Due South; or, Cuba Past and Present

by Maturin M. Ballou

One of the principal causes of the present bankrupt condition of the people of Cuba is the critical period of transition through which the island is passing from slave to free labor; besides which there is the exhaustion consequent upon years of civil war and a succession of bad crops. Labor is becoming dearer and sugar cheaper. The Spaniards are slow to adopt labor-saving machinery, or new ideas of any sort, and those not already supplied have neither capital nor credit with which to procure the new machinery for sugar-making. The enormous production of European beet-sugar has cut off all Continental demand for their staple, and has in some degree superseded its use in America. Brigandage is on the increase, as poverty and want of legitimate employment prevail. Money, when it can be borrowed at all, is at a ruinous interest. The army of office-holders still manage to extort considerable sums in the aggregate from the people, under the guise of necessary taxes. Financial ruin stares all in the face. It is a sad thing to say, but only too true, that among people heretofore considered above suspicion in commercial transactions great dishonesty prevails, pecuniary distress and lack of credit driving men, once in good standing, to defraud their creditors at home and abroad. Estates and plantations are not only heavily mortgaged, but the prospective crops are in the same condition, in many cases. In former prosperous years the planters have been lavish spenders of money, ever ready to use their credit to the full extent, until their interest account has consumed their principal. The expensive habits acquired under the promptings of large profits and a sure market are difficult to overcome, and people who never anticipated the present state of affairs are now forced to exercise economy and self-denial. Cuban planters and their families, in years past, came to our most fashionable watering-places decked with jewels of almost fabulous value, and they lavished gold like water; most of these individuals considered themselves to be rich beyond the chances of fortune. Their profuse style of living was a source of envy; their liberality to landlords and to servants was demoralizing, as it regarded the tariff of hotel prices for more steady-going people. Thousands of human beings were yielding their enforced labor to fill these spendthrifts' purses, and sugar was king. The picture has its reverse. Civil war has supervened, the slaves are being freed, sugar is no longer a bonanza, and the rich man of yesterday is the bankrupt of to-day. Truly riches have wings.

Spain keeps a large and effective force of soldiers upon the island,—an army out of all proportion in numbers to the territory or people she holds in subjection. The present military force must number some forty thousand, rank and file, and the civil department fully equals the army in number; and all are home Spaniards. A large portion of the military are kept in the eastern department of the island, which is and has ever been the locality where revolutionary outbreaks occur. Eighty per cent, of all the soldiers ever sent to Cuba have perished there! It is as Castelar once pronounced the island to be, in the Cortes at Madrid, namely, the Campo Santo of the Spanish army. Exposure, a miserable commissariat, the climate, and insurgent bullets combine to thin the ranks of the army like a raging pestilence. We were informed by a responsible party that twenty-five per cent, of the newly-arrived soldiers died in their first year, during what is called their acclimation. Foreigners who visit Cuba for business or pleasure do so at the most favorable season; they are not subjected to hardships nor exposed in malarial districts. The soldiers, on the contrary, are sent indiscriminately into the fever districts at the worst season, besides being called upon to endure hardships, all the time, which predispose them to fatal diseases.

There are known to be organized juntas of revolutionists at Key West, Florida, in Hayti, and also in New York city, whose designs upon the Cuban government keep the authorities on the island in a state of chronic alarm. A revolutionary spirit is felt to be all the while smouldering in the hearts of this oppressed people, and hence the tyrannous espionage, and the cruelty exercised towards suspected persons. So enormous are the expenses, military and civil, which are required to sustain the government, under these circumstances, that Cuba to-day, notwithstanding the heavy taxes extorted from her populace, is an annual expense to the throne. Formerly the snug sum of seven or eight millions of dollars was the yearly contribution which the island made to the royal treasury, after paying local army, navy, and civil expenses. This handsome sum was over and above the pickings and stealings of the venal officials. As to the Cuban sympathizers at Key West, Florida, a recent visit to that port, just opposite to the island on the hither side of the Gulf Stream, showed us that they formed a large proportion of the population of that thrifty American town. On a day which was the anniversary of some patriotic occasion relating to the island, hundreds of Cuban flags (the single star of free Cuba) were seen displayed upon the dwellings and public places. There are believed to be two thousand Creoles residing here, who have either been expelled from the island for political reasons, or who have escaped from thence as suspected patriots. These people are very generally engaged in the manufacture of the well-known Key West cigars.

The Spanish army is governed with an iron hand. Military law knows no mercy, and it is always more or less a lapse into barbarism where it takes precedence. The ranks are filled by conscription in Spain, and when the men first arrive at Havana they are the rawest recruits imaginable. Soldiers who have been doing garrison duty are sent inland to fill the decimated ranks of various stations, and room is thus made for the recruits, who are at once put to work, enduring a course of severe discipline and drill. They land from the transports, many of them, hatless, barefooted, and in a filthy condition, with scarcely a whole garment among a regiment of them. The writer could hardly believe, on witnessing the scene, that they were not a set of criminals being transported for penal servitude. Fatigue dresses no doubt awaited them at the barracks, and after a while they would be served with a cheap uniform, coarse shoes, and straw hats. They are like sheep being driven to the shambles, and are quite as helpless. Twenty-five per cent, and upwards of these recruits are usually under the sod before the close of a twelve-month!

Sometimes the hardship they have to endure breeds rebellion among them, but woe betide those who commit any overt act, or become leaders of any organized attempt to obtain justice. The service requires frequent victims as examples to enforce the rigid discipline. The punishment by the garrote is a common resort. It is a machine contrived to choke the victim to death without suspending him in the air. At the same time it is fatal in another way, namely, by severing the spinal column just below its connection with the brain. The condemned man is placed upon a chair fixed on a platform, leaning his head and neck back into a sort of iron yoke or frame prepared to receive it. Here an iron collar is clasped about the throat. At the appointed moment a screw is suddenly turned by the executioner, stationed behind the condemned, and instantaneous death follows. This would seem to be more merciful than hanging, whereby death is produced by the lingering process of suffocation, to say nothing of the many mishaps which so often occur upon the gallows. This mode of punishment is looked upon by the army as a disgrace, and they much prefer the legitimate death of a soldier, which is to fall by the bullets of his comrades when condemned to die.

The writer witnessed one of these military executions, early on a clear April morning, which took place in the rear of the barracks near La Punta. It was a trying experience, and recalled to mind the execution of the mulatto poet and patriot, Valdez, which had occurred a few years before in the Plaza at Matanzas. It was a sight to chill the blood even under a tropical sun. A soldier of the line was to be shot for some act of insubordination against the stringent rules of the army, and that the punishment might prove a forcible example to his comrades the battalion to which he belonged was drawn up on parade to witness the cruel scene. The immediate file of twelve men to which the victim had belonged were supplied with muskets by their officer, and we were told that, according to custom, one musket was left without ball, so that each one might hope that his was not the hand to slay his former comrade. A sense of mercy would still lead them all to aim faithfully, so that lingering pain might be avoided.

The order was given: the bright morning sun shone like living fire along the polished barrels of the guns, as the fatal muzzles all ranged in point at the body of the condemned. "Fire!" said the commanding officer. A quick, rattling report followed, accompanied by a thin cloud of smoke, which was at once dispersed by the sea breeze, showing the still upright form of the victim. Though wounded in many places, no vital spot had been touched, nor did he fall until the sergeant, at a sign from his officer, advanced with a reserved musket, and quickly blew out his brains! His body was removed. The troops were formed into column, the band struck up a lively air, and thus was a human being launched into eternity.

Few current matters strike the stranger as being more peculiar than the Cuban milkman's mode of supplying the required aliment to his town customers. He has no cart bearing shining cans, they in turn filled with milk, or with what purports to be milk; his mode is direct, and admits of no question as to purity. Driving his sober kine from door to door, he deliberately milks then and there just the quantity required by each customer, delivers it, and drives on to the next. The patient animal becomes as familiar with the residences of her master's customers as he is himself, and stops unbidden, at regular intervals, before the proper doors, often followed by a pretty little calf, which amuses itself by gazing enviously at the process, being prevented from interfering by a leather muzzle. Sometimes the flow of milk is checked by an effort of the animal herself, when she seems to realize that the calf is not getting its share of nourishment. The driver then promptly brings the calf to the mother's side, and removes the muzzle long enough to give the little one a brief chance. The cow freely yields her milk while the calf is close to her, and the milkman, muzzling the calf, adroitly milks into his measure. The same mode is adopted in India and the south of Spain. There are at least two good reasons for delivering milk in hot climates after this fashion. First, there can be no adulteration of the article; and second, it is sure to be fresh and sweet. This last is a special desideratum in a climate where ice is an expensive luxury, and the difficulty of keeping milk from becoming acid is very great. The effect upon the cow is by no means salutary, causing the animal to produce much less in quantity than when milked clean at regularly fixed hours, as with us. Goats are often driven about for the same purpose and used in the same manner. It was a surprise not to see more of these animals in Cuba, a country especially adapted to them. Cows thrive best upon grass, of which there is comparatively little in the tropics,—vegetation runs to larger development; but goats eat anything green, and do well nearly anywhere. It is a singular fact that sheep transported to this climate cease gradually to produce wool. After three or four generations they grow only a simple covering, more like hair than wool, and resemble goats rather than sheep.

Glass is scarcely known in Cuban windows; the glazier has yet to make his début in Havana. The most pretentious as well as the humblest of the town-houses have the broad, high, projecting window, reaching from floor to ceiling, secured only by heavy horizontal iron bars, prison-like in effect, through which, as one passes along the narrow streets, it is nearly impossible to avoid glancing in upon domestic scenes that frequently exhibit the female portion of the family en déshabillé. Sometimes a loose lace curtain intervenes, but even this is unusual, the freest circulation of fresh air being quite necessary. The eye penetrates the whole interior of domestic life, as at Yokohama or Tokio. Indeed, the manners of the female occupants seem to court this attention from without, coming freely as they do to the windows to chat with passers-by. Once inside of these dwelling-houses there are no doors, curtains alone shutting off the communication between chambers, sitting-rooms, and corridors. These curtains, when not looped up, are sufficient to keep out persons of the household or strangers, it being the custom always to speak, in place of knocking, before passing a curtain; but the little naked negro children, male and female, creep under these curtains without restraint, while parrots, pigeons, and fowls generally make common use of all nooks and corners of the house. Doors might keep these out of one's room, but curtains do not. The division walls between the apartments in private houses, like those in the hotels, often reach but two thirds of the way up to the walls, thus affording free circulation of air, but rendering privacy impossible. One reason why the Cubans all possess such broad expanded chests is doubtless owing to the fact that their lungs find free action at all times. They live, as it were, in the open air. The effect of this upon strangers is seen and felt, producing a sense of physical exhilaration, fine spirits, and a good appetite. It would be impossible to live in a dwelling-house built in our close, secure style, if it were placed in the city of Havana. The laundress takes possession of the roof of the house during the day, but it is the place of social gathering at night, when the family and their guests enjoy the sea-breeze which sweeps in from the Gulf of Mexico. On a clear, bright moonlight night the effect is very striking as one looks across the house-tops, nearly all being upon a level. Many cheerful circles are gathered here and there, some dancing to the notes of a guitar, some singing, and others engaged in quiet games. Merry peals of laughter come from one direction and another, telling of light and thoughtless hearts among the family groups. Occasionally there is borne along the range of roofs the swelling but distant strains of the military band playing in the Plaza de Isabella, while the moon looks calmly down from a sky whose intensely blue vault is only broken by stars.

The cemetery, or Campo Santo, of Havana is situated about three miles outside of the city. A high wall incloses the grounds, in which oven-like niches are prepared for the reception of the coffins containing the bodies of the wealthy residents, while the poor are thrown into shallow graves, often several bodies together in a long trench, negroes and whites, without a coffin of any sort. Upon them is thrown quicklime to promote rapid decomposition. The cremation which forms the mode of disposing of the bodies of the deceased as practiced in India is far less objectionable.