"If," he says, "in my remarks on the social relations of the Americans, I have been unjust towards them, I sincerely ask their pardon. In towns and cities one feels a desire to meet benevolent glances and friendly words from our fellow-men; and this, with some rare exceptions, which I gladly treasure up, is what I sought in vain in the great cities of the United States. Whether my search was unskilful, I know not; or whether, like an impatient miner, I too hastily abandoned a bed of rocks which concealed a precious vein. It is possible I may have done so. The one thing certain is, that in Canada and at New Orleans the sympathetic vein was revealed to me at once, and I had but to extend my hands to be met on all sides with a friendly grasp."
Finally, M. Marmier, who, whatever his faults of style or occasional flimsiness of substance, must be admitted to form his own opinions and to speak them out frankly and boldly, whether right or wrong—prophesies the rupture of the Union as a consequence of the slavery question.
"When the two halves of this immense country shall have taken a greater development, when each of them shall have grown strong enough to need no longer the other's support, the consciousness of its power will give keenness to its susceptibilities, and it will repel with anger what it now with difficulty tolerates. A fortuitous circumstance will cause a long-repressed animosity to burst forth; and slavery is, perhaps, the straw that shall break the steel bar of the United States."
With which ominous valediction M. Marmier closes his first volume, and embarks on board the "Ohio," the leviathan of American steamboats, constructed for the express purpose of conveying Californian gold-seekers to Chagres, and boasting, according to advertisement, engines each of a thousand horse power, and cabins for five hundred and fifty passengers—figures which the incredulous Marmier, long since initiated in the mysteries of Yankee puffery, inclines to think exaggerated. The vessel, however, is undeniably both fine and fast, and on the fourth morning after her departure from New Orleans, (four-and-twenty hours having been lost getting over the bar,) she flashes past the walls of the castle of the Moro. A narrow passage between rocks, fortresses right and left, frowning batteries of cannon—the entrance to the port of Havana is a menacing introduction to the delightful panorama that presents itself within. A vast semi-circular basin, which no tempest ever ruffles, envelops the city with its azure waters. So gay and bright is the aspect of the city itself, that the enthusiastic Marmier is at the gangway in an instant; his carpet-bag in one hand, his pilgrim's staff in the other, shouting for a boat to convey him ashore. He forgets that he is no longer in the States, where passports are unknown and all may come and go unquestioned. Cuba is the paradise of police and custom-house officers, the purgatory of tourists. Before embarking at a foreign port, your passport must receive the visa of the Spanish consul. Two dollars for that. On arriving at Cuba, the authorities take your passport and give in exchange a document of their own fabrication. Eight dollars for that. Still you are not allowed to land till an inhabitant of the island has guaranteed your respectability. It is a puzzle how to obtain this guarantee whilst you are forcibly detained on ship-board. The difficulty is removed by the appearance alongside of a number of obliging individuals, offering to certify your morality and orthodoxy; in return for which service you cannot do less than offer them a four-dollar bit. So that on summing up, and including boat-hire and porterage, it costs the humblest traveller something like twenty dollars to cross the quay of the Havana and reach his hotel.
But it is worth while to pay a good price for leave to land upon the enchanting shores of the Queen of the Antilles, to roam in forests of orange trees, to repose beneath the broad shade of the banana, and to enjoy, in their delightful quintas, the hospitality of the kindly Havanese. Besides, as M. Marmier exclaims, what are a hundred francs in a country whose soil produces golden harvests! There are none of your coarse copper coins, or dirty Yankee bank-notes. A silver medio (about threepence) is the smallest current coin, dollars are spent like francs in France, and a Cuban thinks no more of a portly golden ounce than a Paris dandy of a light napoleon. In that beauteous and luxurious isle, now almost the last colony remaining to the Sovereign of "Spain and the Indies," whilst the rich have abundant facilities for squandering their wealth, the man of humble fortune is at no loss for enjoyments. The bright sky, the glorious scenery, the gorgeous flowers, the cooling fruits of the tropics, are as free to him as to the millionnaire. And both alike are subject to the perils and annoyances of those sultry regions, where venomous plants and reptiles, offensive vermin, and the relentless vomito, the terrible Yellow Jack, are more than equivalent, as evils, to the grey skies and chilling blasts, snow-drifts and long winters of Northern Europe. It was in the month of January that M. Marmier reached the Havana, and by aid of open doors and windows, of curtains, mosquito nets, and a bed composed of two sheets and a sackcloth stretched on a frame, the heat was rendered very endurable. He scarcely dared imagine what it might be in the dog-days, when the demon of fever stalks abroad, invisible but fatal. In some years, however, the vomito, even at the most unhealthy season, commits few ravages, its virulence seems impaired, and the rejoicing Cubans almost imagine it is dying out upon their shores. The delightful dream of security is soon dispelled. Suddenly the grim phantom reappears, more deadly than ever, smiting alike the stranger and the native, the rough European mariner, and the graceful daughter of the tropics.
"Last year, in the month of August, the ships in harbour resembled those which are deserted by their sailors in the port of San Francisco. But it was not to hurry to the dazzling placer that sailors and officers abandoned the national flag. It was to seek in the hospital a remedy for their tortures, to be buried in a foreign graveyard, far away from their pleasant Scheldt and beautiful Gironde."
As if the isle itself did not harbour enough disease, the winds of heaven and the ocean tides wafted it thither from other climes, from the fever-ridden shores of Tampico and Vera Cruz.
"One day the watcher on the Moro saw an English brig pass at the foot of the ramparts, steered by a woman, whom a pale skeleton-like man strove to assist in her task. Captain Jackson, who commanded this brig, had left Tampico with his wife, two young children, and seven sailors. A few days after they sailed, the seven sailors sickened of the fever and died, one after the other; the captain and his children, attacked by the same malady, lay in bed, unable to move. The woman, with a superhuman courage, inspired by her trust in God, threw the corpses into the sea, furled a part of the sails, took charge of the wheel, nursed her husband and children, and, thanks to a favourable wind which seconded her resolution, directed the ship towards the island of Cuba, until such time as her husband, rising from his sick bed, was able to give her some assistance. And thus she came into port, after forty days' navigation, timid and modest, casting down her eyes when lauded for her heroic energy, and seemingly unconscious of having achieved that from which the imagination of the most resolute man might well recoil with terror."
All who have read Tom Cringle's Log, will call to mind its glorious descriptions of Cuban scenery, its graphic and thrilling sketches of tropical sports and perils. We think all the better of Mr Taylor, that he has attentively studied Captain Cringle's admirable work, and refers to it with the respect due from a tyro to a master of the art. At St Jago de Cuba he became acquainted with the original of Don Ricardo Campana, the Spanish Scotchman who accompanied Cringle and Captain Transom on their memorable expedition into the interior of the island. Who has forgotten that exquisite chapter of the Log, "The Pirate's Leman"? Mr Richard Maxwell Bell, the gentleman whose name Cringle has humorously translated, is not a Scotchman, (as he is stated to be in the Log,) but is every bit as hospitable, sensible, and kind-hearted as he is there represented. By his good offices, Mr Taylor obtained a companion in the person of a young Spanish officer, proceeding up the country to join his regiment, for the journey to Gibara, a small town on the north shore of the island, five and forty leagues from St Jago. In the district of Holguin, whose capital is Gibara, the promised gold vein was said to exist, and that was Mr Taylor's destination.
"After seven days' delay, I received intimation that my fellow-traveller, Don Carlos Saldivar, was now ready, and awaited my joining forces with him at eleven that night, so as to get a long cool march by moonlight. About half-an-hour after the appointed time, we filed off down the street, the cavalcade consisting of about twenty-four horses, the head of one being tied to the tail of the other; and Don Carlos and myself brought up the rear. I have met with very few, even old residents, who have ever crossed the island by the road we took. It leads all the way over highlands, rocky passes, and through mountainous streams, except where it crosses some immense savanas; whereas the main road is mostly all the way on the banks of the Cauto, the principal river of Cuba. But the main road, though short and level, is dreadfully muddy and clayey in rainy weather, and for that reason our arrieros chose the other. After passing a small ingenio or sugar-mill, worked by oxen, which Don Carlos pointed out on the side of the road, we entered a perfect forest of orange trees, whose ripe and tempting fruit hung in profusion from every tree, and lay also on the ground by cart-loads. I let the party get ahead some distance, and then, quietly dismounting, eagerly clutched the finest and ripest I could see. My mind misgave me a little on applying the test of smell, although that was very refreshing; but my worst fears came out on removing the peel, when I found my orange was both bitter and sour, being of the kind called in England "Seville," indigenous to and abundant in all the forests of Cuba, as well as the lime. I rode up to my friends, feeling considerably "sold," and now began to be aware that good fruit, although abundant enough in Cuba, is not to be had on every tree. We had accommodation, none of the best, the four nights we passed on the road. One of them saw us in a small rancho, the dwelling of a solitary negro, who, it seemed, was a tailor, and where the only place I could find for passing the night was on a barbacoa, or platform of small round sticks; and of all the beds I ever tried to sleep on, this was the most hopeless! I suffered much on this journey for want of a hammock, and seriously counsel all who may have to make a journey, long or short, in Cuba, to travel always with one. But how different the mode of travelling in Cuba, where Coolies are not to be had for a song, as they are here where I am writing, (Ceylon.) A Ceylon planter or merchant cannot move through the jungle or take any trip at all, without the attendance of six or eight of these poor creatures, toiling under a weight of baggage, bedding, &c. A Spaniard will travel seven or eight hundred miles, suppose from the Havana, to Holguin, on one and the same horse, and carry all he requires with him. Folded partly over the cantle of his saddle, and hanging on each side, the two capacious pockets of his seron hold his coffee-pot, bread, and provisions on one side, and several changes of garments on the other. In front are strapped his cloak and holsters; behind, his hammock; and his trusty machete hangs by his side. He is a perfectly independent man—a man after Sir Charles Napier's own heart; can carry two or three days' provisions in his seron, and cares not a fig where night overtakes him. To be sure there are, fortunately, no venomous reptiles or wild beasts in Cuba. Here, in Ceylon, perhaps it would not do to try on that 'dodge' too far. You might find a cobra de capello alongside of you in your hammock, or be unceremoniously ejected therefrom by an inquisitive elephant, a playful cheetah or an affectionate bear."