I
THE AMERICAN IN CUBA
I have known few more curious sensations than that of crossing in a single night from Florida to Cuba: leaving the New World at ten p.m. and arriving at six a.m. in the Old World. For Havana is distinctly an Old World city—more so, I am told, than some of the cities of modern Spain. From the moment the steamer passes between Morro Castle and La Punta, and skirts beneath the grey and pink cliffs of the huge idle fortress of La Cabana, one feels that one has left behind the region of the Immature, and entered upon that of the Over-ripe.
I am not going to attempt a description of Havana, with its many-coloured, swarming Southern life; its arcaded side-walks; its huge windows, all barred with ornamental ironwork, at which a great part of the social life of the city is carried on; its narrow business streets, the Calle Obispo and Calle O’Reilly, in which the frequent awnings stretched from house to house create a rich golden shade; its grey old cathedral; its cool green patios framed in the gloom of high-arched gateways; its handsome, rather commonplace, modern squares; its Prado and its esplanade, where the restless purple waters of the Gulf of Mexico fling up, every now and then, white pillars of spray. Except for its splendid harbour, the city has no great advantage of situation, being placed on low hills, and surrounded by others not much higher. The chief impression it leaves on the mind is that of opulent colour—often garish where the hand of man has held the brush, but, where Nature has her own way, in tree, shrub, soil, ocean, and sky, indescribably and inexhaustibly gorgeous. A painter of the temperate zone would here throw away his palette, except, it may be, for the wonderful blue distances, of which, on the outskirts, one has now and then a glimpse.
A Paradise Regained.
From all that I could see and hear in Cuba, I felt thoroughly convinced that American intervention had amply justified itself, and that this noble island, after all its miseries and distractions, was now in a fair way to become as prosperous and happy as, by its natural advantages, it is entitled to be. The splendid work of cleansing and sanitation which the Americans have done in Havana I more fully appreciated after a brief inspection of a couple of unsanitated Spanish-American towns—Cartagena and Barranquilla. But cleaning-up and road-making, and the organization of public services, are not all that the Americans are doing. In the Cuban guide-book it was significant to note the number of places which owed their fame to having been the scene of this or that massacre or military execution. It would be premature, perhaps, to say that all that sort of thing is past and done with; but there will certainly not be much more of it; the United States will see to that. I am bound to confess that here, in my opinion, the Republic has “taken up the white man’s burden” very efficiently and in a very true sense.
The sense of prosperity was very strongly borne in upon me in Vedado, a suburb of Havana, whither I went to call upon an American gentleman, resident for many years in Cuba, to whom I had an introduction. Vedado is a great sun-baked stretch of ground between the low hills and the sea to the west of Havana, where handsome bungalow-villas are rising in great numbers. As yet it is in a somewhat raw and ragged condition; but there is evidence of wealth and activity on every hand.
The Cuban Colour-Line.
My primary object in visiting Mr. Ogden (as I shall call him) was to inquire into the relations of the white and coloured races in Cuba.
“It is very obvious,” I said, “in the streets of Havana, that, if there is any colour-line here, it is not drawn anything like as strictly as in the Southern States. I see a good many black policemen; and there are black motor-men and conductors on the street-cars. Among the passengers in the cars there is no distinction of colour. In the Colon Cemetery, as I came down here, I noticed that, among the thirty heroes commemorated on the Firemen’s Monument, four seemed to be pure negroes; and there were negro traits in six or seven more. Is there really no colour discrimination at all?”
“In the sense of legal disability,” said Mr. Ogden, “there is none. Socially, of course, there is a good deal, though no hard-and-fast barrier is raised between the races. Each family, each individual, draws the colour-line according to taste. But, naturally, there is a tendency for the pure white to exclude the unmistakably coloured.”