Attached to a leather gauntlet worn by the players is a long, narrow, curved basket or cestus (cesta) from which the ball is hurled and in which it is caught. The small ball (pelota) is of indiarubber covered with leather, and weighs about four ounces. The players are distinguished by their dress as whites (blancos) and blues (azules). Two games are played. In one, called a partido, two blues play against two whites. In the other, called quiniela, five players participate, one against another in succession, until the winner shall have scored the game of six points.

The quiniela seemed to me more graceful and beautiful than the partido, or foursome, if not quite so exciting. The players wear the simplest costume—white drill trousers and either white or blue shirts. For a long time I was puzzled to think what familiar object the “cesta” recalled to me; but at last I hit on it—the thing is for all the world like those wicker guards which linkmen put over hansom-wheels, to save the gowns of ladies in alighting. The basket is, I take it, about two feet long. When a player lets his arm drop from the shoulder, the tip of the “cesta” is about level with his ankle.

Now, how shall I describe the actual play? It is racquets enormously magnified, and carried to an almost superhuman pitch of skill. Only once does the player touch the ball with his hand, and that is in leading off. |Playing the Game.| Standing about the middle of the court, he drops the ball on the floor, catches it with his “cesta” in the rebound, and sends it whizzing against the end wall. It flies back like a streak of lightning, and instantly one of the other side has it in his “cesta,” makes two or three leaps to give himself impetus, and hurls it again at the end wall. This time it is not improbable that he has put such force into his cast that the ball rebounds the whole 175 feet, strikes the opposite wall, and flashes down to the floor. Then one of his opponents must be ready to take it on the hop, and, reinforcing its movement, to send it flying once more against the end wall, of course doing his best to “place” it awkwardly for the other side. I have seen the ball returned thirty times in a single rally; but the average number would probably be some twelve or fifteen. And almost every catch and return seemed an incredible feat of skill. Just consider: here is a space of 6300 square feet, and only two players on each side—in the quiniela only one. What astounding rapidity of eye and agility of limb it must take to be always at the right spot to catch a little demon of a ball, that tears flashing about the court like a thing possessed! And the men are almost always at the right spot. They may misplace the ball or send it “out;” but it is the rarest thing for the ball to escape them entirely. They run, they leap, they make the most amazing whirling strokes; if the ball comes very low, they fall down, and often hurl it with the greatest accuracy from the most unconventional positions on the ground. Not once but hundreds of times that afternoon did I see things done that looked absolutely impossible. Perhaps their variety of resource is their most astonishing quality. But, wonderful as it all is, it is still more beautiful. With all their rapidity, their grace is perfect, like that of lithe, resilient, feline animals. If anything more marvellous or more graceful was done at the Olympic games, then the Greeks were athletes indeed.

Certainly, if one wanted to gamble, “Jai Alai” provides an intensely exciting method of doing so. |The Fluctuating Odds.| In one partido that I saw it seemed at first that the “blancos” entirely outclassed the “azules.” They gained about 8 points to their rivals’ 3—the game being 30 up. But gradually the blues crept forward, until at 14 they tied. Then the whites spurted, and presently the score was 24-19. But again the blues pulled themselves together, and at 26 they again tied. The whites, however, were the better team, and in the end won by 2 points. Of course, at every fluctuation of the score, the odds varied: when the twenties were reached the betting became fast and furious, and both bookmakers and their “clients” shouted themselves distracted. But there is no reason in the nature of things why this exquisitely beautiful game should be “soiled with all ignoble use.” How amazing is the brutality of taste that can prefer the bull-fight to pelota!

[73]. Since writing this I have learnt that pelota has been played both in London and at the St. Louis Exhibition, apparently without much success. Surely it was somehow mismanaged.

III
A FRAGMENT OF FAIRYLAND

Allowing time for a few hours’ stay at Matanzas, the journey from Havana to Santiago di Cuba occupies two days and a night. At Matanzas, a town in itself of no great interest, it is well worth while to climb to the hermitage of Montserrate, which overlooks to the westward the Yumuri valley, a great semicircular basin in the hills, and to the eastward a magnificent sweep of sea and shore. The endless colonnades of palm-trees give to the distant slopes an exquisite tone of silver-blue such as I have never seen anywhere else. On the whole, however, the Cuban landscape, as it presents itself between Havana and Santiago, is rich and spacious rather than specially beautiful. Its characteristic aspect is that of wide and fertile plains, with ranges of high hills, or low mountains, in the distance, dappled with the shadows of the clouds; but in the central province of Camaguëy the hills disappear, and the plains become rather uninteresting, and to a considerable extent unimproved. The general impression of fertility is very striking. The soil is often of such a rich red or chocolate colour that it seems as though an artist need only mix a little oil with it and transfer it to his canvas. The species of palm which prevails in Cuba has an unfortunate tendency to bulge in the wrong place, and assume a bottle-like contour, which is fatal to the beauty of the individual trees. Patches of inextricable jungle are not infrequent in the central districts, and suggest a use for the huge, broad cutlasses—the machetes—with which the negro peasantry are generally armed. As the line bends southward to Santiago, I fancy that the scenery becomes more mountainous and picturesque; but we ran through it in the dark. I retain only an impression of dense forests jewelled with myriads of fire-flies, while some sort of cricket or cicala made a pleasant tinkling sound, as though of running water.

Santiago I take to be one of the hottest places in the universe. |Santiago to Kingston.| It is set in a vast basin of splendid hills, the bottom of the basin being formed by the lake-like expanse of the historic harbour. The gulf or fiord so narrows towards its mouth that no sign of the open sea is visible, and no breath of sea breeze seems ever to stir the mirror-like surface of the lake. The red roofs of the town climb up the hill from the water’s edge, and seem to glow and flame in the fierce sunlight. One envied the little brown and yellow urchins running about stark naked in the shady side-streets. If they wore anything at all, it was a necklace—an amulet or charm, as I conceive.[[74]]

From Santiago I took ship for Jamaica on the S.S. Oteri, the most uncomfortable vessel on which I ever set foot. It belongs, I am told, to the Cuba Eastern Railroad, which is largely an English company. Surely it would pay them to assign a habitable ship to the service, and thus encourage travellers to adopt this otherwise delightful route.