Our War with Spain for Cuba's Freedom

by Trumbull White

CHAPTER X.

THE CITIES OF CUBA.

The Harbor of Matanzas—Sports of the Carnival—Santiago de Cuba
and Its Beautiful Bay—Cardinas, the Commercial Center—Enormous
Exports of Sugar—The Beauties of Trinidad—Other Cities of
Importance.

The city of Havana may be said to stand in the same relation to Cuba that Paris does to France, for in it are centered the culture, the refinement, and the wealth of the island, but there are several other towns of considerable importance, and many of them have become places of interest since the struggle for liberty has attracted the attention of the civilized world.

Chief among these is Matanzas. This city, with a normal population of about 60,000, is situated fifty miles east of Havana, with which it is connected by rail and water. Its shipping interests are second only to those of the capital, as it is the outlet of many of the richest agricultural districts of the island.

The city is situated on the flats on both sides of the San Juan river, which brings down large quantities of mud and greatly impedes inland navigation. As an offset the bay is spacious, easy of access and sheltered from the violent gulf storms which prevail at some seasons. This makes the port a favorite with marine men. A large amount of money has been spent by the government to fortify and protect the city, and it has been connected by rail with all the principal towns and producing centers of the provinces. Thus it is a particularly favorite port of entry for all the supplies required in the plantations—food staples and machinery. Its exports consist principally of sugar, coffee, molasses, tobacco, honey, wax and fruits.

The city is built principally of masonry and in a most substantial manner, though little effort has been made to secure architectural beauty. The pride of the city is the new theater, which is pointed out as the handsomest building in Cuba. The Empresa Academy also takes rank equal with any for the excellence of its educational facilities.

There is no more charming spot in Cuba than Matanzas. The bay is like a crescent in shape, and receives the waters of the Yumuri and Matanzas rivers, two small unnavigable streams. A high bridge separates them. On this ridge back of the town stands a cathedral dedicated to the black virgin. It is a reproduction of a cathedral in the Balearic Islands. The view from its steeple is magnificent. Looking backward the valley of the Yumuri stretches to the right. It is about ten miles wide and sixty miles long, dotted with palms, and as level as a barn floor. The Yumuri breaks through the mountains near Matanzas bay something like the Arkansas river at Canon City. Carpeted with living green and surrounded with mountains this valley is one of the gems of Cuba.

About ten miles from Matanzas, on the left of the road, stand what are known as the Breadloaf Mountains. They rise from the plain like the Spanish peaks in Colorado. These mountains are the headquarters of General Betancourt, who commands the insurgents in the province. The Spaniards have offered $1,000 reward for his head. Several efforts have been made to secure it, but in all cases the would-be captor has lost his own head.

In accordance with the Weyler edict 11,000 reconcentrados were herded together at Matanzas, and within a year over 9,000 of them died in the city. In the Plaza, under the shadow of the Governor's residence, twenty-three people died from starvation in one day. The province of Matanzas is not larger in area than the state of Delaware, yet 55,000 people have perished from starvation and incident diseases since the order went into effect.

But all the people of Matanzas are not reconcentrados, and even in the midst of war's alarms they find time for amusement, as the following description of a carnival ball will prove:

"It was our good fortune to be in Matanzas during the last three days of the Carnival; and while the whole time was occupied by noisy processions and grotesque street masqueraders, the crowning ceremonies were on the last Sunday night. Then the whole town used every effort to wind up the season in a 'feu de joie' of pleasure and amusement. In almost every town of any importance there is an association of young men, generally known as 'El Liceo,' organized for artistic and literary purposes, and for social recreation. A fine large building is generally occupied by the association, with ample space for theatrical representations, balls, etc.; in addition to which there are billiard rooms, and reading rooms, adorned, probably with fine paintings. In Matanzas this association is known as 'El Liceo Artistico y Literario de Matanzas,' and is a particularly fine one, being composed of the elite of the city, with a fine large house, to which they made an addition by purchasing the 'Club,' beautifully situated upon the Plaza.

"Thanks to our letter of introduction, we were, through the kind offices of the members, permitted to enjoy the pleasures of their grand ball, called the 'Pinata,' which was indeed a very grand affair, attended by the beauty and fashion of Matanzas. The ball commenced at the seasonable hour of 8 o'clock in the evening; and at entering, each one was required to give up his ticket to a committee of managers, who thus had a kind of general inspection of all those admitted.

"The ball room was a long, large hall, at the other end of which was a pretty stage for theatrical representations; on each side of the room was an arched colonnade, over which were the galleries, where the band was posted. Hanged in double rows of chairs the full length of the room in front of the colonnade, sat hundreds of dark-eyed angels, calm, dignified, and appearing, most of them, to be mere lookers on; not a black coat among them. All of these, with the exception of a few courageous ones that were facing all this beauty, were huddled together at the other end of the room, wanting the courage (it could not be the inclination) to pay their respects to 'las Senoritas.'

"What is exactly the trouble in Cuba between the gentlemen and the ladies I never have been able to quite understand. The men are polished and gentlemanly, as a general thing—sufficiently intelligent, apparently; while the ladies are dignified and pretty. And yet I have never seen that appearance of easy and pleasant intercourse between the sexes which makes our society so charming.

"I am inclined to believe that it is the fault of custom, in a great degree, which surrounds women in Cuba with etiquette, iron bars and formality. This would seem to apply to the natives only, for nothing can be kinder, more friendly and courteous than the manners of the Cuban ladies to strangers, at least, judging from what is seen. It may be as a lady with whom I was arguing the point said: 'It is very different with strangers, Senor, and particularly with the Americans, who are celebrated for their chivalric gallantry to ladies.' Now I call that a very pretty national compliment.

"Taking the arm of my friend, we walk up and down to see, as he expresses it, 'who there is to be presented to,' and faith, if beauty is to be the test, it would seem to be a hard matter to make up one's mind, there is so much of it, but after a turn or two around the room, this form is gone through with, and one begins to feel at home and ready to enjoy one's self.

"When one finds ladies (and there are numbers) who have been educated abroad, either in the United States or Europe, he finds them highly accomplished and entertaining. Several that I had the pleasure of meeting on this and other occasions spoke French perfectly, some English, and one or two both of these in addition to their native tongue.

"But let us return to the ball, which is all the time going on with great eclat. It opens with the advent upon the stage of a dozen or more young men, under the direction of a leader, in some fancy costume very handsomely made, who, after making their bow to the audience, go through some novel kind of a dance. The performers take this means of filling up the intervals of the general dance, and amusing the audience.

"It is now getting late, and the rooms are terribly warm. The fans of the long rows of lovely sitters, who have not moved out of their places the whole evening, keep up a constant flutter, and one begins to sigh for a breath of fresh air, and relief from the discomforts of a full dress suit. But the grand affair of the evening is yet to come off, we are told, so we linger on, and are finally rewarded by the grand ceremony of the 'Pinata,' from which the ball takes its name. This word I can hardly give the meaning of as applied to this ceremony, which consists in having pendent from the ceiling a form of ribbands and flowers, the ribbands numbered and hanging from the flowery the rights to pull which are drawn like prizes in a lottery. Of these ribbands, one is fastened to a beautiful crown of flowers, which, when the ribband to which it is attached is pulled, falls into the hands of the lucky person, who has the privilege of crowning any lady he may deem worthy of the honor 'Queen of the Ball,' to whom every one is obliged to yield obedience, homage, and admiration. There is, also, the same opportunity afforded to the ladies to crown a king. The whole ceremony is pretty, and creates much merriment and amusement.

"This ceremony over, at midnight we sally out into the open air. But what a sight greets us there! Lights blaze in such profusion that it seems more than day. Music and dancing are everywhere. Songs and mirth have taken complete possession of the place, while people of all ages, sexes and colors are mixed together, in what seems inextricable confusion, intent upon having a good time in the open air while their masters and betters are doing the same thing under cover. This is a carnival sight indeed, and only to be seen in a tropical clime."

GUANTANAMO, THE HOME OF THE PIRATES.

Approaching Cuba as Columbus did—across the narrow stretch of sea from San Domingo—you first sight the long, low promontory of the eastern tip, which the discoverer named Point Maysi. So different is the prospect from that seen at the other end of the island, as you come down in the usual route from New York or Florida, that you can hardly believe it is the same small country. From Maysi Point the land rises in sharp terraces, backed by high hills and higher mountains, all so vague in mist and cloud that you do not know where land ends and sky begins. Coming nearer, gray ridges are evolved, which look like cowled monks peering over each other's shoulders, with here and there a majestic peak towering far above his fellows—like the Pico Turquino, 11,000 feet above the sea. Sailing westward along this south shore, the "Queen of the Antilles" looks desolate and forbidding, as compared to other portions of the West Indies; a panorama, of wild heights and sterile shores, and surge-beaten cliffs covered with screaming sea birds. At rare intervals an opening in the rock-bound coast betrays a tiny harbor, bordered by cocoa palms, so guarded and concealed by hills, and its sudden revelation, when close upon it, astonishes you as it did the first explorer.

According to tradition, everyone of these was once a pirate's lair, in the good old days we read about, when "long, low, suspicious-looking craft, with raking masts," used to steal out from sheltered coves to plunder the unwary. Each little bay, whose existence was unknown to honest mariners, has a high wooded point near its entrance, where the sea robbers kept perpetual watch for passing merchantmen and treasure-laden galleons, their own swift-sailing vessels safe out of sight within the cove; and then, at a given signal out they would dart upon the unsuspecting prey like a spider from his web. Among the most notorious piratical rendezvous was Gauntanamo, which our warships are said to have shelled two or three times of late. In recent years its narrow bay, branching far inland like a river, has become of considerable consequence, by reason of a railway which connects it with Santiago, and also because the patriot army, hidden in the nearby mountains, have entertained hopes of overcoming the Spanish garrison and making it a base for receiving outside assistance. Before the war there were extensive sugar plantations in this city, now all devastated. The Cobre mountains, looming darkly against the horizon, are the great copper and iron range of Cuba, said to contain untold mineral wealth, waiting to be developed by Yankee enterprise. In earlier days $4,000,000 a year was the average value of Cuba's copper and iron exports; but in 1867 6,000,000 tons were taken out in less than ten months. Then Spain put her foot in it, as usual. Not content with the lion's share, which she had always realized in exorbitant taxes on the product, she increased the excise charges to such an extent as to kill the industry outright. For a long time afterward the ore lay undisturbed in the Cobre "pockets," until the attention of Americans was turned this way. Their first iron and copper claims in these mountains were recognized by the Cuban government about seventeen years ago. Three Yankee corporations have developed rich tracts of mining territory hereabouts, built railways from the coast to their works on the hills and exported, ore to the United States. The oldest of these companies employed 2,000 men, and had 1,600 cars and a fleet of twenty steamers for the transportation of its output. The Carnegie Company, whose product was shipped to Philadelphia, also employed upwards of a thousand men.

SANTIAGO DE CUBA.

At last an abrupt termination of the stern, gray cliffs which mark this shore line indicates the proximity of Santiago harbor, and a nearer approach reveals the most picturesque fort or castle, as well as one of the oldest, to be found on the western hemisphere. An enormous rounding rock, whose base has been hollowed into great caverns by the restless Caribbean, standing just at the entrance of the narrow channel leading into the harbor, is carried up from the water's edge in a succession of walls, ramparts, towers and turrets, forming a perfect picture of a rock-ribbed fortress of the middle ages. This is the famous castle of San Jago, the Moro, which antedates the more familiar fortress of the same name in Havana harbor by at least a hundred years. Words are of little use in describing this antique, Moorish-looking stronghold, with its crumbling, honey-combed battlements, queer little flanking turrets and shadowy towers, perched upon the face of a dun-colored cliff 150 feet high—so old, so odd, so different from anything in America with which to compare it. A photograph, or pencil sketch is not much better, and even a paint brush could not reproduce the exact shadings of its time-worn, weather-mellowed walls—the Oriental pinks and old blues and predominating yellows that give it half its charm. Upon the lowermost wall, directly overhanging the sea, is a dome-shaped sentry box of stone, flanked by antiquated cannon. Above it the lines of masonry are sharply drawn, each guarded terrace receding upon the one next higher, all set with cannon and dominated by a massive tower of obsolete construction.

It takes a good while to see it all, for new stories and stairways, wings and terraces, are constantly cropping out in unexpected places, but as it occupies three sides of the rounding cliff and the pilot who comes aboard at the entrance to the channel guides your steamer close up under the frowning battlements, you have ample time to study it. Window holes cut into rock in all directions show how extensive are the excavations. A large garrison is always quartered here, even in time of peace, when their sole business is searching for shady places along the walls against which to lean. There are ranges above ranges of walks, connected by stairways cut into the solid rock, each range covered with lolling soldiers. You pass so near that you can hear them chattering together. Those on the topmost parapet, dangling their blue woolen legs over, are so high and so directly overhead that they remind you of flies on the ceiling.

In various places small niches have been excavated in the cliff, some with crucifixes, or figures of saints, and in other places the bare, unbroken wall of rock runs up, sheer straight 100 feet. Below, on the ocean side, are caves, deep, dark and uncanny, worn deep into the rock. Some of them are so extensive that they have not been explored in generations.

The broad and lofty entrances to one of them, hollowed by the encroaching sea, is as perfect an arch as could be drawn by a skillful architect, and with it a tradition is connected which dates back a couple of centuries. A story or two above these wave-eaten caverns are many small windows, each heavily barred with iron. They are dungeons dug into the solid rock, and over them might well be written, "Leave hope behind, ye who enter here!" A crowd of haggard, pallid faces are pressed against the bars; and as you steam slowly by, so close that you might speak to the wretched prisoners, it seems as if a shadow had suddenly fallen upon the bright sunshine, and a chill, like that of coming death, oppresses the heart. Since time out of mind, the Moro of Santiago has furnished dungeons for those who have incurred the displeasure of the government infinitely more to be dreaded than its namesake in Havana. Had these slimy walls a tongue, what stories they might reveal of crime and suffering, of tortures nobly undergone, of death prolonged through dragging years and murders that will not "out" until the judgment day.

Against that old tower, a quarter of a century ago our countrymen of the Virginius were butchered like sheep. Scores of later patriots have been led out upon the ramparts and shot, their bodies, perhaps, with life yet in them, falling into the sea, where they were snapped up by sharks as soon as they touched the water.

The narrow, winding channel which leads from the open sea into the harbor, pursues its sinuous course past several other fortifications of quaint construction, but of little use against modern guns—between low hills and broad meadows, fishing hamlets and cocoanut groves. Presently you turn a sharp angle in the hills and enter a broad, land-locked bay, inclosed on every side by ranges of hills with numerous points and promontories jutting into the tranquil water, leaving deep little coves behind them, all fringed with cocoa-palms. Between this blue bay and a towering background of purple mountains lies the city which Diego Velazquez, its founder, christened in honor of the patron saint of Spain, as far back as the year 1514. It is the oldest standing city in the new world, excepting Santo Domingo, which Columbus himself established only eighteen years earlier. By the way, San Jago, San Diego and Santiago, are really the same name, rendered Saint James in our language; and wherever the Spaniards have been are numbers of them. This particular city of Saint James occupies a sloping hillside, 600 miles southeast from Havana, itself the capital of a department, and ranks the third city of Cuba in commercial importance—Matanzas being second. As usual in all these southern ports, the water is too shallow for large vessels to approach the dock and steamers have to anchor a mile from shore. While waiting the coming of health or customs officials, these lordly gentlemen who are never given to undignified haste, you have ample time to admire the prospect, and if the truth must be told, you will do well to turn about without going ashore, if you wish to retain the first delightful impressions—for this old city of Spain's patron saint is one of the many to which distance lends enchantment.

Red-roofed buildings of stone and adobe entirely cover the hillside, with here and there a dome, a tower, a church steeple shooting upward, or a tell palm poking its head above a garden wall—the glittering green contrasting well with the ruddy tiles and the pink, gray, blue and yellow of the painted walls. In the golden light of a tropical morning it looks like an oriental town, between sapphire sea and turquoise mountains. Its low massive buildings, whose walls surround open courts, with pillared balconies and corridors, the great open windows protected by iron bars instead of glass, and roofs covered with earthen tiles—are a direct importation from Southern Spain, if not from further east. Tangiers, in Africa, is built upon a similar sloping hillside, and that capital of Morocco does not look a bit more Moorish than Santiago de Cuba. On the narrow strip of laud bordering the eastern edge of the harbor, the Moro at one end and the city at the other, are some villas, embowered in groves and gardens, which, we are told, belong mostly to Americans who are interested in the Cobre mines. The great iron piers on the right belong to the American mining companies, built for loading ore upon their ships.

CARDINAS.

Fifty miles east of Matanzas is the city of Cardinas, the last port of any consequence on the north coast of the island. It has a population of 25,000, and is the capital of a fertile district. It is one of the main outlets of Cuba's richest province, Matanzas, and is the great railroad center of the island, or, more properly speaking, it ought to be, as the railroads of the country form a junction fifteen miles inland, at an insignificant station called Jouvellenes.

In time of peace Cardinas enjoys a thriving business, particularly in sugar and molasses, its exports of the former sometimes amounting to 100,000 tons a year. To the west and south stretch the great sugar estates which have made this section of Spain's domain a prize to be fought for. The water side of the town is faced with long wharves and lined with warehouses, and its extensive railway depot would do credit to any metropolis.

There are a few pretentious public buildings, including the customs house, hospital and college. Its cobble paved streets are considerably wider than those of Havana, and have two lines of horse cars. There is gas and electric light, and more two-story houses than one is accustomed to see on the island.

But, notwithstanding the broad, blue bay in front, and the Paseo, whose tall trees seem to be touching finger tips across the road, congratulating each other on the presence of eternal summer, Cardinas is not an attractive town. One misses the glamor of antiquity and historic interest which pervades Havana, Matanzas and Santiago, and feels somehow that the town is new without being modern, young but not youthful.

OTHER CITIES OF IMPORTANCE.

Puerto Principe, or to give it its full name in the Spanish tongue, Santa Maria de Puerto Principe, is the capital of the Central department, and is situated about midway between the north and south coasts, 305 miles southeast of Havana, and forty-five miles southwest of Nuevitas, its port, with which it is connected by railroad. Its population is about 30,000 and it is surrounded by a rich agricultural district, the chief products of which are sugar and tobacco. The climate is hot, moist and unhealthy. It was at one time the seat of the supreme court of all the Spanish colonies in America.

One of the most attractive cities of Cuba is Trinidad, which lies near the south coast, three miles by rail from the port of Casildas. It is beautifully situated on high land overlooking the sea, and on account of its mild and very equable climate it is a favorite resort for tourists and invalids.

Nuevitas, Sancti Espiritu, Baracoa and Cienfuegos are all centers of population with many natural advantages, and with a just form of government, and the advent of American enterprise and capital, they might become prosperous, attractive, and of great commercial importance.