To Cuba and Back

by Richard Henry Dana

I notice, and my observation is supported by what I am told by the residents here, that there is no street-walking, in the technical sense, in Havana. Whether this is from the fact that no ladies walk in the streets—which are too narrow for comfortable or even safe walking—or by reason of police regulations, I do not know. From what one meets with in the streets, if he does not look farther, one would not know that there was a vice in Havana, not even drunkenness.

VII

HAVANA: Belén and the Jesuits

Rose before six, and walked as usual, down the Paseo, to the sea baths. How refreshing is this bath, after the hot night and close rooms! At your side, the wide blue sea with its distant sails, the bath cut into the clean rock, the gentle washing in and out of the tideless sea, at the Gulf Stream temperature, in the cool of the morning! As I pass down, I meet a file of coolies, in Chinese costume, marching, under overseers, to their work or their jail. And there is the chain-gang! clank, clank, as they go headed by officers with pistols and swords, and flanked by drivers with whips. This is simple wretchedness!

While at breakfast, a gentleman in the dress of the regular clergy, speaking English, called upon me, bringing me, from the bishop an open letter of introduction and admission to all the religious, charitable, and educational institutions of the city, and offering to conduct me to the Belén (Bethlehem). He is Father B. of Charleston, S. C. temporarily in Havana, with whom I find I have some acquaintances in common, both in America and abroad. We drive together to the Belén. I say drive; for few persons walk far in Havana, after ten o'clock in the morning. The volantes are the public carriages of Havana; and are as abundant as cabs in London. You never need stand long at a street door without finding one. The postilions are always Negroes; and I am told that they pay the owner a certain sum per day for the horse and volante, and make what they can above that.

The Belén is a group of buildings, of the usual yellow or tawny color, covering a good deal of ground, and of a thoroughly monastic character. It was first a Franciscan monastery, then a barrack, and now has been given by the government to the Jesuits. The company of Jesus here is composed of a rector and about forty clerical and twenty lay brethren. These perform every office, from the highest scientific investigations and instruction, down to the lowest menial offices, in the care of the children; some serving in costly vestments at the high altar, and others in coarse black garb at the gates. It is only three years since they established themselves in Havana, but in that time they have formed a school of two hundred boarders and one hundred day scholars, built dormitories for the boarders, and a common hall, restored the church and made it the most fully attended in the city; established a missionary work in all parts of the town, recalled a great number to the discipline of the Church, and not only created something like an enthusiasm of devotion among the women, who are said to have monopolized the religion of Cuba in times past, but have introduced among the men, and among many influential men, the practices of confession and communion, to which they had been almost entirely strangers. I do not take this account from the Jesuits themselves, but from the regular clergy of other orders, and from Protestants who are opposed to them and their influence. All agree that they are at work with zeal and success.

I met my distinguished acquaintance of yesterday, the rector, who took me to the boys' chapel, and introduced me to Father Antonio Cabre, a very young man of a spare frame and intellectual countenance, with hands so white and so thin, and eyes so bright, and cheek so pale! He is at the head of the department of mathematics and astronomy, and looks indeed as if he had outwatched the stars, in vigils of science or of devotion. He took me to his laboratory, his observatory, and his apparatus of philosophic instruments. These I am told are according to the latest inventions, and in the best style of French and German workmanship. I was also shown a collection of coins and medals, a cabinet of shells, the commencement of a museum of natural history, already enriched with most of the birds of Cuba, and an interesting cabinet of the woods of the island, in small blocks, each piece being polished on one side, and rough on the other. Among the woods were the mahoganies, the iron-wood, the ebony, the lignum vitæ, the cedar, and many others, of names unfamiliar to me, which admit of the most exquisite polish. Some of the most curious were from the Isla de Pinos, an island belonging to Cuba, and on its southern shore.

The sleeping arrangement for the boys here seemed to me to be new, and to be well adapted to the climate. There is a large hall, with a roof about thirty feet from the floor, and windows near the top, to give light and ventilation above, and small portholes, near the ground, to let air into the passages. In this hall are double rows of compartments, like high pews, or, more profanely, like the large boxes in restaurants and chop-houses, open at the top, with curtains instead of doors, and each large enough to contain a single bed, a chair, and a toilet table. This ensures both privacy and the light and air of the great hall. The bedsteads are of iron; and nothing can exceed the neatness and order of the apartments. The boys' clothes are kept in another part of the house, and they take to their dormitories only the clothes that they are using. Each boy sleeps alone. Several of the Fathers sleep in the hall, in curtained rooms at the ends of the passage-ways, and a watchman walks the rounds all night, to guard against fire, and to give notice of sickness.

The boys have a playground, a gymnasium, and a riding-school. But although they like riding and fencing, they do not take to the robust exercises and sports of English schoolboys. An American whom I met here, who had spent several months at the school, told me that in their recreations they were more like girls, and like to sit a good deal, playing or working with their hands. He pointed out to me a boy, the son of an American mother, a lady to whom I brought letters and kind wishes from her many friends at the North, and told me that he had more pluck than any boy in the school.

The roof of the Belén is flat, and gives a pleasant promenade, in the open air, after the sun is gone down, which is much needed, as the buildings are in the dense part of the city.