22 chapters
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22 chapters
FROM MANHATTAN TO EL MORRO
FROM MANHATTAN TO EL MORRO
The steamer is to sail at one P.M. ; and, by half-past twelve, her decks are full, and the mud and snow of the pier are well trodden by men and horses. Coaches drive down furiously, and nervous passengers put their heads out to see if the steamer is off before her time; and on the decks, and in the gangways, inexperienced passengers run against everybody, and mistake the engineer for the steward, and come up the same stairs they go down, without knowing it. In the dreary snow, the newspaper vend
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HAVANA: First Glimpses (I)
HAVANA: First Glimpses (I)
We are to go in at sunrise, and few, if any, are the passengers that are not on deck at the first glow of dawn. Before us lie the novel and exciting objects of the night before. The Steep Morro, with its tall sentinel lighthouse, and its towers and signal staffs and teeth of guns, is coming out into clear daylight; the red and yellow striped flag of Spain—blood and gold—floats over it. Point after point in the city becomes visible; the blue and white and yellow houses, with their roofs of dull r
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HAVANA: First Glimpses (2)
HAVANA: First Glimpses (2)
To a person unaccustomed to the tropics or the south of Europe, I know of nothing more discouraging than the arrival at the inn or hotel. It is nobody's business to attend to you. The landlord is strangely indifferent, and if there is a way to get a thing done, you have not learned it, and there is no one to teach you. Le Grand is a Frenchman. His house is a restaurant, with rooms for lodgers. The restaurant is paramount. The lodging is secondary, and is left to servants. Monsieur does not conde
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HAVANA: Prisoners and Priests
HAVANA: Prisoners and Priests
If mosquito nets were invented for the purpose of shutting mosquitoes in with you, they answer their purpose very well. The beds have no mattresses, and you lie on the hard sacking. This favors coolness and neatness. I should fear a mattress, in the economy of our hotel, at least. Where there is nothing but an iron frame, canvas stretched over it, and sheets and a blanket, you may know what you are dealing with. The clocks of the churches and castles strike the quarter hours, and at each stroke
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HAVANA: Olla Podrida
HAVANA: Olla Podrida
Breakfast, and again the cool marble floor, white-robed tables, the fruits and flowers, and curtains gently swaying, and women in morning toilets. Besides the openness to view, these rooms are strangely open to ingress. Lottery-ticket vendors go the rounds of the tables at every meal, and so do the girls with tambourines for alms for the music in the street. As there is no coin in Cuba less than the medio, 6¼ cents, the musicians get a good deal or nothing. The absence of any smaller coin must b
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HAVANA: A Social Sunday
HAVANA: A Social Sunday
To-morrow, I am to go, at eight o'clock either to the church of San Domingo, to hear the military mass, or to the Jesuit church of Belén; for the service of my own church is not publicly celebrated, even at the British consulate, no service but the Roman Catholic being tolerated on the island. To-night there is a public máscara (mask ball) at the great hall, next door to Le Grand's. My only window is by the side of the numerous windows of the great hall, and all these are wide open; and I should
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HAVANA: Belén and the Jesuits
HAVANA: Belén and the Jesuits
Rose before six, and walked as usual, down the Paseo, to the sea baths. How refreshing is this bath, after the hot night and close rooms! At your side, the wide blue sea with its distant sails, the bath cut into the clean rock, the gentle washing in and out of the tideless sea, at the Gulf Stream temperature, in the cool of the morning! As I pass down, I meet a file of coolies, in Chinese costume, marching, under overseers, to their work or their jail. And there is the chain-gang! clank, clank,
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MATANZAS
MATANZAS
As there are no plantations to be seen near Havana, I determine to go down to Matanzas, near which the sugar plantations are in full tide of operation at this season. A steamer leaves here every night at ten o'clock, reaching Matanzas before daylight, the distance by sea being between fifty and sixty miles. Took this steamer to-night. She got under way punctually at ten o'clock, and steamed down the harbor. The dark waters are alive with phosphorescent light. From each ship that lies moored, the
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TO LIMONAR BY TRAIN
TO LIMONAR BY TRAIN
Took the train for Limonar, at 2.30 P.M. There are three classes of cars, all after the American model, the first of about the condition of our first-class cars when on the point of being condemned as worn out; the second, a little plainer; and the third, only covered wagons with benches. The car I entered had "Davenport & Co., makers, Cambridgeport, Mass.," familiarly on its front, and the next had "Eaton, Gilbert & Co., Troy, N. York." The brakemen on the train are coolies, one
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A SUGAR PLANTATION: The Labor
A SUGAR PLANTATION: The Labor
At some seasons, a visit may be a favor, on remote plantations; but I know this is the height of the sugar season, when every hour is precious to the master. After a brief toilet, I sit down with them; for they have just begun dinner. In five minutes, I am led to feel as if I were a friend of many years. Both gentlemen speak English like a native tongue. To the younger it is so, for he was born in South Carolina, and his mother is a lady of that state. The family are not here. They do not live o
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A SUGAR PLANTATION: The Life
A SUGAR PLANTATION: The Life
When I came out from my chamber this morning, the elder Mr. Chartrand had gone. The watchful negress brought me coffee, and I could choose between oranges and bananas, for my fruit. The young master had been in the saddle an hour or so. I sauntered to the sugar-house. It was past six, and all hands were at work again, amid the perpetual boiling of the caldrons, the skimming and dipping and stirring, the cries of the caldron-men to the firemen, the slow gait of the wagons, and the perpetual to-an
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FROM PLANTATION TO PLANTATION
FROM PLANTATION TO PLANTATION
If the master of a plantation is faithful and thorough, will tolerate no misconduct or imposition, and yet is humane and watchful over the interests and rights, as well as over the duties of the Negroes, he has a hard and anxious life. Sickness to be ministered to, the feigning of sickness to be counteracted, rights of the slaves to be secured against other Negroes, as well as against whites, with a poor chance of getting at the truth from either; the obligations of the Negro quasi marriage to b
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MATANZAS AND ENVIRONS
MATANZAS AND ENVIRONS
Instead of the posada by the water-side, I take up my quarters at a hotel kept by Ensor, an American, and his sister. Here the hours, cooking, and chief arrangements are in the fashion of the country, as they should be, but there is more of that attention to guests which we are accustomed to at home than the Cuban hotels usually give. The objects to be visited here are the Cumbre and the valley of the Yumurí. It is too late for a morning ride, and I put off my visit until afternoon. Gazzaniga an
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REFLECTIONS VIA RAILROAD
REFLECTIONS VIA RAILROAD
Although the distance to Havana, as the bird flies, is only sixty miles, the railroad, winding into the interior, to draw out the sugar freights, makes a line of nearly one hundred miles. This adds to the length of our journey, but also greatly to its interest. In the cars are two Americans, who have also been visiting plantations. They give me the following statistics of a sugar plantation, which they think may be relied upon. Lands, machinery, 320 slaves, and 20 coolies, worth $500,000. Produc
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HAVANA: Social, Religious and Judicial Tidbits
HAVANA: Social, Religious and Judicial Tidbits
The warm bath round the corner is a refreshment after a day's railroad ride in such heat; and there, in the front room, the man in his shirt sleeves is serving out liquor, as before, and the usual company of Creoles is gathered about the billiard tables. After a dinner in the handsome, airy restaurant of Le Grand's, I drive into the city in the evening, to the close streets of the Extramuros, and pay a visit to the lady whom I failed to see on my arrival. I am so fortunate as to meet her, and be
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HAVANA: Worship, Etiquette and Humanitarianism
HAVANA: Worship, Etiquette and Humanitarianism
At break of day, I am in the delightful sea-baths again, not ill-named Recreo and Elíseo. But the forlorn chain-gang are mustered before the Presidio. It is Sunday, but there is no day of rest for them. At eight o'clock I present myself at the Belén. A lady, who was passing through the cloister, with head and face covered by the usual black veil, turned and came to me. It was Mrs.——, whom I had seen last evening. She kindly took me to the sacristy, and asked some one to tell Father—— that I was
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HAVANA: Hospital and Prison
HAVANA: Hospital and Prison
Drove out over the Paseo de Tacón to the Cerro, a height, formerly a village, now a part of the suburbs of Havana. It is high ground, and commands a noble view of Havana and the sea. Coming in, I met the Bishop, who introduced me to the Count de la Fernandina, a dignified Spanish nobleman, who owns a beautiful villa on this Paseo, where we walked a while in the grounds. This house is very elegant and costly, with marble floors, high ceilings, piazzas, and a garden of the richest trees and flower
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HAVANA: Bullfight
HAVANA: Bullfight
A bullfight has been advertised all over the town, at the Plaza de Toros. Shall we go? I would not, if it were only pleasure that I was seeking. As I am sure I expect only the contrary, and wish merely to learn the character of this national recreation, I will go. The Plaza de Toros is a wooden amphitheater, in the suburbs, open at the top—a circle of rising seats, with the arena in the center. I am late. The cries of the people inside are loud, sharp, and constant; a full band is blowing its tr
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HAVANA: More Manners and Customs
HAVANA: More Manners and Customs
The people of Cuba have a mode of calling attention by a sound of the tongue and lips, a sort of "P—s—t!" after the fashion of some parts of the continent of Europe. It is universal here; and is used not only to servants and children, but between themselves, and to strangers. It has a mean sound, to us. They make it clear and penetrating; yet it seems a poor, effeminate sibilation, and no generous, open-mouthed call. It is the mode of stopping a volante, calling a waiter, attracting the attentio
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HAVANA: Slaves, Lotteries, Cockfights and Filibusters
HAVANA: Slaves, Lotteries, Cockfights and Filibusters
Rise early, and walk to the sea-baths, and take a delightful float and swim. And refreshing it is, after a feverish night in my hot room, where I did not sleep an hour all night, but heard every quarter-hour struck, and the boatswain's whistle of the watchmen and their full cry of the hour and the weather, at every clock-strike. From the bath, I look out over the wall, far to the northeast, in the hope of catching a glimpse of the "Cahawba's" smoke. This is the day of her expected arrival. My Ne
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A SUMMING-UP: Society, Politics, Religion, Slavery, Resources and Reflections
A SUMMING-UP: Society, Politics, Religion, Slavery, Resources and Reflections
To an American, from the free states, Cuba presents an object of singular interest. His mind is occupied and almost oppressed by the thought of the strange problems that are in process of solution around him. He is constantly a critic, and a philosophizer, if not a philosopher. A despotic civil government, compulsory religious uniformity, and slavery are in full possession of the field. He is always seeking information as to causes, processes and effects, and almost as constantly baffled. There
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LEAVE-TAKING
LEAVE-TAKING
All day there have been earnest looks to the northwest, for the smoke of the "Cahawba." We are willing and desirous to depart. Our sights are seen, our business done, and our trunks packed. While we are sitting round our table after dinner, George, Mr. Miller's servant, comes in, with a bright countenance, and says "There is a steamer off." We go to the roof, and there, far in the N. W., is a small but unmistakable cloud of steamer's smoke, just in the course the "Cahawba" would take. "Let us wa
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