Cuba: Its Past, Present, and Future

by A. D. Hall

The houses, many of them palaces, wonderfully beautiful within, but situated on dark and dirty alleys, are all built about a central courtway. There are no fireplaces anywhere, nor a window shielded with glass in the whole city. The windows have iron bars, and within those of the first story is the inevitable row of American rocking chairs. Through these bars the Cuban lover interviews his inamorata. It would be the height of indecorum for him to approach nearer, to seek to speak with her within the walls of her own home, even in the presence of her father and mother.

Cows are driven about the streets and milked in front of your own door, when you desire the lacteal fluid. This custom is, at all events, a safeguard against adulteration.

Ladies do not go into the shops to make purchases, but all goods are brought out to them as they sit in their volantes.

By the way, the volante (flyer) is the national carriage and no other, practically, is used in the country. It consists of a two seated vehicle, slung low down by leather straps from the axle of two large wheels, and it has shafts fifteen feet long. The horse in the shafts is led by a postillion, whose horse is harnessed on the other side of the shafts in the same manner. The carriage is extremely comfortable to travel in, and the height of the wheels and their distance apart prevent all danger of turning over, although the roads in the country are for the most part, mere tracks through fields and open land. Ox carts and pack mules are used for conveying goods in the interior of the island outside of the meagre railway lines.

Havana has some beautiful public parks and some really fine statues, chiefly those of Spain's former rulers.

Its principal theatre, the Tacon, is celebrated throughout the world for its size and beauty. In regard to theatres, there is one peculiar custom in Havana: By the payment of a certain sum, beyond the price of admission, one is allowed to go behind the scenes between the acts. This privilege has caused great annoyance to many eminent artists.

The cathedral of Havana is rather imposing in architecture, although it is badly situated, but it is very interesting because there is an urn within its walls which is said, and with a large semblance of truth, to contain the bones of Columbus.

Space does not permit us to tell of all the charms of Havana, but, suffice it to say, that it was and will be again, under far happier conditions too, one of the most delightful cities in the world.

The city of Cuba, next in commercial importance to Havana, is Matanzas. It is beautifully situated on the north coast, about seventy miles from Havana, and has a population of about fifty thousand. The climate is fine, and Matanzas is considered the healthiest city on the island. With proper drainage (something that has hitherto been almost unknown in Cuba as are all other sanitary arrangements) yellow fever and malaria would be almost unknown. If it should ever come under American enterprise, the city would develop into a superb pleasure resort and be a fatal rival to the Florida towns. We cannot forbear to mention the Caves of Bellamar. These are not far from Matanzas and are subterranean caverns, of which there are a number in Cuba. The walls and roofs are covered with stalactites of every conceivable hue and shape, and forming pictures of beauty far beyond anything conceived of, even in the Arabian Nights.

The most modern city of importance is Cienfuegos (as its name signifies, the City of a Hundred Fires). It has a population of about twenty-six thousand and its harbor is one of the best on the southern coast, with a depth of 27 feet at the anchorage, and from 14 to 16 feet at the wharves.