EASTER-SUNDAY.
The sun was not yet up when I started for town on Easter morning. The procession of the resurrection—called, to distinguish it from other processions of the resurrection, del encuentro, "of the meeting"—was to commence at six o'clock, and I was determined that no tardiness on my part should prevent my seeing the whole of this singular relic of bygone ages. The transition from darkness to light is so wonderfully sudden, however, in these latitudes, that it was broad day when I reached the cathedral, which I found brilliantly illuminated with wax tapers, and hung with crimson damask draperies. Mass had just begun, and there was a considerable number of persons present, most of them ladies, as is always the case in the churches of Havana. How the sight of the men-crowded churches of the United States would astonish these Cubans, who seem to believe that religion is made for ignorant women and children, and that the less they profess to have, the more enlightened they appear! As if the really enlightened man were not he who most deeply feels the necessity of his Maker's care and love—the consolation of addressing him in prayer!
As soon as the service was ended, I hastened to the Calle Empedrado, the street leading directly from the cathedral to San Juan, and took up my station on the edge of the sidewalk, about half-way between the two churches. The balconies of the houses and the sides of the great barred, glassless windows were hung with red and yellow draperies; and gayly-dressed ladies and children, and crowds of colored people, with the inevitable volunteers, thronged the streets. While thus waiting, I was struck by the appearance of the dresses of the greater part of the colored creole women; nearly all wore red, white, and blue, the antagonistic colors to red and yellow. Their wearers, in all probability, intended by this show of their political opinions to revenge themselves upon the Spaniards for the loss of their much-loved procession on Good-Friday.
There was soon a murmur of expectation in the crowd around me, and presently there appeared coming toward us from San Juan the image, large as life, of St. Mary Magdalen, dressed in a skirt of silver tinsel, and an open dress of blue satin, trimmed with silver lace. A profusion of long auburn ringlets flowed down each side of the smiling face, and a very elaborate gilded glory was affixed to the back of the head. The arms were slightly raised, and the hand held out. This figure stood on a small platform supported on the shoulders of four of the Brethren of Solitude, such tall men that the saint, as she advanced rapidly, her curls streaming out behind her, seemed to be running over the heads of the spectators. As she passed, all the men took off their hats respectfully. The bearers halted just in front of me, the Magdalen being supposed to look toward the sepulchre; after a few minutes' pause, she suddenly turned and ran back to the church of San Juan. In order, probably, to give a more natural appearance to the image, the men who carried it, and who evidently took extreme delight and pride in the duty, waddled as they ran, and so communicated a most ludicrous deportment to the saint. Every one laughed loud as they watched her roll from side to side, plunging forward from time to time, and then recovering herself with a jerk, her hair flopping up and down or streaming out on the air.
Que bien corre, meneandose—"How well she runs, shaking herself!"—was the admiring exclamation of several persons near me, and they laughed; yes, men, women, and children, black and white, roared with laughter, and yet, I verily believe, not one among them all laughed in derision, or felt the slightest sentiment of disrespect. "Perfect love casteth out fear," says the apostle; and it never entered into their heads that the good saint could be displeased because, like simple children, they laughed at so artless a representation of her. The grotesque movements excited their hilarity, and they were hilarious on the impulse of the moment, and without arrière pensée. The Latin race is sometimes remarkable for a child-like simplicity in its actions which too often is mistaken by colder temperaments for a lack of veneration and propriety.
In a little while the saint came running down the street again, saluted respectfully again by the merry crowd. A halt of five minutes, while she looked earnestly in the direction of the sepulchre, and then she turned and rushed back, more violently agitated than before, and amidst reiterated shouts of laughter, to San Juan de Dios, to tell the Blessed Virgin the good tidings that her Son was alive again.
And now the loud strains of martial music reached our ears, and we saw emerging from the square in front of the cathedral, and slowly advancing toward us, a high, handsome structure carried on the shoulders of a member of the black Hermandad. In the centre of it stood the image of the risen Saviour, crowned with a radiant glory; his right hand extended as if to welcome, his left grasping a white and gold banner, which displayed, when the breeze unfurled its folds, a blood-red cross. A little angel with outspread wings seemed to hover in front of the gorgeous fabric, as if to herald the coming Lord. A regiment of colored soldiers, wearing white drill uniforms with red facings, escorted this triumphal car, the band playing its gayest airs.
At the same moment the Holy Virgin, attired in gold-colored silk damask, with a magnificent halo around her head, appeared at the opposite end of the street coming to meet him. She was followed at a short distance by St. Mary Magdalen, now more subdued in manner. The Virgin's arms were raised as if about to clasp them around her beloved Son, and her face wore an expression of ecstatic joy.
The two processions met where I stood, and after a short pause, St. Mary Magdalen, who was the nearest to the church of San Juan de Dios, turned round and led the way thither, the Virgin turning also, and the two processions now forming but one. Slowly, but to the liveliest music, in which mingled the strains of Riesgo's hymn, the whole mass of us—for we spectators fell into the ranks—moved onward, every one looking glad and gay, and so we at last reached the old church, which was far too small to contain one half of us, and the images entered one after the other with all the assistants who could force their way in. We weaker vessels, left outside, seeing it hopeless to try to get in, soon dispersed. I have since learnt that no kind of religious ceremony took place; the images were simply set down, and after a while the church was cleared of the people and closed for an hour or two.
There are processions of the resurrection from a great number of churches perambulating the city every Easter-Sunday; but this one "of the Meeting," is by far the most curious and interesting. That of the church of the Espiritu Santo is considered one of the prettiest, because of the children in fancy dresses that take part in it. This year, I was told, a great majority of them wore volunteer or cantinera (canteen-women, or sutler) costumes, to the great disgust of Cuban mothers.
There was, of course, much festivity going on in the city and suburbs all that day. There were family meetings and the pleasant retreta in the evening for some; the theatre and public balls for others; and, I am sorry to say, there was cock-fighting for that brutal minority which in all countries seems to seek its greatest enjoyment in the contemplation of bloody strife.
Yet, in sad truth, there had been strife enough in the streets of Havana during the past week to have contented the most sanguinary temper, and sorrow enough to have softened the hardest. Palm-Sunday had witnessed the farewell to all that was dear to them of two hundred and fifty unfortunate men; had witnessed, also, the wretched end of the two youths about to embark with the other prisoners, and the noble death of the courageous commissary of police, shot down while he sought to protect them from the vengeance of the volunteers, whom their mad bravadoes, as they were marched down to the ship, had infuriated. In the course of the week a colored man had been killed in the streets for seditious cries, and several others stabbed at night by unknown hands. And as if to keep up the constant anxiety and fear that overcast Havana like a lurid cloud, the Cubans by every possible covert insult, and only just avoiding the most terrible consequences, had shown their hatred of their Spanish rulers.
One trifling incident became a subject of interest and excitement that would have been absurd under any other circumstances than the present. On Good-Friday a gorrion (sparrow) was found dead in the Plaza de Armas by a volunteer. Some say, though others contradict the report, that the poor little bird had its eyes torn out, its heart transfixed with pins, and a paper attached to one of its feet containing the words, Asi mueran todos los gorriones—"May all sparrows die thus!" Now, it must be understood that gorrion is another of the appellations bestowed on the Spaniards by the Cubans. A few sparrows having been brought from Europe to the island by some ship-captain, they prospered and multiplied in such a degree that they soon outnumbered and domineered over the Bijirita, a native bird somewhat smaller, but much resembling the sparrow in form, color, and habits. An analogy being imagined between the Spaniards and the new-comer—the name of gorrion was given to all the natives of the peninsula of Spain, while the Cubans adopted that of Bijirita.
The little dead gorrion found on Good-Friday was placed with much ceremony in a glass coffin, and laid in state in a room of one of the barracks, on a lofty catafalque, with velvet pall and lighted tapers and a guard of honor. Crowns of fresh flowers, and of red and yellow "everlastings," were suspended around and above the remains of the typical bird, and two exquisite nosegays, each more than three feet high, and as much in circumference, the gifts of the captain-general and of the generala his wife, stood one at the head, the other at the foot of the mimic tomb. All the volunteers paid their respects with much ceremony to the little representative of their race, and so many people crowded to visit it on Holy-Saturday that it was at last determined to utilize public curiosity.
On Easter-Sunday every person who wished to see the gorrion was obliged to pay ten cents, which were to go to the fund destined to aid the volunteers disabled in the present terrible struggle. On Easter morning the sum received amounted to three hundred and fifty-one dollars!
A great number of songs, sonnets, and odes were composed in honor of the poor little bird, and the manuscripts were tied by colored ribbons to the crowns suspended above it. They have since been collected and printed, and sold for the benefit of the same fund. Many of them were published in the Diario de la Marina, the official daily paper of Havana. The following are specimens of the effusions:
AL GORRION.
Gloria al Gorrion que aquì veis
Inanimado y marchito,
Ya jamas de su piquito
El dulce canto oireis.
Pero en cambio no olvideis
Los que lo mireis con saña,
Que si ya la muerte empaña
Su mirada inteligente,
De su raza prepotente
Hay millones in España!
La Compañia de Cazadores del 7o Batallon.
TO THE SPARROW.
Glory to the Sparrow that you see here
Lifeless and blighted,
Never more from his little bill
Will you hear a sweet song.
But in exchange, do not forget,
You who look at him with ill-will,
That if indeed death has dimmed
His intelligent glance,
Of his most powerful race
There are millions in Spain!
The Company of Cazadores of the 7th Battalion.
Aqui reposa un Gorrion
Que esta tarde se le entierra
Y otros cien en pié de guerra
La sirven de guarnicion,
Bijiritas, en tropel
Furiosas aleteais
¿Por ventura no observais
Que estais ya mas muertas que el?
Descansa en paz, oh gorrion,
Y admite esta ofrenda fria
De la cuarta compañia
De este quinto batallon!
TRANSLATION.
Here rests a Sparrow,
To be buried this afternoon,
And a hundred more in warlike trim
Serve him as a guard.
You crowds of Bijiritas
Who beat your wings with fury,
Do you not by chance remark
That you are already more dead than he is?
Rest in peace, O sparrow!
And accept this cold offering
From the fourth company
Of the fifth battalion.
The gorrion was buried, and Havana left once more without other thought than that which had occupied Spaniards and Cubans for the several months previous. It is said that in former days ships which approached the tropic of Cancer, knew when they were nearing the shores of Cuba by the sweet odor of flowers and honey borne to them on the breeze; now, alas! the beautiful island is recognized from afar rather by the light of her burning plantations—by the smell of gunpowder and of blood! To all who have lived in Havana and who have friends among both parties; to all who know and appreciate the proud sense of honor and unshrinking courage of the one, and the quick intelligence and high aspirations of the other, the present struggle must and does give the deepest pain.
But while they sympathize sincerely with those who sorrow, they believe that "behind a frowning providence God hides a smiling face," and that, the strife ended, Cuba will rise again from her ashes, purified and regenerated; for it is written that "they who sow in tears shall reap in joy"!
THORNS.
HOMAGE TO THE CROSS, GOOD-FRIDAY, 1870.
Here his head rested,
Crimsoned with blood;
Jesus' hard slumber-place,
Pillow of wood!
Here his eye clouded;
Dwell there, my gaze,
Where the dear light of love
Dyingly plays!
Here the nails rankled;
There the lance tore,
While strove the water-tide
Vainly with gore!
Here the heart agonized,
Hid from the glance;
Pierced with ingratitude
Worse than the lance!
Here his soul parted—
Break not, my heart!
Oh! what a deadly hurt,
Sinning, thou art.
Here the feet turn to thee;
Press them, my lips!
While a love-agony
Through my heart creeps!
Richard Storrs Willis.