The West Indies and the Spanish Main

by Anthony Trollope

House rent may be taken as being nearly four times as high as it is in any decent but not fashionable part of London, and the wages of house servants are twice as high as they are with us. The high prices in the Havana are such therefore as to affect the resident rather than the stranger. One article, however, is very costly; but as it concerns a luxury not much in general use among the inhabitants this is not surprising. If a man will have his linen washed he will be made to pay for it.

There is nothing attractive about the town of Havana; nothing whatever to my mind, if we except the harbour. The streets are narrow, dirty, and foul. In this respect there is certainly much difference between those within and without the wall. The latter are wider, more airy, and less vile. But even in them there is nothing to justify the praises with which the Havana is generally mentioned in the West Indies. It excels in population, size, and no doubt in wealth any other city there; but this does not imply a great eulogium. The three principal public buildings are the Opera House, the Cathedral, and the palace of the Captain-General. The former has been nearly knocked down by an explosion of gas, and is now closed. I believe it to be an admirable model for a second-rate house. The cathedral is as devoid of beauty, both externally and internally, as such an edifice can be made. To describe such a building would be an absurd waste of time and patience. We all know what is a large Roman Catholic church, built in the worst taste, and by a combination of the lowest attributes of Gothic and Latin architecture. The palace, having been built for a residence, does not appear so utterly vile, though it is the child of some similar father. It occupies one side of a public square or pláza, and from its position has a moderately-imposing effect. Of pictures in the Havana there are none of which mention should be made.

But the glory of the Havana is the Paseo—the glory so called. This is the public drive and fashionable lounge of the town—the Hyde Park, the Bois de Boulogne, the Cascine, the Corso, the Alaméda. It is for their hour on the Paseo that the ladies dress themselves, and the gentlemen prepare their jewelry. It consists of a road running outside a portion of the wall, of the extent perhaps of half a mile, and ornamented with seats and avenues of trees, as are the boulevards at Paris. If it is to be compared with any other resort of the kind in the West Indies, it certainly must be owned there is nothing like it; but a European on first seeing it cannot understand why it is so eulogized. Indeed, it is probable that if he first goes thither alone, as was the case with me, he will pass over it, seeking for some other Paseo.

But then the glory of the Paseo consists in its volantes. As one boasts that one has swum in a gondola, so will one boast of having sat in a volante. It is the pride of Cuban girls to appear on the Paseo in these carriages on the afternoons of holidays and Sundays; and there is certainly enough of the picturesque about the vehicle to make it worthy of some description. It is the most singular of carriages, and its construction is such as to give a flat contradiction to all an Englishman's preconceived notions respecting the power of horses.

The volante is made to hold two sitters, though there is sometimes a low middle seat which affords accommodation to a third lady. We will commence the description from behind. There are two very huge wheels, rough, strong, high, thick, and of considerable weight. The axles generally are not capped, but the nave shines with coarse polished metal. Supported on the axletree, and swinging forward from it on springs, is the body of a cabriolet such as ordinary cabriolets used to be, with the seat, however, somewhat lower, and with much more room for the feet. The back of this is open, and generally a curtain hangs down over the open space. A metal bar, which is polished so as to look like silver, runs across the footboard and supports the feet. The body, it must be understood, swings forward from these high wheels, so that the whole of the weight, instead of being supported, hangs from it. Then there are a pair of shafts, which, counting from the back of the carriage to the front where they touch the horse at the saddle, are about fourteen feet in length. They do not go beyond the saddle, or the tug depending from the saddle in which they hang. From this immense length it comes to pass that there is a wide interval, exceeding six feet, between the carriage and the horse's tail; and it follows also, from the construction of the machine, that a large portion of the weight must rest on the horse's back.

In addition to this, the unfortunate horse has ordinarily to bear the weight of a rider. For with a volante your servant rides, and does not drive you. With the fashionable world on the Paseo a second horse is used—what we should call an outrider—and the servant sits on this. But as regards those which ply in the town, there is but one horse. How animals can work beneath such a yoke was to me unintelligible.

The great point in the volante of fashion is the servant's dress. He is always a negro, and generally a large negro. He wears a huge pair—not of boots, for they have no feet to them—of galligaskins I may call them, made of thick stiff leather, but so as to fit the leg exactly. The top of them comes some nine inches above the knee, so that when one of these men is seen seated at his ease, the point of his boot nearly touches his chin. They are fastened down the sides with metal fastenings, and at the bottom there is a huge spur. The usual dress of these men, over and above their boots, consists of white breeches, red jackets ornamented with gold lace, and broad-brimmed straw hats. Nothing can be more awkward, and nothing more barbaric than the whole affair; but nevertheless there is about it a barbaric splendour, which has its effect. The great length of the equipage, and the distance of the horse from his work, is what chiefly strikes an Englishman.

The carriage usually holds, when on the Paseo, two or three ladies. Their great object evidently has been to expand their dresses, so that they may group well together, and with a good result as regards colour. It must be confessed that in this respect they are generally successful. They wear no head-dress when in their carriages, and indeed may generally be seen out of doors with their hair uncovered. Though they are of Spanish descent, the mantilla is unknown here. Nor could I trace much similarity to Spanish manner in other particulars. The ladies do not walk like Spanish women—at least not like the women of Andalusia, with whom one would presume them to have had the nearest connection. The walk of the Andalusian women surpasses that of any other, while the Cuban lady is not graceful in her gait. Neither can they boast the brilliantly dangerous beauty of Seville. In Cuba they have good eyes, but rarely good faces. The forehead and the chin too generally recede, leaving the nose with a prominence that is not agreeable. But as my gallantry has not prevented me from speaking in this uncourteous manner of their appearance, my honesty bids me add, that what they lack in beauty they make up in morals, as compared with their cousins in Europe. For travelling en garçon I should probably prefer the south of Spain. But were I doomed to look for domesticity in either clime—and God forbid that such a doom should be mine!—I might perhaps prefer a Cuban mother for my children.

But the volante is held as very precious by the Cuban ladies. The volante itself I mean—the actual vehicle. It is not intrusted, as coaches are with us, to the dusty mercies of a coach-house. It is ordinarily kept in the hall, and you pass it by as you enter the house; but it is by no means uncommon to see it in the dining-room. As the rooms are large and usually not full of furniture, it does not look amiss there.

The amusements of the Cubans are not very varied, and are innocent in their nature; for the gambling as carried on there I regard rather as a business than an amusement They greatly love dancing, and have dances of their own and music of their own, which are peculiar, and difficult to a stranger. Their tunes are striking, and very pretty. They are fond of music generally, and maintain a fairly good opera company at the Havana. In the pláza there—the square, namely, in front of the Captain-General's house—a military band plays from eight to nine every evening. The place is then thronged with people, but by far the majority of them are men.