The volante and its belongings--The ancient town of Regla--The arena
for the bull-fights at Havana--A bull-fight as witnessed by the
author at Regla--A national passion with the Spanish
people--Compared with old Roman sports--Famous
bull-fighters--Personal description of Cuban ladies--Description of
the men--Romance and the tropics--The nobility of Cuba--Sugar
noblemen--The grades of society--The yeomanry of the island--Their
social position--What they might be--Love of gambling.
The volante, that one vehicle of Cuba, has been several times referred
to in the foregoing pages. It is difficult without experience to form an
idea of its extraordinary ease of motion or its appropriateness to the
peculiarities of the country.[35] It makes nothing of the deep mud that
accompanies the rainy season, but, with its enormous wheels, six feet in
diameter, heavy shafts, and low-hung, chaise-like body, it dashes over
and through every impediment with the utmost facility. Strange as it may
seem, it is very light upon the horse, which is also bestridden by the
postilion, or _calisero_. When travelling any distance upon the road, a
second horse is added on the left, abreast, and attached to the volante
by an added whiffletree and traces. When there are two horses in this
style, the postilion rides the one to the left, leaving the shaft horse
free of other weight than that of the vehicle.
When the roads are particularly bad and there is more than usual weight
to carry, of baggage, etc., a third horse is often used, but he is still
placed abreast with the others, to the right of the shaft horse, and
guided by a bridle rein in the hands of the calisero. The Spaniards take
great pride in these volantes, especially those improved for city use,
and they are often to be met with elaborately mounted with silver, and
in many instances with gold, wrought with great skill and beauty. There
were volantes pointed out to the writer, of this latter character, in
Havana, that could not have cost less than two thousand dollars each,
and this for a two-wheeled vehicle. A volante equipped in this style,
with the gaily dressed calisero, his scarlet jacket elaborately trimmed
with silver braid, his high jack-boots with silver buckles at the knee,
and monstrous spurs upon his heels, with rowels an inch long, makes
quite a dashing appearance, especially if a couple of blackeyed Creole
ladies happen to constitute the freight. Thus they direct their way to
the Tacon Paseo, to meet the fashion of the town at the close of the
day--almost the only out-door recreation for the sex.
Of all the games and sports of the Cubans, that of the bull-fight is the
most cruel and fearful, and without one redeeming feature in its
indulgence. The arena for the exhibitions in the neighborhood of Havana
is just across the harbor at Regla, a small town, having a most worn and
dilapidated appearance.[36] This place was formerly the haunt of
pirates, upon whose depredations and boldness the government, for
reasons best known to itself, shut its official eyes; more latterly it
has been the hailing place for slavers, whose crafts have not yet
entirely disappeared, though the rigor of the English and French
cruisers in the Gulf has rendered it necessary for them to seek a less
exposed rendezvous. Of the Spanish marine they entertain no fear; there
is the most perfect understanding on this point, treaty stipulations
touching the slave-trade, between Spain, England and France, to the
contrary notwithstanding.[37] But we were referring to the subject of
the bull-fights. The arena at Regla, for this purpose, is a large
circular enclosure of sufficient dimensions to seat six thousand people,
and affording perhaps a little more than half an acre of ground for the
fight.
The seats are raised one above another in a circle around, at a secure
height from the dangerous struggle which is sure to characterize each
exhibition. On the occasion when the writer was present, after a
flourish of trumpets, a large bull was let loose from a stall opening
into the pit of the enclosure, where three Spaniards (_toreadors_), one
on foot and two on horseback, were ready to receive him, the former
armed with a sword, the latter with spears. They were three hardened
villains, if the human countenance can be relied upon as shadowing forth
the inner man, seemingly reckless to the last degree, but very expert,
agile, and wary. These men commenced at once to worry and torment the
bull until they should arouse him to a state of frenzy. Short spears
were thrust into his neck and sides with rockets attached, which
exploded into his very flesh, burning and affrighting the poor creature.
Thrusts from the horsemen's spears were made into his flesh, and while
he was bleeding thus at every pore, gaudy colors were shaken before his
glowing eyes; and wherever he turned to escape his tormentors, he was
sure to be met with some freshly devised expedient of torment, until at
last the creature became indeed perfectly infuriated and frantically
mad. Now the fight was in earnest!
In vain did the bull plunge gallantly and desperately at his enemies,
they were far too expert for him. They had made this game their business
perhaps for years. Each rush he made upon them was easily avoided, and
he passed them by, until, in his headlong course, he thrust his horns
deep into the boards of the enclosure. The idea, of course, was not to
give him any fatal wounds at the outset, and thus dispatch him at once,
but to worry and torment him to the last. One of the gladiators now
attacked him closely with the sword, and dexterously wounded him in the
back of the neck at each plunge the animal made towards him, at the same
time springing on one side to avoid the shock. After a long fight and at
a grand flourish of trumpets, the most skilful of the swordsmen stood
firm and received the infuriated beast on the point of his weapon, which
was aimed at a fatal spot above the frontlet, leading direct to the
brain. The effect was electrical, and like dropping the curtain upon a
play: the animal staggered, reeled a moment, and fell dead! Three bulls
were thus destroyed, the last one in his frenzy goring a fine spirited
horse, on which one of the gladiators was mounted, to death, and
trampling his rider fearfully. During the exhibition, the parties in the
arena were encouraged to feats of daring by the waving of handkerchiefs
and scarfs in the hands of the fair senoras and senoritas. Indeed there
is generally a young girl trained to the business, who takes a part in
the arena with the matadors against the bull. The one thus engaged, on
the occasion here referred to, could not have exceeded seventeen years
in age.[38]
Whatever colonial modifications the Spanish character may have undergone
in Cuba, the Creole is Castilian still in his love for the cruel sports
of the arena, and there is a great similarity between the modern
Spaniards and the ancient Romans in this respect. As the Spanish
language more closely resembles Latin than Italian, so do the Spanish
people show more of Roman blood than the natives of Italy themselves.
_Panem et circenses_ (bread and circuses!) was the cry of the old Roman
populace, and to gratify their wishes millions of sesterces were
lavished, and, hecatombs of human victims slain, in the splendid
amphitheatres erected by the masters of the world in all the cities
subjected to their sway. And so _pan y toros_ (bread and bulls!) is the
imperious demand of the Spaniards, to which the government always
promptly responds.
The parallel may be pursued still further: the loveliest ladies of Rome
gazed with rapture upon the dying agonies of the gladiators who hewed
each other in pieces, or the Christian's who perished in conflict with
the wild beasts half starved to give them battle! The beauteous senoras
and senoritas of Madrid and Havana enjoy with a keen delight the
terrible spectacle of bulls speared by the _picador_, or gallant horses
ripped up and disembowelled by the horns of their brute adversaries. It
is true that the ameliorating spirit of Christianity is evident in the
changes which the arena has undergone; human lives are not sacrificed
wholesale in the combats; and yet the bull-fight is sufficiently
barbarous and atrocious. It is a national institution, and, as an
indication of national character, is well worthy of attention, however
repulsive to the sensitive mind. The queen of England is sometimes
present on the race-track, so also the queen of Spain occupies the
royal box at the great bull-festas of Madrid. A skilful bull-fighter is
a man of mark and distinction. Montez was regarded by the Spaniards of
this generation with nearly as much respect as Don Rodriguez de Bivar in
the days of the Moorish wars, to such a point has the vaunted chivalry
of Spain degenerated! Sometimes Spanish nobles enter the arena, and
brave peril and death for the sake of the applause bestowed upon the
successful _torero_, and many lives are lost annually in this degrading
sport.
Few professional bull-fighters reach an advanced age; their career in
the arena is almost always short, and they cannot avoid receiving severe
wounds in their dangerous career. Pepe Illo, a famous Spanish picador,
was wounded no less than twenty-six times, and finally killed by a bull.
This man and another noted _torero_, named Romero, were possessed of
such undaunted courage, that, in order to excite the interest of the
spectators, they were accustomed to confront the bull with fetters upon
their feet. Another famous picador in the annals of the arena was Juan
Sevilla, who on one occasion was charged furiously by an Andalusian bull
which overthrew both horse and rider. The savage animal, finding that
the legs of his fallen antagonist were so well protected by the
iron-ribbed hide of the pantaloons the bull-fighters wear that it was
impossible to make an impression on them, lowered his horns with the
intention of striking him in the face; but the dauntless picador,
seizing one of the bull's ears in his right hand, and thrusting the
fingers of the other into his nostrils, after a horrible struggle
compelled him to retire. Then, when every one looked to see him borne
out of the ring dying, he rose to his feet, called for a fresh horse and
lance, and bounding into the saddle, attacked the bull in the centre of
the ring, and driving the iron up to the shaft in his neck, rolled him
over dead. "O," says an enthusiastic eye-witness of this prodigious
feat, "if you had heard the _vivas_, if you had witnessed the frantic
joy, the crazy ecstasy at the display of so much courage and good
fortune, like me you would have envied the lot of Sevilla." Such are
some of the dangers and excitements of the bull-ring; such is the
character of some of the scenes which the gentle ladies of Cuba have
learned, not to endure, but to welcome with delight.
To look upon these ladies, you could not possibly imagine that there was
in them sufficient hardihood to witness such exhibitions. They are
almost universally handsome, in person rather below the height of the
sex with us, but with an erect and dignified carriage, and with forms
always rounded to a delicate fullness, displaying a tendency to
_enbonpoint_ quite perfection itself in point of model.[39] The hair is
always black and profuse, the complexion a light olive, without a
particle of carmine, the eyes--a match for the hair in color--are large
and beautifully expressive, with a most irresistible dash of languor in
them.[40] It is really difficult to conceive of a homely woman with such
eyes as you are sure to find them endowed with in Cuba. They have been
justly famed also for their graceful carriage, and, indeed, it is the
very poetry of motion, singular as it may seem when it is remembered
that for them to walk abroad is such a rarity. It is not simply a
progressive move, but the harmonious play of features, the coquettish
undulation of the face, the exquisite disposition of costume, and
modulation of voice, rich, liquid and sweet as the nightingale's, that
engage the beholder, and lend a happy charm to the majestic grace of
every attitude and every step. It is a union, a harmonious consort of
all these elements, that so beautifies the carriage of the Cuban ladies.
The men are, also, generally speaking, manly and good-looking, though
much lighter, smaller and more agile, than the Americans. The lazy life
that is so universally led by them tends to make them less manly in
physical development than a life of activity would do. It seems to be an
acknowledged principle among them never to do that for themselves that a
slave can do for them,--a fact that is very plainly demonstrated by the
style of the volante, where the little horse is made not only to draw
after him the vehicle and its contents, but also to carry upon his back
a heavy negro, weighed down with jack-boots and livery, as a driver,
when a pair of reins extending from the bridle to the volante would
obviate all necessity for the negro's presence at all. But a Creole or
Spaniard would think it demeaning to drive his own volante; the thing is
never seen on the island. The climate, we know, induces to this sense of
ease. With abundance of leisure, and the ever-present influences of
their genial clime, where the heart's blood leaps more swiftly to the
promptings of the imagination--where the female form earliest attains
its wonted beauty and longest holds its sway over the heart--the West
Indies seem peculiarly adapted for romance and love. The consequent
adventures among the people are very numerous, and not, oftentimes,
without startling interest, affording such themes and plots as a French
_feuilletonist_ might revel in. An ungraceful woman is not to be found
on the island; whether bred in the humble cottage of the Montero, or in
the luxuriant mansion of the planter or citizen, she is sure to evince
all the ease and grace of polished life. Your heart is bound to them at
once, when on parting they give you kindly the Spanish benediction, "Go,
senor, in a good hour."
The nobility of Cuba, so called, is composed of rather original
material, to say the least of it, and forms rather a funny
"institution." There may be some thirty gentlemen dubbed with the title
of Marquis, and as many more with that of Count, most of both classes
having acquired their wealth by the carrying on of extensive sugar
plantations. These are sneeringly designated by the humbler classes as
"sugar noblemen," nearly all of these aristocratic gentlemen having
bought their titles outright for money, not the least consideration
being had by the Spanish throne as to the fitness of the individual even
for this nominal honor, save a due consideration for the amount of the
would-be noble's fortune. Twenty-five thousand dollars will purchase
either title. And yet, the tone of Cuban society may be said to be
eminently aristocratic, and, in certain circles, very exclusive. The
native of old Spain does not endeavor to conceal his contempt of
foreigners and the Creoles, shielding his inferiority of intelligence
under a cloak of hauteur; and thus the Castilians and Creoles form two
quite distinct classes in the island,--a distinction which the home
government endeavor to foster and promote in every way, for obvious
reasons of their own.
The sugar planter, the coffee planter, the merchant, the liberal
professions and the literati (this last a meagre class in numbers),
stand about in the order in which we have written them, as it regards
their relative degrees or social position, but wealth has the same charm
here as in every part of Christendom, and the millionaire has the entree
to all classes. The Monteros, or yeomanry of Cuba, inhabit the
less-cultivated portions of the soil, venturing into the cities only to
sell their surplus produce, acting as "market-men" for the cities in the
immediate neighborhood of their homes. When they stir abroad they are
always armed cap-a-pie with sword and pistols,[41] and, indeed, every
one carries arms upon the inland roads of Cuba. Formerly this was a most
indispensable precaution, though weapons are now rarely brought into
use. The arming of the Monteros, however, has always been encouraged by
the authorities, as they thus form a sort of mounted militia at all
times available, and, indeed, not only the most effective, but about the
only available arm of defence against negro insurrections. The Montero
is rarely a slave-owner himself, but frequently is engaged on the
plantations during the busy season as an extra overseer. He is generally
a hard taskmaster to the slave, having an intuitive hatred for the
blacks.
The Monteros[42] form an exceedingly important and interesting class of
the population of the island. They marry very young,--the girls from
thirteen to fifteen, the young men from sixteen to twenty,--and almost
universally rearing large families. Their increase during the last
twenty years has been great, and they seem to be fast approaching to a
degree of importance that will make them, like the American farmers, the
bone and sinew of the land. The great and glaring misfortune of their
present situation, is the want of intelligence and cultivation; books
they have none, nor, of course, schools. It is said that they have been
somewhat aroused, of late, from this condition of lethargy concerning
education, and that efforts are being made among them to a considerable
extent to afford their children opportunity for instruction. Physically
speaking, they are a fine yeomanry, and, if they could be rendered
intelligent, would in time become what nature seems to have designed
them for,--the real masters of the country.
There is one fact highly creditable to the Monteros, and that is their
temperate habits, as it regards indulgence in stimulating drinks. As a
beverage, they do not use ardent spirits, and seem to have no taste for
the article, though at times they join the stranger in a social glass. I
doubt if any visitor ever saw one of this class in the least
intoxicated. This being the fact, they are a very reliable people, and
can be counted upon in an emergency. As to the matter of temperance, it
needs no missionaries in the island, for probably there is not so large
a tract of territory in Europe or America, as this island, where such a
degree of temperance is observed in the use of intoxicating drinks.
Healths are drunk at table, but in sparing draughts, while delicious
fruits fill up the time devoted to dessert.
There is probably but one vice that the Monteros may be said to be
addicted to, or which they often indulge in, and that is one which is so
natural to a Spaniard, and the appliances for which are so constantly
at hand, in the shape of the cock-pit, that it is not a wonder he should
be seduced by the passion of gambling. Many of the more intelligent
avoid it altogether, but with others it appears to be a part and parcel
of their very existence. In the cities, as we have already shown, the
government encourage and patronize the spirit of gaming, as they derive
from its practice, by charging exorbitant licences, etc., a heavy sum
annually.
FOOTNOTES:
[35] "When I first saw the rocking motion of the volante as it drove
along the streets, I thought 'that must be an extremely disagreeable
carriage!' but when I was seated in one, I seemed to myself rocked in a
cloud. I have never felt an easier motion."--_Miss Bremer's Letters._
[36] Regla new contains some seven thousand inhabitants, and is chiefly
engaged in the exportation of molasses, which is here kept in large
tanks.
[37] An intelligent letter-writer estimates the present annual
importation of slaves at not less than 10,000 souls, direct from Africa.
[38] "One of the chief features in this sport, and which attracted so
many, myself among the number, was a young and beautiful girl, as lovely
a creature as Heaven ever smiled upon, being one of the chief actresses
in the exciting and thrilling scene."--_Rev. L.L. Allen's Lecture._
[39] "The waist is slender, but never compressed by corsets, so that it
retains all its natural proportions."--_Countess Merlin's Letters._
[40] "They have plump figures, placid, unwrinkled countenances,
well-developed busts, and eyes the brilliant languor of which is not the
languor of illness."--_W.C. Bryant's Letters._
[41] "The broadsword dangles by the side of the gentleman, and holsters
are inseparable from his saddle; the simplest countryman, on his straw
saddle, belts on his rude cutlass, and every man with a skin less dark
than an African appears ready for encounter."--_Rev. Abiel Abbot's
Letters._
[42] "They are men of manly bearing, of thin make, but often of a good
figure, with well-spread shoulders, which, however, have a stoop in
them, contracted, I suppose, by riding always with a short
stirrup."--_W.C. Bryant's Letters._