So the rain having made us domestic, I sit behind the grates of the swelling window, mending gloves, sewing on buttons (they foresaw the rain), listening to ludicrous passages from Handy Andy, taking lessons in cribbage, studying Spanish verbs, and watching the enraptured little boys sailing miniature boats in the street; or the stately negresses passing by with the rain dripping from umbrellas upon their bare shoulders; or the omnipresent soldiers hurrying along to get out of the rain and give me a glimpse of the irresistibly comical cut of their semi-skirted coats. I do not know how better to describe these coats than that they always remind me of the pathetic condition of those redoubtable three blind mice after
“They all ran after the farmer’s wife,
And she cut off their tails with the carving knife.”
This evening we mustered courage, India-rubbers, and umbrellas, and went to the cathedral to hear the Miserere. This being Holy Week, it was to be chanted every night. But the rain, that could not keep away curiosity, had quenched the fire of devotion. No one else came, and we wandered about in the silent aisles listening to no music but the echoings of our own voices through the high arches, and our footsteps over the marble floor. We saw by the dim light of the wax tapers, only vague outlines of statues and pictures draped in black crape for the sadness of the Passion-week.
Presently, through the deepening darkness, we saw emerge the black-robed figures of two pale, melancholy-looking young priests, moving about like spectres in the chancel, arranging images and ornaments, and, though unconscious of our presence, always kneeling and making the sign of the cross when passing the image of the Virgin.
Thursday, March 29th.—Again guirappa-seeking at the plantation, for our morning cordial. Young Mr. D——, who brought it, poured out the great pitcher nearly full that was left upon the ground. I exclaimed at his wastefulness, when he replied that it is free as water. The negroes and dogs all drink what they choose, and invariably grow fat in sugar time. Seeing close by a great black heap resembling a coal-pit, I inquired its nature. He said it was the animal charcoal with which the sugar is discolorized; that it comes only from Europe and nothing else can take its place. Thus the greatest whiteness and purity is obtained only by means of the blackest substance, as the whitest souls have grown fair through the darkest suffering, and sometimes, it may be, sin.
Directly a Chinese servant came from the house with the incomparable coffee and milk always used to pacify Cuban hunger until the late breakfast hour arrives. We swallowed their coffee, and they our thanks, with an equal appearance of pleasure.
In bowing ourselves away from the shadow of the building, where our horses had been standing, we turned upon a curious spectacle,—one of those skeleton horses that one so often sees moving mechanically about here under their enormous burdens. The horses pass for living, but I have more than once inclined to the supposition that it is the galvanic life which may be given to animals after death. As I was saying, one of these posthumous nags was slowly coming up the road, with a comfortable-visaged tin-pedlar mounted astride the roof of the edifice of which the horse was the basement, and between the two, and branching out each side of them, a huge pannier, plethoric with all the paraphernalia appertaining to a tin-pedlar. Over the top were dangling strings of tin basins and baking pans; long-handled dippers were hitting the poor animal’s ears at every step he took; and as he turned up to the house of one of the under overseers, I saw the man pull out from unknown depths wooden spoons, sticks of tape, molasses candy, yards of calico, china dolls, and tin boxes of shoe-blacking.
Mr. S—— is gone to Havana, and we are left quite at the mercy of our French, and the little Spanish we manage to extract from the grammar and dictionary. Nobody but our host understands a word of French, and in his absence you can imagine our mute helplessness. If anybody were to come in at that open door and ask permission to cut my throat, I should hardly be able to decline the civility or to express any opinion of my own on the subject. B——, however, as you know, is admirably ingenious in pantomime, so when we wish any thing I stand in the door, repeating by rote words I have just picked out of the dictionary, while he is stationed near talking with nose, eyes, hands, and feet, by way of explanation; as you remember, in the infancy of the drama among the Greeks, one performer stood out in the front of the stage repeating the words while the actors in the background gesticulated the play in pantomime. All this, as you may imagine, is infinitely amusing to the always-present retinue of staring servants (there are at least two and a baby to every guest). These darkeys take great pride in my success in making my wants known, by using the hissing whistling “ps-s-s-s-s-t,” with the tongue between the teeth, which always and everywhere answers in place of bells to call servants, and which I can do like a native.
I had nearly forgotten to mention a little incident that occurred the day of our arrival, and has since been frequently repeated. Dinner had just gone out, and we were sitting enjoying our exclusive knowledge of the English language, which makes us almost as much isolated as if we had the luxury of a separate table and house, and keeps the curiosity of the rest of the company in an absolutely abnormal condition of activity,—thus we were sitting and talking while waiting for the supplement, the amen to our dinner, viz., the cup of caffé noir (and, mind you, this word noir is by no means figurative: this after-dinner coffee is so black and opaque that if an elephant were in the bottom of the cup you could not see him). Well, as was I trying to say, we were sitting waiting and talking, when an unaccustomed noise was heard upon the brick pavement of the parlor; we looked, and lo! what should we see walking majestically through the parlor, through the doors, through our piazza, dining-room, through the walk of the courtyard, but the very fine, well-kept American horse of Monsieur, mine host. B—— and I were of course sufficiently amused, and the rest of the company sufficiently astonished at our amusement: the only novelty to them was that the horse came alone, without the volante.
Friday, March 30th.—This morning, as every morning, I was not awakened by the bells and clocks of Guiness; though, for the matter of a capacity to rupture sleep, they might have been invented by all the imps of discord. You can no more comprehend than you can describe them. It would be interesting to know where can have been found metal so base to produce sounds so execrable that “sweet bells jangled out of tune” would be heavenly harmony compared with them. You would suppose they been tuned by an earthquake. If I had to manage to endure them, I should see to it and have my hours longer, or farther apart. But yet, as I said, it was not the “braying, horrible discord” of the bells that sent Queen Mab off in a hysteric fit; it was, alas! the earlier five o’clock sounds of washings and scrubbings in the next rooms. Such scourings and pourings and dashings of walls and floors, and of all supposable things, were surely never heard out of Holland, where, Leigh Hunt tells us, the women wash everything but the water.