Anonymous

“ Every woman, old and young, was in full dress: white silk, with lace flounces, a long white lace veil thrown, like an exquisite fancy, over head and shoulders, instead of the usual black mantilla, was the most favorite and recherché costume.
Here in Matanzas is a decided sprinkling of the Anglo-Saxon blood, just enough to flush and brighten the skin and to remove two or three of the strata of fat, which are so universal with the white ladies of Havana. Many are even so delicate in coloring, that the winds of heaven must have considerately passed by them on the other side. ”

“ We enter a dark, long passage leading to this cell of midnight vigils and occult research; the door slowly opens, I reverently enter upon—heaps of tinsel leaves and flowers, with scissors and glue and all the paraphernalia for flower-making; piles of bouquets lie on the bed, all with silver leaves exactly alike, and each one with a brick-red rose in the centre. They are to decorate the church on Easter Sunday; they are the only proofs of piety and science and lore that the sanctum of our jolly priest possesses. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There I find plenty of finest linen and the clean odor which should always sanctify bedrooms. Canvas stretchers across the cot-like bedsteads make a delightfully cool and clean mattress. Carefully embroidered pillow-cases endeavor to excite our admiration, and brightly colored pictures of saints and martyrs on the wall, our devotion.
At three comes a Spanish jumble of sounds which mean, “Dinner is ready.” We walk out on a back piazza, overlooking the pretty courtyard with its shrubs and flowers, while we are sheltered from the sun by thickly-growing and blossoming vines. ”

“ But here we are at last, upon the very pinnacle of this temple, beholding the kingdoms of Cuba and the glory thereof.
East and west of us mountains—those pyramids of nature, which will never, like those of man, forget their maker—are rising and falling to suit their own ideas of grace and majesty; north and south are stretched fair and smiling plains and valleys, with all their strong contrasts and harmonious blendings of colors: the horizon on the south is caressed by the soft, sunny, sky-blue waters of the Carribean Sea, looking like the beginning of a new firmament ”

“ The busy markets are already open; shopmen unfastening shutters; life beginning to awake and throb through the great body of Havana. Its soul, whether great or small, is scarcely yet awakened into any circulation through the channels of art or literature. The bells are ringing, drums beating, and guns firing, for it is five o’clock. The day is up betimes. The morning and evening here are the first day, and every day. Noon is but a shorter panting, gilded, interluding night, when all sleep who can, and all long for sleep who cannot. ”

“ But the darkness, or the invisible hand and heart that fashion it, protects us safely home. Here we are just in time for the usual evening music on the plaza, a pretty square in the heart of the little town, made and ornamented by concha, with much taste and expense. It is like all the plazas I have seen, an imitation of the one at Havana; with exactly four palm-trees, with shrubs and flowers and statues; with small bilious-looking men, and belles with regular oriental features, soft and dark eyes, fat forms, pretty ball dresses, and an awkward mode of progression which they fancy is walking. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We drove at once past the walls of the city, upon the Paseo de Isabel Segunda and the Paseo 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. ”

“ 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 sunburnt callisero. 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! ”

“ Everybody in Havana pouts when 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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 name picadille, vary the bill of fare. ”

“ I also assure you that pen and ink have no natural, or so far as I am concerned, acquired relations with these transcendent tropical nights we are having now; nights when you can feel this wonderful moonlight, creeping in its slippers of silence, over all the longing darkness, through all the sleeping lids of this softly breathing nature, sprinkling them all the time with its white juice-of-love-in-idleness. Sometimes, you lie its willing and helpless victim, until all your unpastured emotions come to be swayed by it, as by a shepherd’s voice. ”

“ Illuminations of all sorts, fine bands of music, 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. ”

“ 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 across the 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 ”

“ Easter Sunday, April, 8th.—Just too late for the grand procession which celebrated this morning, glorious as all Easter mornings should be. We tried to reconcile ourselves by attending high mass at the Cathedral. Even here, at eight o’clock, the ceremonies were closing; we had only time to catch a glimpse of the gold-laced robes of the priest as he disappeared behind the chancel, and a hasty scrutiny of the perfect flower-bed of kneeling beauties covering the entire floor of the building. I was taken completely by storm. So much and so rare beauty concentrated in so little time and space! ”

“ Tuesday, 27th.—To-day we explored our way to a new sugar plantation, the first I have seen where the cane is ground by oxen instead of the usual steam-engine. I have always pitied those poor oxen and horses pacing round and round in the mill, round and round with the rounding months and years; but these wretched beings who drive them, with long whips or rather poles in their hands, calling out to the long train of animals at every step, as they follow them, in hideous monotonous, guttural tones that never end; fifty in number, all young and mostly females ”

“ 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 dazzling brightness 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. ”

“ And now, the thickening twilight is just able to reveal to us the path leading to our volante; the famous cave is far off and out of the question; and soon we are leaving nature and her spells behind; faster and faster we descend, until soon city lights and city sounds direct us to the Plaza. Here the band is playing and promenading, bare-headed ladies are enjoying the cool air and the warm admiration so grateful to us women in warm climates. ”

“ 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 the squares 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 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. ”

“ 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 world of itself, inhabited by perfect and sentient beings, each with its hopes, fears, and perhaps its loves and hates, and therefore sorrows ”

“ 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 to el 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. ”

“ The plantation is but a league distant, and very soon the tall white chimneys and low roofs reveal our saccharine destination. Flocks of decently dressed and moderately happy-faced negroes and coolies are at work in the corn-fields. As we pass on an odor as of nice sweet cake while in the progress of baking greets us from the boiling sugar, with a savory familiarity; then a glimpse through the trees of blue walls and red tiles suggests the family mansion. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Undoubtedly it is far more modern in its spirit, and for a resident might have more social congeniality: but when you consider that the sights are all seen; the heat so terrific that the presentation of our letters of introduction becomes formidable; that there is little left for us but a questionable amalgamation of American and Spanish cookery, and unutterable suffocation in a room carefully constructed to admit all of the sun and none of the air,—will you not allow that in this instance a moderate, though possibly somewhat habitual desire for change is fairly legitimate? ”