On the Mexican Highlands, with a Passing Glimpse of Cuba

by William Seymour Edwards

SELLING VEGETABLES—HAVANA

On the afternoon of the following day, I was riding on the tramway in company with a friend, toward the suburbs on the hill, when a tall and courtly Cuban came toward us. He took a seat next to my friend and after a few moments’ conversation, turned to me and said in perfect English that he had noticed me the night before in the box of “Señora General Wood,” and, “that he had remarked me for a stranger in Habana.” He said that he was shortly to leave the car, and asked whether we would not like to visit an old Cuban mansion, in order to see how people in Cuba lived in the style of the old regime.

Knowing the gracious manner of compliment habitual among the Spanish peoples, I was going to thank him for the proffered courtesy and decline; but my American friend, to my surprise, promptly accepted the invitation. We left the car in company with our guide, Señor ——, who belongs to one of the oldest Cuban families of French descent,—and is a lawyer of distinction.

We approached a stately residence built of white marble, a series of high marble pillars before a marble portico running along the front. We passed through a small gate within a larger one in a high, wrought iron fence, through a small glazed door in a large doorway and came into a high, wide drawing room, extending across the front of the house. All was white marble,—the floors, the wainscoting, the doorways;—there was no woodwork anywhere. Handsome rugs lay upon the floor and French rattan furniture of easy shapes was scattered about the room. At one side we entered another lofty chamber, similarly floored and wainscoted, used as a ladies’ boudoir, and thence passed out across a wide piazza, into a beautiful and well-kept Spanish garden. The walks were carefully laid out, the beds were full of blooming plants—there were many palms of different varieties, and a marble bath house with running water and a large swimming pool. Beyond the flower garden, we entered a vegetable garden, close to which stood a commodious stable; then returning to the house El Señor asked whether we would like also to see the kitchen. We were shown into a big square room, in the center of which stood an octagonal blue-tiled “stove,” about ten feet across at the top, and four feet high, a sort of porcelain table, containing many niches wherein to build small charcoal fires, a single fire to cook each separate dish. An old negro servant, a freed slave, was preparing the evening meal. We next entered the large dining room, with old mahogany furniture, a long table for banquets, and at one side a small table already set for the evening meal. There was much handsome silver and cut glass upon the high, old-fashioned mahogany sideboard. From the dining room we passed into a library, the shelves filled with French and Spanish and German and English books. Here the father of my host, an eminent judge, had gathered about him much of the world’s choicest literature. Then we came out into the wide patio, square and open to the sky, a fountain playing in the middle, and many potted palms and flowering plants set round about. The great house was of one story, and all rooms opened upon the central court. None of the windows were sashed with glass, and Venetian blinds kept out the light and too much air.

Here, in this sumptuous home lived for half a century one of the distinguished families of Havana; here now were living the grandchildren of those who built it.

Our host then led us up to the wide flat roof, whence stretched out before us a panorama of the city, the bay and the open sea.

My friend, who had long lived in Havana, holding a prominent post in government employ, had never before enjoyed the privilege of inspecting so beautiful a Cuban home. As we parted that evening he turned to me and said, “Perhaps the white duck trousers and blue flannel coat, which were so conspicuous last night in the box of Cuba’s Governor General, are to be thanked for this opportunity now come to both of us.” El Señor had been pleased to show a courtesy to the guest of the first lady of the Island.

Neither the great cathedral of Havana, nor any of her churches, nor the honored chapel where Columbus’ bones are supposed to have lain, nor any of her public buildings, not even the “Palace” of the Spanish Captain Generals, are of so striking and splendid architecture as one sees generally in Mexico. The allurement and dazzling fame of the Empire of Montezuma attracted thither all that was daring and forceful and brilliant in old Spain. Even the wonders of Cuba and the Antilles paled before the tales of fabulous wealth and treasure of the conquest of Cortez. The noble churches and architecture of Mexico have no rivals among the Cuban cities. Nor is there among the Cubans that picturesqueness in garb, that striking brilliancy of coloring, which one sees upon the streets of the Mexican cities. In Cuba you see no scarlet and green and blue zerapes; no purple and blue and pink rebozos; no rancherros and caballeros in velvet jackets and tight-fitting trousers, laced and spangled and buttoned with threads of silver and gold; none of the splendor in coloring and dress of the sixteenth century, which still clings to the street scene in Mexico. Cuba in its outward aspects is distinctly, unromantically modern. The black coat is de rigueur; the black hat or the panama is the only covering for the head, and even conventional millinery has begun to drive away the graceful mantilla from the brows of las señoras. There is no poetry, no artistic coloring in the life scheme of the Cuban. His face and movements lack the vivacity and alertness inspired by the keen, quickening air of the Mexican Highlands. Even the clothes he wears and the way he wears them bespeak the heavy, sea level atmosphere he breathes. Nor has the language of the Cuban preserved the ancient grace and forcefulness which distinguish the almost classic Spanish of the Mexican. The Spanish spoken in Cuba has added to its vocabulary a multitude of words from the French and English of its neighbors, and from the provincial patois of the formerly numerous Spanish soldiery.

A CORNER OF THE MARKET—HAVANA