With the first news of surrender came several Confederate officers, induced by fear of imprisonment to leave the country. Hon. J. P. Benjamin and General Breckinridge were the first to arrive. They were quickly followed by others; some came in small boats from the Florida coast, others via Mexico. Scarcely a day passed that news of fresh arrivals did not reach us, and we met many friends on that foreign shore whom we had not seen since the first gun was fired at Sumter. Generals Breckinridge, Toombs, Fry, Magruder, Bee, Preston, Early, and Commodore Maffitt, were at Hôtel Cubano about the same time. Many were accompanied by their wives. Exiles though all were, they enjoyed to-day, not knowing what the morrow had in store. One by one, as assurance of personal safety was secured, they drifted back to their old homes.
My husband set about with his wonderful energy to find a business opening in this foreign land, where matters seemed to be settled, though not on the best principles. He mingled as freely as possible with the people, cultivated the acquaintance of bankers and business-men, the most energetic and successful of whom were foreigners, and made various visits to the interior, always to return enamored of the soil and resources of what is really the most prolific spot on the globe.
Governor Moore, of Louisiana, joined us in our cerro home for weeks; and when he left, grand old General Toombs, “the noblest Roman of them all,” with his lovely and devoted wife, took the apartments vacated.
General Toombs joined in many of my husband’s trips over the island, and shared his admiration of its unrivaled agricultural wealth, while Mrs. Toombs and I sat in our marble-floored parlor or on the broad, gas-lighted veranda, and enjoyed the dolce far niente so much needed to restore our overtaxed and enfeebled constitutions.
CHAPTER XIV.
STREET SIGHTS AND SOUNDS—EVENINGS IN THE CITY—SHOPS AND SHOPPING—BEGGARS—VACCINATION.
The new, unfamiliar, and ever-varying street sights were an unfailing source of entertainment. The bulk of commercial business is transacted in the early morning. Clattering volantes, carrying merchants and bankers from princely homes around us to city offices, were the earliest sounds. Then followed a succession of peripatetic venders all day long. The milkman, with one poor little cow and straggling, muzzled calf, was our first visitor. In response to his shrill call, “Lêché,” Martha ran out and watched the dexterity in milking so as to overflow the cup with foam that subsided long before he turned the corner, revealing very little milk for a real.
The vegetable, fruit, and poultry men, with various jingling harness-bells, discordant cries or whistles, seemed to pass in an endless procession, with long lines of heavily laded ponies, the head of each tied to the closely plaited tail of its leader, the foremost one mounted by a guajiro (native peasant), his shirt worn outside the pantaloons, and belt ornamented with a broad knife. Poultry, generally tied by the feet in great bunches and thrown across the pony’s back, or attached to various parts of the saddle, dangled in a distressing condition until a purchaser was found; when released, it was often hours before they could stand. Sometimes the ponies were laded with meloja—young stalks of green corn, that had been sown broadcast—and one only saw great heaps of green, with the tips of the ears, switch of the tail, and stumbling feet of the weary animal visible. The water of the city, conducted from house to house in pipes, was so foul that even the poorest families denied themselves other necessaries to afford drinking-water brought from the springs at Marianao, nine miles distant, and carted in ten-gallon kegs all over the city. We paid a doubloon ($4.25) a month for it, delivered to us tri-weekly in those kegs. About noon, dulceros, with tinkling triangles or shrill calls, that always attracted children and servants, passed with large trays deftly poised on their heads, bearing little bowls and cups of freshly made sweetmeats, preserved guavas and mammees, grated cocoanut stewed in sugar, and a very delicious custard made with cocoanut-milk, besides various other fruit-preparations. Families daily supplied themselves with dessert from these dulceros, who walked the streets with their wares exposed, oblivious of sun or dust.
Volantes were generally kept inside the houses, and the horses stabled next to the kitchen. I have dined in elegant houses in Havana where as many as four vehicles were ranged against the dining-room walls, and the noise of stamping hoofs could be distinctly heard. In the cool of the evening, volantes and victorias sallied out of the houses. The fair occupants in full evening costume, already seated, their trailing robes, of brilliant colors and light, gauzy material, arranged to float outside the open vehicles, with shoulders and arms bare, and raven locks crowned with flowers, among which were tiny birds mounted on quivering wires, made a display of striking and unusual elegance. The coachman in full livery, silver-laced jacket, silver-buckled shoes, and immense spurs of the same metal, the horses prancing under the weight and jingle of silver-mounted harness and light chains, all proceeded in gay trot to join the endless procession that made the paseo in Havana the most animated and bewitching sight imaginable in those affluent days of Cuba.
At night, doors and windows of houses were flung wide open, showing a vista of rooms, from the brilliantly lighted salon through bedroom after bedroom, until the line of view vanished at the kitchen; bright lamps swung from all the ceilings, even that of the veranda; and in long rows of rocking-chairs, in never-ceasing motion, the señoras gayly chatted and sipped ices; while idle strollers in the streets paused to admire and audibly comment upon the elegant ladies or listen to the light nothings that were being uttered with so much spirit and gesture.
I never knew when the shops in Havana closed, nor when they opened their doors, nor saw them with all the shutters up, even on Sunday—except during the last three days of holy week, when business of every nature is entirely suspended. Returning after midnight from opera or ball, one found every store brilliantly lighted and thronged with jostling crowds. In the hot days, two or three hours’ shopping before breakfast was not unusual. The same men stood behind the counters day and night, many in their shirt-sleeves and smoking; though the most overworked human beings in existence, they always appeared fresh, and were exceedingly amiable and accommodating, even to the extent of leaving their own counters and accompanying strangers to other stores to act as interpreters. The leading merchants had men in their employ who spoke both French and English.