Captain MacIrvine knew the way. He had been among the first American
soldiers to enter La Cabaña and to discover the mysteries of these
unknown and sometime forgotten dungeons. At the far end of the second
chamber, he pushed open a heavy solid iron door. He entered a narrow
passage barely three feet wide and so low that I had to stoop. “Mind
where you set your foot. Take care of your head. Go slow,” he cried
warningly; and we found ourselves going down a steep decline. The air
was dank and fetid. My throbbing head was dull and heavy. Before our
approach scurried a too venturesome rat. I stepped upon the slimy body
of a lizard. My ear detected the retreat of hosts of scorpions as they
clicked their cumbrous claws, but I heard the dismal winging of no
bats; here was too deadly an atmosphere for even these to live. We
came abruptly to a rock-wall, loose, but firmly set in a low arched
depression. The passage widened and turned at right angles, both right
and left. It was here we saw the approaching light and met the Cuban
officer and the ladies.
When we found our way out to the clear, sweet sunshine again, and I
looked into the blue sky arching over my head, and scented in my
nostrils the fragrant breeze which swept up from the sea, and then
looked up and beheld floating spotless and resplendent, above me and
above La Cabaña and above Cuba, now free, my beloved flag, the flag of
my own free land, the Stars and Stripes, my heart quickened. I choked
a little, and I knew what Cuba and the world had gained through the
blood and tears poured out by my country in order that Spanish tyranny
should be forever expelled from its last stronghold this side the sea.
Captain MacIrvine and I had met that afternoon near the gateway of the
customshouse in Havana, by the water side. We had taken one of the
curious, blunt-ended, awning-covered rowboats, which will hold a dozen
passengers, and which everywhere crowd along the quays. We had hired
the old Cuban waterman for the afternoon, and bade him row us to the
water stage of La Cabaña, set us ashore and then meet us at the water
gate of El Moro, three hours later in the afternoon. He was brown and
withered, with grim square jaw and fine dark eyes. He was a Cuban
patriot. He had himself spent nigh two years in the gloomy dungeons of
the fortress, his family having long given him up for dead; and all
because in his secret heart he dared to love _Cuba Libre_.
La Cabaña is the largest Spanish fortification in the New World. It
has been several centuries in growing to its immense dimensions.
Crowning the heights across the bay from the city of Havana, its
record of compulsory guests is a record of three centuries of the
grief and agony of a race. Eighteen to twenty millions of dollars in
gold have been spent upon its vast and massive walls and ramparts, its
moats and fosses. Impregnable was it deemed to be by the Spanish
engineers, and the United States did not have to try what its strength
might be in fact. Up the narrow, slanting, rock-paved causeway from
the water side to the stern stone portals of the single entrance have
passed a long procession of Cuban patriots--men and women, mere boys
and white-haired men; and few are they who ever came out again. They
died in the dungeons by scores, and their bodies were buried in
trenches, or, borne through the subterranean passage to the ramparts
of El Moro, were there thrown to the sharks in the open sea. Those
of lesser note who dared yet to live, were taken by platoons to a
scarred and dented wall and shot to death. This spot is hallowed
ground to the free man of to-day. We stood before it with uncovered
heads. A little fence stakes it in, a bronze tablet is set against the
bullet-battered wall of rock. The grass before us, so luxuriant, has
been drenched with the noblest blood of Cuba’s patriots. The Cuban
soldier guarding the gateway watched us lift our hats before the
sacred and consecrated plot of martyred earth. He bowed to us
respectfully as we re-entered, and it seemed to me that there was a
deeper, kindlier glitter than casual greeting in his black eye.
[Illustration: WHERE PATRIOTS WERE SHOT--LA CABAÑA]
A great garrison of regular troops was always kept in military
readiness in La Cabaña; now a single company of Cuban infantry
occupies the fortress. Cuba free and fifty Cuban soldiers in La
Cabaña; Cuba a Spanish province and fifty thousand bayonets to
garrison and hold Havana down, one single town!
Many ancient guns yet adorn the ramparts of La Cabaña, the newer
artillery having been removed to Spain, or, some say, sunk in the sea.
The old chapel now serves for a sleeping room for the Cuban guard. The
bell which tolled so often for the lost souls of the condemned is now
gone. The fount of holy water is a receptacle for junk. The well-worn
flight of steps ascending to the roof, no longer responds to the tread
of the thousands of feet that used to press them. Right over the
chapel, near the place where swung the bell, stood the garrote where,
it is said, more than sixty thousand throats have been clasped and
crushed by the iron grips. Perhaps nowhere in the world have so many
souls been shriven as in the chapel of La Cabaña, and nowhere have so
many lives gone out as by this dread instrument of death. And yet, as
we stood on this high platform, with the balmy air of now free Cuba
filling our lungs, and watched the Cuban soldiery pacing their beat in
the park below, it seemed, in the serene and restful humor of the day,
almost incredible that only three short years ago, at most but four,
here had been enacted a daily tragedy of cruelty and horror which no
human pen will ever be adequate actually to portray.
Back in the year 1894, when I had bought a few Cuban bonds, and in
1896, when I had raised the Cuban flag on my McKinley pole at
Coalburg, I had felt in a dim way that I was doing a thing entirely
right; but it was not until I stood upon the ramparts of La Cabaña,
and considered the monstrous pitilessness of Spanish rule, and saw
within the focus of my vision the demonstrated proof of cruelty beyond
all conception in the present age,--only then, did I fully realize how
God had guided the hearts and thews of my countrymen in rendering
forever impossible the continuance of these iniquities.
From La Cabaña we wandered across a stretch of grassy sward a quarter
of a mile, to the parapets of El Moro. Builded upon a profound rock
foundation it guards the angle of the land between the open sea and
the far shore of Havana Bay. Above it, as above La Cabaña, floats the
starry flag. Within it resides a sturdy, clean-cut, trim-built
garrison of our own boys in blue. It did me good to see them. Vigorous
and businesslike they looked. Young men, well-kept, clear-eyed,
expressing in their look and gait the easy mastery of the youthful,
giant power whose simple uniform they wear. El Moro was never a prison
fortress, although there are said to be dungeons yet undiscovered, dug
deep into the rock base on which it stands. Nor is it now a fort which
could withstand an attack by modern guns. But in the ancient time it
was an impregnable pile, and stands to-day, a fine example of what the
military art taught men to build in centuries gone by.
Most of the guns are old and out of date, notably a dozen of immense
size known among the soldier boys as the “Twelve Apostles,” while just
one or two of modern make poke their noses toward the city and the
sea.
From El Moro we descended to the water’s edge, and finding our
boatman, were ferried across to the tranquil city. The sun was sinking
behind the highlands in the west; the azure sky had grown to purple
all barred with gold and red. The golden light of eventide illumined
the city as with an aureole. It seemed to me a hallowing benison over
Cuba now forever free.
[Illustration: THE WRECK OF THE MAINE]
XXII
Cuba--Her Fertile Sugar Lands--Matanzas by the Sea
HAVANA, CUBA,
_December 27th_.
A cup of chocolate, a roll, a pat of guava paste, such was my
_desayuno_, my breakfast. _Señor_ G----, Superintendent of Civic
Training in the Schools of Cuba, had also had his morning coffee, and
was awaiting me at the broad portal of the hotel. We call a _cocha_,
bade the _cochero_ drive us to the ferry on the bay, and were soon
rattling through Havana’s narrow, rough-paved streets. It was early,
not yet six o’clock. But the people of the tropics rise betimes and
the busy life of the day was well begun. We could look right into the
courtyards, and even into the living rooms of the houses, so close did
our _cocha_ wheel to the open doorways and to the wide-lifted curtains
of the glassless windows. A young mother looked curiously through the
iron bars of a window front at the _Americanos_. She held her laughing
baby daughter in her arms. A pair of slippered feet, a coral
necklace, a friendly smile, and it was clothed for the day. A family
sat at a long table, each sipping the clear black coffee. The mother
was smoking a huge black cigar, the father a cigar of more moderate
size, the children were all smoking cigarettes. Scantily clad peddlers
were crying their goods, one his back piled high with tinware. Women
were carrying on their heads big baskets of fruit. An ancient
jet-black African woman trudged along with a squealing shoat, tied by
the four legs and slung to her shoulder. A drove of she-donkeys were
standing before an open doorway; their owner was milking one of them,
the buyer was standing near so as to be sure that the morning’s milk
should be the real thing. The shops, however, were not yet open. It
was too early for buyers. But the awnings were being spread over the
streets, so as to be ready for the sun when it should wax hot.
As we approached the neighborhood of the bay, the press of footfarers
in the streets increased. The narrow sidewalks and even the street
itself were filled with men and women moving toward the ferry. Our
_cochero_ cracked his whip and hallooed at the crowd, and they fled
out of the way, quite good-naturedly. I was trying to light my cigar,
but the motion of the vehicle blew out the match. I had just struck a
third. A woman on the sidewalk saw my fix. She called to the
_cochero_ and pointed to me. He stopped his horse upon its haunches.
He waited until my cigar was alight, then he drove on. Such is the
custom in a city where every man and woman smokes and _El Segaro_ is
the King.
At the long, low-roofed ferry house there was a great crowd, an
uncommon press. We paid our _cochero_ a _peseta_ (twenty cents),
dismissed him and strode among the thick of the throng.
In its midst were a group of gentlemen in white _panama_ hats and
white linen clothes. One of them was short and stout with gray
_mustachios_, pointed goatee and flowing gray hair. It was General
Masso, the candidate of the Massoista Party for President. I had met
him the night when he made his great speech to his cheering followers
in front of the Hotel Pasaje, and told them all to refrain from voting
when the day for elections should arrive, “for were not all the
Palmaistas scoundrels and thieves and would-be usurpers of power,
backed, too, by Yankee bayonets! What use was it to vote or try to
vote against such combinations for wrong and ill? No! let the
Massoistas remain at home, and by the smallness of the vote cast let
the world see that the real strength of the Cuban people was not with
Palma, the puppet of American power, but with the real people of
Cuba, whose day would in the future surely come!” And had not the
assembled multitude filled the air with shouts of “_Bravo! Viva
Masso!_” With him was Señor Hernandez, candidate for the
Vice-presidency of the Massoista Party, who had also stood on a pile
of boxes and stirred the excited multitude with eloquence even more
intemperate. And there was also _Señor_ Gualberto Gomez, the greatest
orator of Cuba, short, stout, gray-haired, with gold spectacles--a
Spanish mulatto, the real leader of the great, turbulent, Afro-Spanish
race; the powerful backer of the Massoistas, who it is said, had
welded the third of Cuba’s Negro-Spanish population into a solid
political machine, bounden together with the secret ties of occult
brotherhood. His impetuous eloquence it was which swept the
Constitutional Convention, and carried the plank for universal
suffrage triumphantly to victory against predetermined plans of the
Conservative leaders. He would now have his following hold the balance
of power in Cuba, and so rule the Island as does his race in Hayti and
San Domingo! For the present, he would use the Massoistas and their
pro-Spanish propaganda, later he would throw aside the Spanish
following and himself rule Cuba through the power of his organized
blacks. Young Garcia was there, too, the son of the great leader,
discontented with the minor rôle Palma and the Americans have
permitted him to play, and anxious for a Cuba wholly free from the
interference of the American as well as the Spaniard. Yes, these
leaders were all there, and the great square before the ferry house
was packed with a cheering multitude to bid them good-bye, and Masso
“God speed” on his journey to his plantation home. When I met these
gentlemen before, I enjoyed free and frank talk with them, and they
had made no scruple in voicing to me their policies and
demands:--their determination to rule or ruin; their policy to refrain
from voting and then later rise in armed revolt. This morning they
were all gathered here to take a last farewell of their really loved
chief, Masso, a fine old patriot with a famous war record, whom many
now think that men more cunning than himself are using for their own
selfish ends.
[Illustration: A SPANISH PARK--MATANZAS]
The ferryboat was ancient in make and slow in movement. We were to
cross the bay to the little suburb where we were to take the train
which was to carry us through the rolling country and level plains of
middle Cuba into the rich and fertile sugar-producing province of
Matanzas.
Our track over the now clear waters of the bay led us close alongside
the crushed and bended wreckage of the United States Steamship
_Maine_, while not far beyond lay at easy anchor three modern
warboats of the navy, the _Kearsarge_, the _Kentucky_ and the
_Massachusetts_, a proud trio for Spanish and Cuban eyes to look upon.
The wreck still lies there, its lonely foremast a mournful monument to
the tragedy it marks.
The railroad runs almost due east, from the low-lying suburbs, and
passes close by the village of Guanabacoa, where were gathered so many
of the _reconcentrados_, where Spanish cruelty developed its most
wanton crimes, and where yellow fever played most deadly havoc with
Spaniard and with Cuban alike. We sped between rolling grass-covered
hills, passing great groves of that most graceful and stately of
tropic trees, the royal palm, large plantings of luxuriant bananas,
and many cocoanut palms as well. The country was more flat than toward
the west, and soon we were moving through wide reaches of the feathery
sugar cane. There were miles of it, leagues of it, and all taller and
more robust than the cane I saw while traversing the sugar lands of
Louisiana.
In the black, deep and wonderfully fertile soil, the cane grows
without care or heed. Here the cane once planted need not be reset for
full twenty years, and the stock may be cut at six months’ intervals
through all that time. No wonder the sugar-growers of Louisiana cry
aloud, for they must reset their roots every third year, and can only
count on two sugar crops from that; while their cane does not yield
nearly so much sugar to the ton as the crops from these Cuban lands.
Nor can the sugar grower of the Florida Everglades compete with the
fertility of Cuba. Seven years, at most, to a single root is there the
limit, five years is more often the rule, and the stalk is but little
sweeter than that of Louisiana growth. The American sugar men are now
scouting the land in Cuba. I met them from Louisiana and from Texas
and from Florida. They are bound to come in numbers greater yet.
For many miles we traversed these waving cane fields, passing many
villages and smoking sugar mills at work, teams of fat oxen hauling in
the cane, miniature railroads dragging in long train loads of cane to
the factories, and thousands of men and many women working in the
fields, these lifting their faces from toil to gaze momentarily at our
train as it hurried by.
At one station a bridal company entered the train; the groom was clad
in black broadcloth, the bride was gowned in soft white fabric, a
graceful white _mantilla_ of priceless lace falling over her thick
black braids. Their friends were all there to see them off, and
cheered with many _vivas_, showering them with rice as they entered
the car, followed by the burly bulk of the cassock-clad _padre_ who
had made them one.
Matanzas, which claims to be the most healthful city of all Cuba, is
situated some fifty miles almost due east of Havana facing a beautiful
bay, and spans the mouths of two small rivers, whose verdant valleys
stretch behind the town. The city is ancient, and is spread for the
most part along a high, long, sloping hill, or several hills,
stretching back and up from the arm of the sea on which it lies. Here
has been wrought under the skillful supervision of General Wilson, the
most successful of the sanitary regenerations of any Cuban town. The
city has been sewered in modernwise and macadamized with care, and is
supplied with abundance of purest water.
We alighted at the commodious railway station, a larger and better
structure for its purpose than any I have yet seen in Cuba. We
entrusted ourselves to the care of a tawney-hued _cochero_, who
galloped us away toward the heart of the town. We followed a long,
level, wide street, crossed a substantial iron bridge over the river
San Juan, made a sharp turn, climbed a steep pitch of hill and stopped
before the chief hotel. Here is a little courtyard, at the farther end
of which hangs a life-size portrait of Jose Marte, the martyred
patriot. We sat in the _patio_, where palms waved over us, and
coffee and delicious fish were brought to us along with a basket of
oranges such as even Florida cannot well surpass. Lighting our cigars,
we now sauntered into the fine, old-fashioned, Spanish gardens of the
Plaza, laid out with precise symmetry and guarded by low iron fences
set on bases of carved stone, the flowering shrubs and many blooming
plants being half hid by the iron and the rock.
[Illustration: A GLIMPSE OF MATANZAS]
We viewed the cathedral, a small square-towered edifice in ill repair,
and then visited the elaborate and commodious building for the public
school, now in vacation emptiness, and then we strolled to the market
where fruits and fish were in especial abundance; and we noted
everywhere the multitude of Cubans tan and black, for many negroes
live in salubrious Matanzas.
Then we climbed the long hill, until, high behind the town, we came to
a hedge of cactus, an open gate, an old and half-dismantled house.
Voices of children rang out as we approached the wide piazza. A
blue-eyed man with firm and kindly face, a little pinched and pale,
but alight with high purpose, greeted us at the door. He had made here
a home for motherless waifs, the riffraff and refuse of the
_reconcentrado_ camps, whom Spanish heartlessness and hunger had not
utterly destroyed. The man came from Illinois, and with his own small
means had gathered these few score children, all little boys here, a
separate home for the little girls yonder across the hill; had drawn
to him a company of kindly Cubans, and here set up and now
successfully maintains, asking no outside aid or alms, these homes and
schools for the saving of the little bodies and their souls. The
youngsters are the picture of good health. Their fare is the simplest;
their instruction kindly, their play hours long. They grow and thrive,
and some day will be men and women who will help Cuba’s destiny for
weal and not for woe. I grouped the little lads together and took them
with my kodak, and cherish the picture, in sad contrast with the party
of little Mexican boys who left our ship at Progresso, all unconscious
of the brutal slavery and death awaiting them.
We also visited the beautiful and simple shrine and chapel of
Monserrat, erected by the descendants of those who came to Cuba from
the Balearic Isles. This shrine crowns the summit of a hill
overlooking the city. We here tarried long, viewing the wide reach of
landscape stretching as far as the eye could see in undulating plains
toward the south, with everywhere vistas of ripening cane, while
northward wound the fertile valley of Ymurri toward the famous caves
of Bellmar.
“_Veni aci_, Charley Blue-eyes,” they called after us as we passed
along the narrow streets. Some of the voices possessed the cadent
melody of the Spanish maiden, but we did not deign to turn, for who
would be so bold as to call us “Charley Blue-eyes,” we should like to
know! Many children were playing along the curb, and few of them wore
even a coral band around the neck. Quite as God made them they were,
their tan and swart skins, showing soft as satin under the influence
of sunlight and fresh air. We were loath to bid adieu to the
delightful city, and I shall never forget the charm of its picturesque
location, the perfection of its smooth macadam streets, the
cleanliness of its white and blue and yellow houses. Yellow was the
hue most used and loved by the Spaniards, blue is the color for the
patriotic Cuban. Since Spanish oppression has left the shores of Cuba,
the towns and cities have been going through a steady metamorphosis
from the yellow to the blue.
We lingered upon the fine iron bridge spanning the river San Juan,
watching the abundant traffic of the waters beneath us, composed
chiefly of fishing and fruit boats, although some were laden with more
bulky commerce. At a little shop just across the bridge, we tarried to
fill our pockets with delicious cigars, cheaper than even our stogies
at home; and we let the boy behind the counter take up a huge
cocoanut in its green husk and with his big knife hack it open and
pour out the liquor within. “Milk,” they call it, but more like nectar
it is, and he filled two deep glasses whose contents we quaffed with
great content.
The stars were out when we returned to the city of Havana. The
American squadron was ablaze with electric lights, and only the gloomy
mast of the _Maine_, thrusting above the placid waters, hinted at the
final provocation to war which so short a time ago brought to Cuba
peace with liberty.
[Illustration: DRESSED FOR THE DAY]
XXIII
Cuba--The Tobacco Lands of Guanajay--The Town and Bay of Mariel
GUANAJAY, CUBA,
_December 28th_.
It was dark. Through the wide-open window of my chamber crept the soft
morning air of the tropics. Some one was shaking my door and crying,
“_Hay las seis, Hay las seis._” It was six o’clock. I was to leave on
the seven o’clock train for Guanajay, and the fertile tobacco
plantations of Pinar del Rio. In the spacious, airy dining room, I was
the first guest at _desayuno_.
The railways of Cuba and the railway coaches are yet of the antiquated
sort. Our car must have been made fifty years ago, with its small
seats of hard plank and windows without glass. The clerk who sold
tickets spoke no English. I just kept putting down Spanish dollars
until he said “_bastante_” (enough). Later, I found that, presuming on
my ignorance and the throng pushing behind me, he had gathered in two
dollars too much, to his personal profit. The railway is owned by
Englishmen, although run by Cubans. We rolled slowly out of the city
toward the west. We looked upon high stone walls, now and then
catching a glimpse of a garden through an open gateway, and then ran
between perfectly tilled market gardens with rich black soil, many
Chinamen working in them.