair—all black with youth, gray with manhood, white or bald with age.
Tuesday, 6th.—The thermometer has fallen from 90 to 75 degrees. This is the result of a “norther,” which drives the cold waters of the Atlantic furiouslyinto our bay; changes the usual moist perspiring atmosphere into a husky dryness; turns the roads, almost the paving-stones, into dust; shrivels and browns the foliage in the country; and with its cold puts the low-necked dresses, pantings, and fans of our hotel-ladies in their trunks. So we ventured on a walk, even at high noon, to our favoriteCortina, keeping on the shady side, and stopping at the fish market. It is palpably true that God set his dyed bow in the heavens; but I did not before know that he also set it in the floods to reassure us that we should have no more floods,—else where did these fishes learn this trick of exaggerated brightness? Of all the myriads ranged on the endlessly long metallic tables, I do not remember one in quaker costume. Everywhere a fantastic variety of colors and gradations and combinations of shades. Joseph’s coat would have looked plain beside them. May not the excessive phosphorescence, latent, or developed in the native waters of these fishes, explain in some way their pre-eminence of color?
Wednesday, March 7th.—At last we have a room possessing the fundamental doctrines of a room, viz., four walls of its own. It was formerly the library of the bishop, who built the palace and lived in it several years, and is now, by the way, enormously rich, and “they say” hints not egregiously pious. Our room has an ambitious window, from which we always see the sky, and nothing else. The door, protected by fanciful iron gratings, opens upon the dining-room. The floor, of the usual black and white marble, resembles a chess-board with thesquares placed diagonally. As queen of this chess-board, I am in a fair way to be checkmated, as well as its king, if the jolly priest continues his jolly suppers. The rest of the room would suit me well enough, if it were not so discouragingly convenient. With the exception of a kind of wooden-tiled ceiling, and one of the beds furnished with stretched canvass instead of a mattress, you might suppose yourself commonplacely domiciled in a respectable hotel in Yankeedom.
Thursday, 8th.—This morning Mr. S. brought his venerable friend Mr. R——. He is a Frenchman, though born in Baltimore and educated in England; has lived indefinitely on the Continent; is waiting to die in Cuba. He is delightful, thoroughly a cosmopolite, speaks many languages, knows everything and everybody. Long intimacy with this government, its officers, and many of the nobility, has made himau faitin the policy and intrigues as well as customs and characteristics of the island. Lady Wortly is indebted to him for her anecdotes of Cuba. I have been able to correct many false impressions received from various writers; for instance:—
The line of separation between Creoles and Spaniards is not distinctly drawn. The Creoles sympathize in these victorious rejoicings; would be perfectly satisfied with an allegiance to Spain, if they could have a voice in their own government. Creole ladies are lighter in color, better educated, less rigid in forms of etiquette and propriety than the Spanish. But everywhere the negro blood is so intermixed, that it is impossible tomake a distinct separation between any of the races; a fact of difficult management in the event of self-government, or any step towards it. He says there are not fifty families in the island untainted by African blood. It seems very natural that a dark race should have less repugnance to a black race than white people have.
We all know the greater leniency of the laws here, with regard to slaves, than in the United States. I find, in addition, that there is, in Cuba, much more indulgence and affection between master and slave, unless it be on the remote plantations. In our drives, particularly through the suburbs, I continually see negroes and their Creole mistresses, dressed equally well, lounging on the balconies, not as equals, but in a way that indicates affectionate intimacy, and a gayety too abundant to suggest the truedolce far niente. I am told that, almost without exception, masters here would be willing to free their slaves in case of remuneration.
Among the many foolish arrangements of this government, the chain-gang seems to be a wise one. It is a penitentiary on the highway. My author on Cuba, says of this chain-gang, “It is Sunday; but no rest for them.” The truth is, they always rest on Sunday, unless unusual circumstances occur; as, for instance, a road that must be finished for some great occasion.
Thursday evening, March 9th.—This evening drove to theCerro, three miles distant, to visit the country house of Count Fernandino, anintimate friend of Mr. R——, who accompanied us. Contrary to Mr. R——’s expectations, the family, consisting of the old widowed count, and his son and daughter-in-law, had not yet left their winter residence in the city. An old family servant, however, conducted us everywhere, with equal pride and pleasure. The house is a quaint, irregular structure. You stumble everywhere upon recesses, balconies, unexpected rooms, and general surprises. In the drawing-room are two genuine Claude Lorraines, and two Vernets. I was sorry to be hurried away from them to the billiard-room; the octagon library, the high, large, open piazza, roofed with vines and paved with marble, where two hundred dancers find fantastic toe-room; the curious chambers, busts, statues, curiosities everywhere.
But the grounds we only saw from the tower, and without them we have seen nothing. They are extensive and beautiful; here a rustic bridge crosses the mysteriously winding brook which branches into a fanciful bathing-house, hung with pictures of naiads and water-gods; there stands a little airy temple overhung by doting cypresses, and sacred to its only inhabitant,—an exquisite marble Venus. Wherever chance leads your steps, it will be sure to reveal some new beauty of tree, or flower, or shrub, or arbor, or rustic seat; some avenue looking far out upon the wonderful campagna. As the short and sudden twilight comes, a lovely waterfall catches the light coming from the distant Morro, with level, and distinct, and separate rays over the city spires and roofs, over its pale, irregularly planted lights and absorbing shadows. Many of the trees andshrubs are from Europe and Asia. The gardener gave me a spray from an Australian tree, imported when a small slip, for which the count paid seven hundred dollars. He also gave me two handfuls of bouquets, some of them from his own private nursery, by which he makes a hundred dollars per month, in addition to his wages. Mr. R—— tells me that, in the last hurricane, most of the trees in these grounds were prostrated; that he saw the count and countess, when they first discovered the desolation, crying like children. The great difficulty in gardening here is to repress vegetation, it being nearly impossible to curb its rank luxuriance. If left to itself, any garden will in two or three years become a dense impenetrable tangle of trees, vines, flowers, and weeds. But it is time to hurry away from all this loveliness. A few minutes ago we were watching the sunset emparadising both heaven and earth; now, before we have time for a second sigh at its departure, night has dropped upon us like a silent and intangible avalanche, with no interluding, apologistic twilight to warn or to reconcile us.
March 10th.—Rose this morning, as usual, at six. So soon as bathed and dressed, commenced the day in the customary national style; namely, by a vigorous attack upon a pyramid of huge oranges, which B—— has just brought in, paying twelve cents for ten. He gives me two-thirds of each, for the remaining third and the privilege of peeling them. I am commanded by high authority to devour twelve every morning; until I achieve that I cannot be said to like oranges, or even to eat them.
After the nine o’clock breakfast, appeared the white head of Mr. R——, and, immediately after, a portable set of chess-men, with which he challenged me to a game. He has not played much for twenty-eight years. I did not play much before that time; so, not unequally yoked together, we fought long and desperately; and who do you think won? My modesty declines to answer.
Dinner at four, with the usual English courses and bill of fare, except an interspersion of here and there a Spanish or French dish; for instance,—garlic, onions, and oil, flavored with a piece of stewed beef; or, further down the table, the same trio thinly populated with tripe and potatoes; or, on two cross corners of each table, a square pile of rice, polished with oil and rouged with juice of tomatoes. Then many new fruits, as the manna, sapote, and others which I will describe when I know them better. By five o’clock we have usually manifested fully our approval of all dinners in general, and of polyglott dinners in particular. Thecafé noiris then dispatched to make the peace, and we are ready for the cigar, the drive, or the siesta. I do not quite yet smoke the cigars myself as I see many Havanese ladies doing; but I have bought a lottery ticket!—the ninth—and the drawing comes on the 22d inst. Never say you have been to Havana, unless you have bought a lottery ticket. They are a native production.
Drive to the Sea-shore—Evening Boat-ride—Splendor of the Waters—Campo del Marte—Low Mass—The “Madonna”—Beautiful Children—Church of San Filipo—Sacred Names—The Mount of Jesus—Corruption of the Clergy—Cuba Misrepresented in Books—Growing “used to it”—A Creole—Cascarilla—Warm Weather—The Cortina.
Drive to the Sea-shore—Evening Boat-ride—Splendor of the Waters—Campo del Marte—Low Mass—The “Madonna”—Beautiful Children—Church of San Filipo—Sacred Names—The Mount of Jesus—Corruption of the Clergy—Cuba Misrepresented in Books—Growing “used to it”—A Creole—Cascarilla—Warm Weather—The Cortina.
Saturday, March 11th.
THIS morning we drove, or more properly rode, for no one drives in a volante, to the sea-shore. Although the sun was burning down upon us with his customary ardor, a “norther” cooled his ferver so effectually as to make a thick shawl necessary. Thicker boots were indispensable to save the feet from the sharp points of coral rocks over which we must walk, upon leaving the volante. With the assistance of our “norther,” a high tide dashed the waves in furious beauty over the low, unresisting shore, and with a muffled thunder straight out of the heart of infinity. I wonder if any familiarity can ever breed a feeling of even acquaintanceship with this “roar of torn ocean.” Was it not a pretty scene for us as we stood there,—the graceful, yet frowning Morro, with its white wave-washed feet, growing from the promontory acrossthe bay, its fluttering flags foretelling ships like a presentiment, its towers warming and brightening in the parting smiles of the sun, with a very human pathos of joy! Far out on the restless sea, more restless ships toss and tack and veer their sails; clouds, dream thin, and sunset-souled. How blue they make the sea! How white the dark waves are painting them!
Behind us in the west rises a rough, high bluff, flanked by endless lines of barracks; on the outer wall, a solitary sentinel paces and watches us; under its shadow stands our waiting volante and the sunburntcallisero. Nothing more is visible except the sky-questioning palms behind the bluff—far in the south the strange city of this strange clime. Nothing anywhere is familiar save the quiet, tender sky above; and that is so blue, so intense, so twice a sky, so profound in its passion of beauty, that you wonder how sorrow and death can live beneath it!
I do not marvel that the people of sun-lands do not greatly aspire, or labor, or achieve. What need of this threefold weariness, this getting of spiritual bread by spiritual brain-sweat, when happiness falls down upon their heads all day long out of the sky; when feeling, which is a thousand times better than thought, buds and blossoms out of every sunbeam, and night is but a sudden sigh, a languishing wink of this regal lover between caresses.
Evening.—And the most interesting we have spent in Havana.
To describe a boat-ride upon the phosphorescent waters of this bay, one should, alas! have somepowers of description. I can only outline it in a homely way and leave the rest to your imagination.
All our previous nights have been without twilight. The only apparent change was in the color, not the quality, of light; the warm gold, blanching into a colder, purer blaze, fitting the mind and eye for its enjoyment: it is the quantity not the intensity of daylight. But to-night the sun dies under the western sea, and an azure which is neither light nor darkness, fills the void. The stars discover through it their happy images below, and our throbbing oars—oars no longer, but living light—rival the pulsations of the stars.
All this time our “trackless way” is distinctly blazing far behind, while far below our cutting keel leaves its cicatrice; an antipodean milky-way, and our prow, like a Yankee boreas, carries its snowcloud in its teeth. There flies a fish with planetary speed, invisible in air, but in its native element a mistress “at home.” Even the oscillation of our little boat causes flashes of softest light in the surrounding air, by which our faces are brightened to reveal the beautiful peace and pleasure each feels.
We lean and look in the water at our side, and see the myriad scintillations that come and go with ever-changing variety, and then think, that to each spark is attached an organized body, with circulating medium and force, with sensations more or less acute; and that in this bay of some three square miles, is a galaxy of worlds; every globule a worldof itself, inhabited by perfect and sentient beings, each with its hopes, fears, and perhaps its loves and hates, and therefore sorrows; and then we remember that the whole tropical waters which girdle the globe are equally crowded with life.
Saturday, 11th.—The rejoicings profess to have reached a patriotic climax,—a grand display of all the troops on the island, which is twice the number of the whole military force of the United States. With the only vacant seat in our English carriage filled at last by our venerable friend Mr. N——, we drove out to the Campo del Marte. We found it difficult and delightful, steering our way through the archipelago of carriages and volantes filled with ladies in full ball costume, many of the faces and figures striking, a few very handsome; so that with well-rewarded patience and time, we obtained a good position.
The poverty of republican eyes is imbibantly observant of all appurtenances of royalty. First dashes past the knighted Governor-General, doffing cap and plume, and bowing with great dignity to the bowing multitude. Following are body-guard and staff, counts, marquises, and other nobility in uniform, crosses and decorations of honor.
The gentlemen informed me that the troops marched well. I am sure the regiments of negroes thought so, and enjoyed the supposition. We returned home to whist and delightful conversation on all things new and old, followed by the most cordial imaginable of good-nights and hand-shakings.
Sunday.—Early this morning to a Jesuit mass—low mass, and so very low that it could not be heard at all. Two priests only officiated, both meek-faced, keeping “custody of eyes;” one of them with the most remarkable intellectual and characteristic head I ever saw, the other with the devoutest, purest face. All the devotees, mostly women and girls, and liveried servants, knelt upon mats placed over the marble floor. All the ladies were gracefully arrayed in black lace Spanish veils, which, like moonlight on the Coliseum, “leaves that beautiful which still was so, and makes that which was not.” They were repeating their prayers; those who could read, from books, those who could not, from memory; and all the time the young and pretty ones were rolling their dark fascinating eyes around upon my escort of gentlemen, except when the moment came for crossing themselves and looking devoutly towards an image of the Virgin execrably done in wax.
I find the only way to extract good instead of disgust from scenes like this, is to ignore the wax and the tawdry ornaments, and to remember only the divinely sweet woman who loved Christ as I fear none of us have loved him; who suffered for him as none of us shall be honored by suffering for him; the only woman who united to the virgin’s charm the mother’s hallowing rapture; the woman whom God loved more than all earthly women, making her the mother of his son. You must think of the sanctity she has given to all motherhood. You must remember the elevation and delicacy shehas given to the love of many pure and wise priests, who through the dark centuries loved no woman but her; who centred in her the love that might not be human nor for the human. Think of all this, and then see if you can wonder that the devout imaginations of the learned as well as of the ignorant Romanist have found a female element in the Trinity, and in worshipping the Father and Son have also most tenderly adored her who was a link between them; her through whom God is no longer an avenging God, and through whom Christ longs and makes ready for us.
The church, to my great surprise, though belonging to the Jesuits, displays no wealth and no taste; forlornly ugly pictures, clumsy tawdry flowers, and atrocious statues everywhere. Many things, however, were interesting enough to repay us for the trouble of getting up so early and walking so far.
Nothing could surpass the extremely graceful attitude of the ladies, or the universal beauty of the children, especially of the boys. How exquisitely regular and clear cut are their features! how transparent their large, soft, black eyes! how intelligent their whole expression! I am told that all Spanish boys and girls are remarkably precocious. At thirteen they promise to be geniuses, sing, paint, even write poetry that would not only startle a Northern mother, but frighten her with a certainty of the imminent dissolution of her cherub. After that age the tropical child remains savingly instatu quo, if he does not perceptibly degenerate.
Having still twenty minutes before breakfast, wedrove quickly to the fashionable church of San Filipo. Found it having more pretension than the Jesuit (“Belen”) church, but not more taste. Abundance of tinsel, plenty of yellowed grotesque, semi-arabesque carvings on tinselled columns and what-not, but no beauty, unless, perchance, under the happy veil of some worshipping angel.
Sunday evening.—Is it a question of piety, or of taste, that so many places have holy names? “Jesus dil monto” “Jesus Maria,” “Las dace Apostles;” the latter being a battery of guns under the Morro, intended to convert enemies’ ships into enemies’ wrecks—a highly apostolic mode of conversion.
To end our Sabbath we ascended the Mount of Jesus and walked in a garden of cocoa-trees supposed to occupy relatively the position of Gethsemane.
Really the straight, tall lines of boles with their parachute tops, in a rapidly diminishing light, do produce a very novel impression—half rural, half architectural. One may fancy aisles and naves, transepts and choirs; the roofs, however, are real, made of leaves fourteen feet long, drooping like the mitres of a groin, and gothicizing a roof through which a few slender green rays penetrate—enough to reveal form without detail. But no marble gives sound to our footsteps; grass, poor a cow would say, but grass, for a carpet, and old cocoa-nuts to stumble over, bring us down to earth again. Here we are rewarded by some pretty flowers, which are the only beauties in this land of beauty who can wander “in maiden’s meditation, fancy free.” It is an effortto mount the Pisgah before us, but we must on to the very top, for our ankles are goaded by living spurs that lie lurking in the grass.
But we are spaciously rewarded, for there lies Havana in its whole extent before us; the level line of sea behind it; the Morro guarding it; the Principe fort threatening it; the bay reflecting it and the setting sun gilding it; palms on every hand outline their greens against the intensely azure sky behind, and white walls glance out of the luxuriant foliage, proud that humanity has a home within them. Low-like mounds fill up the background like priests with shaven crowns, but all with beauteous vestments sweeping to their feet, running over the plains between them, up the adjacent ones, round the next—an interminable reticulation of life and loveliness. The embroidery on God’s footstool is here wrought with a lavish and loving hand.
Wonderful tropics! The normal home of man; the only soil and sun in which could grow the fair and fatal tree of knowledge or of life.
No sinister cold, no smoke-tarnished atmosphere, no death-bearing fogs, no fierce animal energy, no gross crimes; all is sunny and perpetual youth. Eden unquestionably was not more than twenty-three or thirty degrees from the equator. But the intermittent flash of the light in the tower of the Morro startles every half minute the sudden nightfall, and we hasten to return, in love with nature, and reconciled to ourselves.
Monday, March 13th.—This morning came Mr. R——, bringing an unexpected armful of books, with which we are to equip ourselves for a visit to the country, where we are making arrangements to go. Commenced the morning by chess, in which I am now habitually ruined, and ended, as usual, by a long conversation, in which I am listener-in-chief, an interested if not a brilliant or eloquent one.
Mr. R—— is a Romanist, but I learn from him more of the corruption of the clergy of the island than an uninitiated Protestant or Romanist either could invent. Priests in the country are badly salaried, often unable to get enough to pay their cooking and washing. So they become entangled in a peculiar kind of reciprocity with some negress or quadroon, who in time comes to live openly with them, and is recognized, and not unfrequently respected and acknowledged socially, as the mother of their large families. I find residents here indignant at visitors who come and skip over the surface of the country, necessarily, if they write at all, as superficial as false and absurd. Madame ——’s book is said to be a tissue of falsehoods, as well as that of D——, which I had supposed photographic. Every one, in fact, but Humboldt, has assumed a knowledge to hide ignorance. Cuba seems to be the least abused because least investigated country which has got into books.
Mr. R—— accepted our invitation to dinner. Like all Frenchmen, he prefers claret to other wines, and, like all old men who wish to live long, eats nothing.
Thursday, 15th.—Who can wonder that sailors never tire of seeing the sea. With what a loyal instinct the old retired captain seeks the shelter ofsome wave-worn cliff where the familiar spray may kiss his weather-beaten cheek, and the cry of the deep be the lullaby of his last sleep. Primeval forests want light; prairies are “stale and flat” if not “unprofitable;” mountain ranges, those petrified waves of earth, are groups of individuals: but ocean is one, an adequate expression of extent illimitable, of bulk immeasurable, of depth unfathomable, of force irresistible, of life everlasting. It is the eternity of time. But here in Cuba, where so much is transitory and fugitive, where the accumulation of wealth to expend elsewhere is the aim of all, the æsthetic claims of the sea are unregarded. The backs of the houses are universally turned towards it. The Cubans smother palaces in narrow streets, rejecting the air which has learned purity and inspiration from the sea, for siroccos of dust and heat. Ugly wharves abound, so do batteries to make might right. It is only in refinement without degeneracy, in taste without tinsel, in wealth without avarice, that you find the loving adornment of ocean’s shores.
We rode, while thinking and saying these things, to Chomero, a little bay with little cottages on its little sandy shore; little shrubs, little shells, and little life. A square fort guards it in sinister silence; a large railway station promises to turn the little Chomero into the large suburban Carmelo, and straight streets, straight avenues, and right angles threaten to make it as ugly as the tasteless plans of architects could devise.
But deliciously sweet is the air; deliciously sweetthe new old story of the sea, and deliciously sweet themareschinowith which we flavor ouraqua pura. All things return to their original starting point. Existence is a rounding of circles. The sun, a tired prodigal, returns to the parent arms of the horizon; like Socrates, his last act is to bathe, which he does in the returning tide, and he returns toel Hotel de la Reina, there to chat with Father, C—— or play with Señor R——, or, better still, to lounge on the sofas and fan our tropical thoughts into tropical dreams.
Saturday, 17th.—At last our days are come to have a family resemblance. I must even confess to a kind of monotony, a stereotypedness, in their lineaments. I grow to look upon all these extravagant novelties withsang froid, to ride through the streets reclining in my volante with rarely being amused, and never startled, that Spanish gentlemen sitting against the walls in rows, or standing at the corners in groups, one and all, smile and bow, as if I were an old friend. I am not a bit shocked to see negro and Creole and Spanish little boys standing in the doors or running about at play with more backs than shirts—in short, as innocent of clothing as their great-greatest-grandpapa was when, overtaken by that unfortunate after-dinner nap, and the angel performed the delicate surgical operation of taking the still crooked rib from his side, and was not obliged to waken him by unbuttoning his jacket. I can promenade the balcony of our hotel without any uncomfortable nervousness because all the upper and under clerks in the store opposite collectat once to gape and criticize and express in some way the admiration a Cuban gentleman is conscientiously bound to feel whenever he sees a wonder. I can see the lottery venders thrust their tickets into my hand at the corner of every street when going to church, in all public places and most private ones, without one puritanical spasm. I am obliged to find Sunday turned into a general holiday without thinking an earthquake is coming to-morrow, and to hear the ship’s bell and car’s whistle mingling with the church bell without expecting a consequent and immediate steam-boiler explosion. I have even ceased wondering at this eternity of sunshine, and find it is silly to keep expecting blindness from its piercing light. I forgot to inquire why it cannot scald these deliciously cool breezes, or why these strong airs, always blowing upon the sunshine, as if it were a great plateful of hot gumbo soup, cannot manage to cool it.
If it be true that many microscopic beings which are vegetables in the shade become ripened into animals in the sun, then what happens to animals that live in the sun as much as we do? what are we to ripen to? Angels naturally—but sadly sunburnt.
This evening, my first acquaintance with a Creole, and one who is not only willing, but proud, to own it. He speaks English hesitatingly and solves a difficult riddle—itispossible for a Creole countenance to express, not only intellectuality, but genius, even spirituality. How polite are these people! Being an amateur artist, he invited me to-morrow tohis studio; offered at once to contribute to my portefolio, and to lend any pictures I may choose to copy while on the island. Conversation turning upon the famous cascarilla, a powder made of eggshells, and universally used on the skin by these ladies to make black white, all the gentlemen, strange to say, advocated its use. Upon this I expressed an intention of getting some immediately and using it liberally. Señor at once replied, “Oh, I shall be only too happy to send it to you!” and sure enough, after he left, a beautifully ornamented box of the ornament, found itself on my dressing-table.
You must never express a particular admiration for any thing one of these people possesses, or he will at once present it to you, from his plantation to his pipe; and the latter is the surer test of his politeness. The other day I asked Mr. R—— where I could find a bookstore keeping some little views of Havana. The same evening came a great book containing all I wished, beautifully executed. Last evening on theCortena, he took out a little microscope to examine some parasitic flowers I had gathered from the walls of the Cathedral (all the old walls of buildings are covered with such plants). I could not help exclaiming at the great power and convenience of the little instrument, when, what should come this morning but Mr. R—— with a bright new microscope in his hand, begging I would do him the favor to accept it!
With all our interest in this Creole, I could not help a sensation of relief, when he rose to bid us good-night. It is so difficult talking with a foreignerwho can only comprehend your simplest words, which express your simplest ideas. You feel like a child talking to a child, knowing all the time that you are without the innocence or beauty of children. And this repression of thought, instead of repressing the voice, gives one an unconquerable instinct to raise it to its highest pitch. One seems to think that an immense quantity of sound will hide an immense lack of sense; that they do not understand because they do not hear; that one is not so dumb astheyare deaf.
Sunday, March 18th.—For the first time the heat is oppressive, enervating. We did not even summon courage for the early mass, the only religious service in a city which can boast one distinguishing peculiarity—it practises as much as it preaches, for it almost never preaches at all. What is better than theCortinawhen you talk of fresh airs, and fresh shade, and fresh silence? So for theCortinawe set out, stopping by the way at the Cathedral. Here we find half a dozen sincere-looking devotees kneeling in different parts of the quaint, cool, serene temple; humble their birth, no doubt, as well as posture, for they kneel upon the bare marble, with no mat and no appearance of discomfort. When prayers are said and crossing done, they depart, silent and unnoticed as they enter; and we, with only the gratification of curiosity where worship should be, do the same.
Arrived at the promenade, we find an insinuating mist and an unusual event, a south wind, legitimatizing all this languor. Everybody in Havana poutswhen the wind hails from the equator, and shivers when it comes out of a temperate zone. Both changes are so slight that a Northerner, accustomed as he is to the fiercely rapid changes at home, observes nothing different from usual. The ordinary wind here, which baffles all the scorching proclivities of this sunshine; which comes fresh and unworn over the salt and laboring seas; which makes this island an Eden of never-failing green,—this strong and pure, and gentle, as all that is strong should be, angel of mercy, is always an east wind. I am glad that I came to Havana to learn that the sole errand of an east wind in the world is not to manufacture influenzas, consumptions, gout-twinges, blue devils, and growlery-mongers.
To-night a long conversation with Father C—— who has just returned from an expedition to the interior for the purpose of collecting contributions for “me chur-r-r-rch” in Ireland. We talked of the Eucharist, of confessions, of indulgences, of rites and popes; in half an hour I learned more of Romanism from a Romanist’s point of view, than in a liberal share of twenty-eight years of my former life. He confessed that the corruptions of the church forced on the Reformation. I am sure the wary priest rather more than half expected to convert me, and I amused myself down in my sleeve at his amiable hallucination, while at the same time I reflected how surely the fogs of prejudice and sectarianism clear away before the inevitably advancing sun of knowledge.