The Three Lieutenants

by William Henry Giles Kingston

The city stands on the western shore of the bay. The streets of the old part within the walls are narrow and far from clean, but those of the suburbs, which cover a much larger space than the city itself, are broad and well laid out, many of them being handsome and tolerably free from dirt. Besides the two strong fortresses at the entrance, batteries run along both shores, while fortifications frown from all the surrounding heights.

The houses, which are in the Moorish style, have excessively thick walls, and are mostly of one storey. The windows, however, are unglazed, and, on account of the heat of the climate, always kept open.

The object of most interest in the city is the cathedral, not on account of its beauty, but because it contains the bones of Columbus, which were removed here from the church of Santa Domingo, in Hispaniola, at the end of the last century.

The chief attractions of the place are its paseos or public drives, of which it possesses three, two inside, and one outside the walls. Some of them are ornamented with statues of royal personages, more or less ugly, with rows of poplars on either side, and with fountains and gardens. Here, in the afternoon, the world of fashion resort, and they are thronged with young creoles in evening dress and round hats, employed in casting admiring glances at the fair dames, who drive slowly up and down the carriage-road in their wide and open volantes, their heads adorned as if for a ballroom, with natural flowers, and generally arrayed in costumes of all the colours of the rainbow.

Jack felt, at first, somewhat indignant as he observed the impudent glances, so he considered them, cast by the youths at the young ladies; but soon came to the conclusion that they had no objection to be so looked at, and would indeed have felt injured had they not received this style of homage from the opposite sex. As he passed through the streets, he could look with ease through the large open windows into the drawing-rooms of the houses, where in the evening, when not abroad, the ladies of the family are wont to assemble; the older dames seated in rocking-chairs, the younger in front of the iron bars, by which alone ingress from without is prevented. Here they can see every one passing and be seen in return.

The volante is as worthy of a description as the gondola of Venice. The dames of Cuba delight in it, for it is not only picturesque, but luxurious in the extreme. It is made to contain two sitters with comfort, but when a duenna is in attendance, she is seated on a middle seat between her charges. It has two enormous wheels, strong and thick; the body is supported on the axle-tree, and swings forward from it on springs; it is somewhat low down, and affords abundance of room for the feet, which are supported by a brightly polished metal bar, which runs across the footboard. It is most remarkable for the shafts, which are fourteen feet in length, the extreme ends resting on the saddle of the horse, who has thus entirely to support the whole weight of the vehicle; there is thus between the horse’s tail and the carriage a space of nearly seven feet. The postillion is generally a very heavy negro, who rides the unfortunate horse. Those used by people of fashion are drawn by two horses, one outside the shafts, on which the postillion sits. He is as remarkable an object as the vehicle itself. He wears a huge pair of footless boots, the top rising ten inches or so above his knees, so that they nearly touch his elbows, while, to the bottom are secured huge iron spurs, his breeches are white, and his jacket red, ornamented with gilt lace, while a broad-brimmed hat covering his woolly pate completes his costume. Still barbarous and awkward as the affair appears, it looks perfectly suitable to surrounding objects; the fair occupants seem also in their proper places, with their gaily-coloured costumes, and their dark hair fastened by a high comb, and ornamented generally with natural flowers. Jack did not consider their beauty so surpassing as he had been led to expect, while he thought the older dames perfectly hideous; but then the recollection of the lily and rose in the cheeks of his fair countrywomen was too recent to allow him to admire them as he might otherwise have done. He was highly amused at seeing in some of the dining-halls one of those silver ornamented vehicles placed at the farther end, its usual position when not in use.

As far as he could judge, the male portion of the population passed their evenings in smoking cigars and playing billiards, when not engaged in dancing or listening to music. Every evening, before the captain-general’s house in the Plaza, a military band played for an hour, when the men collected by hundreds, but a few ladies, however, appearing among them.

Gambling, in one form or another, appeared to be the occupation of all orders, encouraged considerably by the government, who had public lotteries, tickets and minute portions of tickets being daily vended in the streets.

Jack and his officers were overwhelmed with invitations, not only from English and Americans, but from Spaniards, some of whom, he was warned, might possibly have a motive in wishing to make their stay on shore agreeable, they being owners, or in some way interested in the rakish-looking craft in the harbour, and on which it was his special duty to keep an eye.

Picturesque and attractive as Havannah is in many respects, Jack came to the opinion that it would undoubtedly become a much finer place were it in the hands of the English or Americans.