A Trip to Cuba

by Julia Ward Howe

We find little news in Havana. B. has gone to Trinidad de Cuba,—C. has gone to New Orleans. The Bachelor who daily treated to oranges is among the departed, and remembering his benefactions, we wish him a safe return and continuance of celibacy. Carnival has been gay,—Concha gave a Ball, and our Consul plucked up heart and went, and introduced eight of our countrywomen, elegantly dressed, no doubt, and not speaking a word of Spanish, nor the Consul neither,—one of the requisites of an American foreign Official being that he shall be capable of no foreign language. This rule has been rigorously adhered to by the Administration for twenty years past, and in some instances, a tolerable ignorance of English has been added, as a merit of supererogation. However, to return to the Ball, one of the ladies performed in Boarding-school French, and as far as looks went, they made a decidedly good impression. The little English Lords are expected,—Ladies, do not flutter so!—it is not the fascinating English Lord who has glittered like a diamond for two years past on the finger of Washington diplomacy. These are Boys, and by all accounts, good ones.

There is an Englishman at the hotel already, and he quarrels with his victuals in a manner that is awful, quite reminding one of the stories of unthankful children, whom the wolves get. And he labors with the unknown Spanish like a ship at sea, and steers for this dish and that with undistinguishable orders. Though I know him not, I must help him when I see him struggling so for his dinner, winking, pointing, and sputtering to the waiters without result. The wretch has been in Italy, and would make the softer idiom serve his turn here. "Riso, eh, riso, riz, rice," says he, with extended index. "Trae el arroz al Señor" comes timely to his aid, and with a few more helpings he is fed, though not satisfied. So irrational, so unappeasable is his appetite, that one cannot help thinking he has heard the story of the Belly and the Members in his youth, and has determined to avenge the injured ganglion of its ancient tormentors.

But among so many faces, remembered and sketched with little pleasure, there is one whose traits I must record as a labor of love. It belonged to one of the recent arrivals at the hotel, and was first seen in strong contrast with the countenance of the gluttonous Englishman, which it regarded with grave wonder. Expressive dark eyes, fine brows, heavy black hair, and a clear skin, subdued by ill-health, were its principal points of interest, but such enumeration can give you no more idea of its charm than an auctioneer's catalogue of furniture can suggest the features of a happy home. I had heard of its owner, but had never seen her before, yet we met somehow like people who had known each other, and a few commonplace phrases ended in a dialogue like this: "Are you A?"—"Yes,—are you B?"—"Yes;" and eternal friendship, though not sworn, set in immediately, and still perseveres. Modesty forbids us to praise our friend,—the very epithet "my friend," says the utmost we can say for any one. So I must not further celebrate my new-found treasure, who from this moment became the companion of all my steps in Cuba. I will only say that she was an apple-blossom of our Northern Spring, grafted upon a noble Southern stock, and turning her face now to the regions of the sun for healing warmth. Readers! you have all heard of her,—you would all give your ears to know her name. Keep them, you shall not.

In this pleasant company we sought San Antonio again. My friend was not doing well in Havana, and the graceful head was bowed every day lower by pain and weakness. But once out of the pent-up city, the head rose like a lily after rain, and all the little journey was pleasure and surprise. The tangled thickets, the new trees, the strange flowers, filled her with admiration. This was Cuba. Havana was, what is everywhere almost alike, the World. And soon we came to the clear, low-running river, with its green, bushy banks. And the next whistle of the steam-engine, like a fairy horn, called up the pretty village, with its streets and bridges, its one church, and its diminutive Plaza. We walk along the newly paved street, lined with small dwellings built of palm and plaster. The naked children are playing at the doors, the fathers and mothers are making cigars, or smoking them, the soldiers are walking vacantly about, and the small shopkeepers are looking out from behind their dull counters, piled with the refuse of the better markets. Here is the American Hotel, and just opposite, the eternal piano is playing "Norma," as it always did twelve hours out of twenty-four, and was a nuisance. But let me not grumble, for at the door of that house stand Mariquilla and Dolores, to welcome me back, and, hearing their voices, Norma leaves the instrument of her revenge, and comes out to embrace me. It is pleasant, is it not, to arrive where some one is glad to see you? These kind people quite warm my heart with their welcome. Mrs. L. at the hotel, too, is always glad to see a boarder, especially if he have with him a trunk that looks like staying. So we are fèted all around, and have the best rooms given us, and are happy.

In the evening, I betake myself to the house opposite, which was familiar to me in my earlier visit, but of which I now speak for the first time. Its inmates are in comfortable, though moderate circumstances, and their habits are the type of Cuban village-life. Here I meet the accustomed circle,—fie! they have no circle, but sit in two long parallel lines, and rock, and smoke at each other. Papa is a small, slight Spaniard, with good manners and no teeth. Mamma is not more than forty,—a massive, handsome woman, with that dignity of expression which is beyond beauty,—she is simple in her dress, and quiet in all her ways, but her thoughtful eyes make you remember her. Mariquilla is a buxom girl, some thirty years of age, who uses ten cosmetics in her bath, and still preserves a tolerably fresh complexion. Dolores is quiet and gentle, and spends her days in taking care of two little motherless children, whose father brings them every morning, and takes them away at night. Maria Luisa, whom I call Norma, is the only daughter of the family. She is pretty and modest, slight and small, like her father, but with fine eyes. She is a great Belle, we are told, in the neighborhood, and her musical accomplishment is considered prodigious. Besides these we find Dotor Hernandez, the village Physician, an Aragonese, thick-set and vigorous, with a good honest face, and Juanito, the Music-Master, a youth of eighteen, from Barcelona, with straight black hair, a pock-marked countenance, and a pair of as mischievous black eyes as ever looked demurely into the mysteries of the divine art. He is just offering cigarettes to all the family. Mamma has taken one, so have Dolores and Mariquilla,—he hands me the little packet with: "Te fuma, Hulita?" and seems rather surprised at my refusal, supposing doubtless that women of a certain age smoke, all over the world. One small lamp dimly illuminates this family party. When music is proposed, two candles, not of wax, are lighted, and placed on the piano. I sing a song or two, which they are good enough to call "muy bonito," and then, Maria Luisa, invited in turn, thunders through "Norma," from Overture to Finale. Oh! I have not described the piano,—it is a grand one, and bears the name of Stoddard. It should be about sixty years old, and would seem to have been through three generations and ten boarding-schools. It is a sort of skeleton piano, empty of music, and the rattling of its poor old bones makes mine ache. After the Opera, dancing is proposed. Juanito is disabled with a lame hand, and Maria Luisa volunteers to play the new contra-danza. It is christened "the Atlantic Telegraph," and is full of jerks and interruptions, having nothing very definite about it. We have learned the contra-danza of Dolores, on a former occasion, but now they all say "Hulita must dance with the Doctor," and to that consummate honor she resigns herself. That distinguished functionary divests himself of his cigar, polishes his perspiring forehead with his handkerchief, and offers himself as a candidate for her hand. "Vamos," he says, and they begin a slow, circling measure, to a music which is nondescript. Quiet work this, none of your spasmodic Waltzes, kicking Polkas, and teetotum jigmarigs. This gentle revolution seems imitated from the movement of the planets, or perhaps the dance of the seasons,—gravity pervades it,—it is a slow eternity. The rest of the family group has resolved itself into couples,—we all go round and round, and suddenly confront each other for a right and left, and look delighted, and then go round again. This dreamy performance goes on, until we have just sense enough left to remember that there is such a thing as bed-time. We break off, inquire the hour, find it late, say that we must go, which occasions no surprise. The piano ceases,—the candles are put out. There is a general kissing and "Buenas noches, Hulita." Dotor Hernandez sees us home. We pass every evening at the house opposite, and all the evenings are like this.

CHAPTER XVI.
SAN ANTONIO—CHURCH ON SUNDAY—THE NORTHER—THE S. FAMILY.

THE least shrub has its blossom, if you only know how to find it. The dullest country town in New England has its days when people hear speeches and get drunk, the one act illustrating the morals, the other the manners of the community. In like manner, the smallest village in Cuba has its Sunday, when the imprisoned women go to church in their best clothes, the men attend cockfights, and in the evening there is ball or sermon, according as the Church makes feast or fast. The population of San Antonio does not seem particularly given to weekday devotion, nor indeed do you anywhere in Cuba find men and women praying in the churches, as you do in Rome. There is a degree of sobriety among the people in all things, partly Spanish, it may be, partly the result of the extreme climate,—certain it is, that the Cuban Spaniard has not, either in pleasure or devotion, the extravagance of the French or Italian. The church at San Antonio was always open, but I always found it empty, except on the one Sunday morning when I went thither to observe manners and customs. High mass was at eight o'clock, and was in all respects a miniature of the same ceremonial as described at Matanzas, the accompaniment of martial music and the regiment being left out. The body of the church was covered with prayer-carpets, which were closely occupied by kneeling figures. The display of good dresses and good looks was cheerful and invigorating. There was less flouncing and fanning, methought, than in the larger town; but no doubt the usual telegraphy was carried on, only in a more covert manner, as became the severer exigencies of village decorum. The priest went through his harmless little functions at the altar with what seemed to be a calico Dalmatique on his back, but we have no doubt that it was a brocade of creditable thickness. What he said was, of course, inaudible. Juanito was at the organ, perched sideways in a high gallery, so that his impish face and dancing eyes formed a part of the picture. Though nearer heaven in his position, he looked more full of the devil (pardon the expression) than we had ever seen him. With him were three young choristers, laboring away at the "Kyrie Eleison,"—he made the fourth in the Quartette, and played the accompaniment, too, losing, moreover, nothing of what went on below. The music was good, very like something of Mozart's, but when subsequently interrogated, Juanito declared it to have been a Capriccio of his own. We can only say, that if it was not Mozart's, we shall certainly hear of Juanito some day, as a composer.

The two old beggars who take off their tattered hats with such stately humility all the week, were here to-day, but did not beg in church. Item, they do not chatter like their Italian brethren in the trade, but commence a slow statement of their grievances, which you interrupt with "nada," nothing, when they walk sadly away. A Cuban generally gives them something, and always without rebuke. In the church was, too, a kneeling figure of Christ, neither divine nor human, fastened to a platform, with four lanterns at the four corners,—it is carried through the streets on Fridays in Lent for devotion, and the priests chant, and bear candles before it.

Well, Mass is over, and we walk back to the hotel,—and here is our pretty neighbor, Maria Luisa, watching at the door to see the people come from church. "What, not at Mass, Maria Luisa?" "No, I'm so sorry, but Papa is away, and Dolores has a cold, and Mariquilla has been sitting up with a sick friend, so there was no one to go with me." Clearly, there is a laxity in matters of religion in the house opposite. On the other hand public opinion, even in San Antonio, would never have permitted Maria Luisa, or any other female under sixty to have walked the quiet streets without escort, upon whatever errand of piety or of charity. Scarcely to the bedside of a dying mother might she go, unattended by a suitable companion. We pass the remainder of the Sunday in quiet resignation to the heat, the thermometer standing at 86 in the shade, (say, on the fourth of March,) and letter-writing causing one to perspire like a wood-sawyer, or a stout youth in the Polka. For the nobler sex, there is the cockpit,—all the cafés and billiards too are full of soldiers and countrymen,—one hears the click of the balls throughout the quiet streets. Towards sunset we walk out, and find the village alive with little groups of people, and the windows of the houses, at least the window-gratings, filled with the best women in the best dresses. Some of them are well got-up. All look cool, easy, and indolent. Here and there is seen amongst them the glimmer of a furtive cigar. We pass the Cavalry Barracks, once a spacious monastery, and see the horses gathered in from their wide pasture for the night. They obey the voice, and with a little driving, make a tolerable charge at the arched doorway, and carry it in style. The sense of smell too is regaled with the savory odors of the soldiers' supper, and looking in at a grating, we see huge stewpans simmering over charcoal fires,—the rest in darkness, for it now grows late. The men are a stouter looking set than the regiment we saw at Matanzas, but the horses have not the bone and muscle requisite for heavy action,—they could only make respectable light-horse. Returning home, we meet our friends of the house opposite going to "Sermon," as they tell us, for this is Lent, and not Carnival. Mamma wears a black veil,—the others are bareheaded. We have still tea to look forward to, but under such difficulties! we have given a dollar for a teapot which in Boston should cost twenty-five cents. Our precious pound of black tea, brought from home, has not yet given out, but how hard is it to make Antonio, the head-waiter, put the tea in the pot, make the water boil, and pour it boiling over the tea. Yet this sacred rite we accomplish every evening. It has the solemnity of a religious observance, for where the tea-table is, there is home. After tea, a chair by the well in the middle of the Court, and a silent feast of tropical starlight. The lady of the house is chattering nothings with that queer Californian, who looks as much like a spoiled preacher as anything. The excitable Carolinian has got some one to hear him abuse Cuba, and glorify Charleston. Yonder at the left angle the flare of a lamp betrays the kitchen, and in the next compartment of the picture Polonia, the slave washer-woman, who has been kept at the ironing-table all day, vents her feelings in passionate snatches of talk, shakes her kerchiefed head, tosses her arms about, and returns to the ironing with more determination than ever. Poor slave,—a great debt was piled up against her before she was born, and the labor of all her life cannot work it out. Bankrupt must she die, and hand down the debt, sole inheritance, to her children. So the world to the slave is a debtor's prison, with a good or bad Jailer, and for utmost alleviation, an occasional treat all round. And while the cooking, and chattering, and ironing goes on about us, Reader, you and I will ponder this, sitting by the well, under the stars set an hundred thousand miles deep in the dark velvet of the tropical heavens.

This was Sunday, and with the next day came one of those changes which resemble in kind, not in degree, the caprices of our own Continental climate. The day has been a little less genial than usual, still we are all comfortably seated at dinner, when a sudden wind shakes the house, and blowing in furiously at the blinds, threatens to make the tablecloth fly over our heads. A fierce shower of rain follows,—our table is set in a gallery inclosed on one side only with Venetian blind-work, and through this the rain rushes at us like a volley of canes flung into the pit of a theatre. It grows dark, and for an hour or so, very cold. There is an instantaneous closing of doors and wooden window-shutters, and we of the Dinner protect ourselves from the wet and chill with the few warm garments we have with us,—for is not the bulk of our solid clothing laid up at Havana in that sea-trunk which we could wish never to open again? We pass the remainder of the afternoon under hatches, as it were. The rain soon exhausts itself, but the cold wind continues for some days. This is the Norther, fatal to yellow fever, but fatal also to those who are ill of it, and dreaded by all patients whatever. To us, the storm being over, the wind is only chilly, bringing with it a dull sky, and the desire for exercise, but the invalids shrivel up in it like rose-leaves in a frost,—the hectic gives place to deadly pallor, and the purple hues that mark the orbit of the eye come out, stronger than ever. Meeting, they interrogate each other's faces with anxious looks, as if wishing to see what headway their little community could keep against the common foe. The aspect of the streets is changed. The women scarcely appear, save where you see the heads of three or four of them in a row, looking through the small square breathing-hole cut in the window-shutters, and giving one the idea of so many people standing erect in their coffins. The men walk moodily about, each one enveloped in the dark folds of a Spanish cloak, or capa, of which the material varies from fine to coarse, but the shape is always the same. These solemn, stalking figures so resemble the mysterious personages of the theatre, the bandits, spies, disguised lovers, and other varmint, that we saw for once where the stage has preserved a tradition of real life, these costumes having been, no doubt, long since imitated from Spain, and never changed.