Manderson proposed a walk through the city, the reporter being our guide. Orange trees were to be seen on every side. We were surprised to find so large and prosperous a city in Florida, with so many substantial business houses and residences. The weather was delightful, neither too hot nor too cold, and in striking contrast with the cold and damp March air of Washington. From Jacksonville we went in a steamboat up the St. John's River to Enterprise. Florida was the part of the United States to be first touched by the feet of white men, and yet it seemed to me to be the most backward in the march of progress. It was interesting chiefly from its weird and valueless swamps, its sandy reaches and its alligators. It is a peninsula, dividing the Gulf of Mexico from the ocean, and a large part of it is almost unexplored. The part we traversed was low, swampy, with dense thickets, and apparently incapable of reclamation by drainage. The soil was sandy and poor and the impression left on my mind was that it could not be made very productive. There were occasional spots where the earth was far enough above the sea to insure the growth of orange trees, but even then the soil was thin, and to an Ohio farmer would appear only to be a worthless sand bank. This, however, does not apply to all points in Florida, especially not to the Indian River region, where fine oranges and other semitropical fruits are raised in great abundance. The Indian River is a beautiful body of water, really an arm of the sea, on the eastern coast of Florida, separated from the Atlantic by a narrow strip of land. The water is salt and abounds in game and fish.
At Sanford our party was joined by Senator Aldrich and his wife, and we proceeded by way of Tampa and Key West to Havana, where we arrived on the 17th of March. The short sail of ninety miles from Key West transported us to a country of perpetual summers, as different from the United States as is old Egypt. After being comfortably installed in a hotel we were visited by Mr. Williams, our consul general, who brought us an invitation from Captain General Callejas to call upon him. We did so, Mr. Williams accompanying us as interpreter. We were very courteously received and hospitably entertained. The captain general introduced us to his family and invited us to a reception in the evening, at which dancing was indulged in by the younger members of the party. We spent four very pleasant days in the old city, visiting several of the large cigar factories, a sugar plantation in the neighborhood and other scenes strange to our northern eyes. The ladies supplied themselves with fans gaily decorated with pictures of bull fights, and the men with Panama hats, these being products peculiar to the island.
Among the gentlemen of the party, as already stated, was Frank G. Carpenter, a bright young man born at Mansfield, Ohio, who has since made an enviable reputation as a copious and interesting letter writer for the press. His description of Havana is so true that I insert a few paragraphs of it here:
"Havana has about 300,000 inhabitants. It was a city when New York was still a village, and it is now 100 years behind any American town of its size. It is Spanish and tropical. The houses are low stucco buildings put together in block, and resting close up to narrow sidewalks. Most of them are of one or two stories, and their roofs are of red tile which look like red clay drain pipes cut in two and so laid that they overlap each other. The residences are usually built around a narrow court, and their floors are of marble, tile or stone. This court often contains plants and flowers, and it forms the loafing place of the family in the cool of the evening.
"These streets of Havana are so narrow that in some of them the carriages are compelled to go in one direction only. When they return they must go back by another street. The sidewalks are not over three feet wide, and it is not possible for two persons to walk abreast upon them. The better class of Cubans seldom walk, and the cabbys are freely called upon. The cab of Havana is a low Victoria holding two or three persons. Their tops come down so as to shade the eyes, and they have springs which keep every molecule of your body in motion while you ride in them. The horses use are hardy mongrel little ponylike animals, who look as though they were seldom fed and never cleaned.
"The traffic of Havana is largely done by oxen, and the two-wheeled cart is used exclusively. This cart is roughly made and it has a tongue as thick as a railroad tie, nailed to the body of the cart, and which extends to the heads of the oxen and is there fastened by a great yoke directly to the horns. The Cuban ox pulls by his head and not his shoulders. This yoke is strapped by ropes across the foreheads of the oxen, and they move along with their heads down, pushing great loads with their foreheads. They are guided by rope reins fastened to a ring in the nose of the ox. Some of the carts are for a single ox, and these have shafts of about the same railroad tie thickness, which are fastened to a yoke which is put over the horns in the same manner. Everything is of the rudest construction and the Egyptians of to-day are as well off in this regard.
"Prices of everything here seem to me to be very high, and the money of the country is dirty, nasty paper, which is always below par, and of which you get twelve dollars for five American ones. A Cuban dollar is worth about forty American cents, and this Cuban scrip is ground out as fast as the presses can print it. The lower denominations are five, ten, twenty and fifty cent pieces, and you get your boots blacked for ten Spanish cents. Even the gold of Cuba is below par, about six per cent. below the American greenback, and most of it and the silver in use has been punched or chipped to make money off of the pieces thus cut out. The country is deeply in debt, and the taxes are very heavy."
On the return voyage a strong northwest wind sprang up, and most of the party, especially the ladies, experienced the disagreeable effects of being on a small steamer in a rough sea. They had, however, all recovered by the time we reached Tampa, and as soon as we landed we started for Jacksonville.
In an interview shortly after my return from Cuba, I thus gave the impression made upon my mind as to its condition:
"And how did you enjoy your visit to Cuba?"