MASQUERADING IN CUBA.
Deserted!--'Los Mamarrachos'--A French-Creole Ball--Street
Masquers--Negro Amateurs--Masks and Dominoes--The Plaza de
Armas--Victims of the Carnival--A Cuban Cafe in Holiday
Time--'Comparsas'--White and Black Balls--A Moral.
It is the twenty-eighth of December, and the thermometer stands at
eighty-five in the shade. I rise with the 'ganza grulla'--our bird
chronometer--that wonderful creature of the crane species, with a yard
of neck, and two-feet-six of legs. Every morning at six of the clock
precisely, our grulla awakens us by half-a-dozen gurgling and metallic
shrieks, in a tone loud enough to be heard by his Excellency the
Governor, who is a sound sleeper, and lives in a big palace half a
league from our studio. I descend from my Indian grass hammock, and don
a suit of the flimsiest cashmere, in compliment to the winter month, and
because there is still a taste of night air in the early morning. I have
to manufacture my own cafe noir to-day, for my companion is absent, and
our servants--a stalwart Ethiop and a youthful mulatto--are both abroad,
and will not return for the next three days. It is a fiesta and Friday.
To-morrow is 'la napa,' or day of grace, 'thrown in' to the
holiday-makers, to enable them to recruit their exhausted frames, which
they do by repeating the pleasurable excitement of the previous day.
Then comes Sunday, another fiesta, which, in most foreign climes, is
another word for day, not of rest, but of restlessness.
The leading characteristics of a Cuban carnival are the street
'comparsas,' or companies of masqueraders--'mamarrachos' as they are
called in the creole vernacular--and the masked balls. Here you have a
comparsa comprised of pure Africans; though you wouldn't believe it, for
their flat-nosed faces are illumined by a coat of light flesh-colour,
and their woolly heads are dyed a blazing crimson. The males have also
assumed female attire, though their better halves have not returned the
compliment. Here is another and a better comparsa, of mulattoes, with
cheeks of flaming vermilion, wigs of yellow tow, and false beards. Their
everyday apparel is worn reversed, and the visible lining is embellished
with tinsel, paint, and ribbons. They are preceded by a band of music: a
big drum, hand tambours, basket rattles, conch shells, and a
nutmeg-grater. The members of this goodly company dance and sing as they
pass rapidly along the streets, occasionally halting in their career to
serenade a friend. Now, they pause before a cottage, at the door of
which is a group of 'mulaticas francesas,' or French mulatto girls. The
maskers salute them in falsetto voices, and address them by their
Christian names as a guarantee of their acquaintanceship. The girls try
hard to recognise the disfigured faces of their visitors. At last:--
'Hola! Musyer Fransoir, je vous conose!' cries a yellow divinity in
creole French.
'Venici! Monte!' calls another; at which invitation, Musyer Fransoir,
who has stood confessed, ascends the narrow side steps which give
entrance to the cottage, and vanishes through a diminutive door. He
appears again hatless, and beckons his companions, who follow his lead
with alacrity. Soon, a hollow drumming, rattling, and grating, is heard,
varied by the occasional twang of an exceedingly light guitar making
vain efforts to promote harmony. A shuffling of slippered feet, and
voices singing, signify that a dance is pending. Everybody--meaning
myself and my neighbours--moves towards the scene. Everybody passes up
the perilous steps, and endeavours to squeeze into the spare apartment.
A few succeed in establishing a permanent footing in the room, and the
rest stand at the doorway and window, or burst through the chamber by a
back door into an open yard. In carnival time, everybody's house is
everybody else's castle.
There is a perfect Babel at the French criolla's. Some are endeavouring
to dance with little more terra firma to gyrate upon than 'La Nena' had
on her foot square of table. Others are beating time on tables, trays,
and tin pots. Somebody has brought a dismal accordion, but he is so
jammed up in a corner by the dancers, that more wind is jerked out of
him than he can possibly jerk out of his instrument. The man with the
faint guitar is no better off. Every now and then a verse of dreary song
is pronounced by one of the dancers.
Here is a specimen:--
iAy! Caridad; iay! Caridad; iay! Caridad,
Cuidao' con la luna si te da.
iCa-la-ba-zon! tu estas pinton.
(Oh! Charity, Charity, foolish Charity.
Beware of the moon, and avoid her _clarity_!)
There is a pause--an interval of ten minutes or so for refreshments.
English bottled ale, at two shillings the bottle, is dispensed, together
with intensely black coffee, which leaves a gold-brown stain on the cup
in proof of its genuineness; and this is followed by the indispensable
nip of the native brandy, called aguardiente. Stumps of damp cigars are
abandoned for fresh ones, and the air is redolent of smoke, beer, and
brown perspiration. If you remain long in this atmosphere, which reminds
you of a combination of a London cook-shop and a museum of stuffed birds
and mummies, you will become impregnated by it, and then not all the
perfumes of Araby will eradicate it from your system.
I need not go far to witness the street sights in carnival time. Many of
them I can enjoy from my position on my balcony. 'Enter' the shade of an
Othello in false whiskers. He is attired in a red shirt, top boots, and
a glazed cap. In his mouth is a clay pipe; in his hand a black bottle:
both products of Great Britain. He is followed by a brother black, in
the disguise of a gentleman, with enormous shirt collars and heavy
spectacles. In his arms rests a colossal volume, upon which his
attention is riveted, and against the brim of his napless hat is stuck a
lighted taper. He stumbles along with uneven step, and occasionally
pauses for the purpose of giving tongue to his profound cogitations. The
crowd jeer him as he passes, but he is unmoved, and the expression of
his copper-coloured countenance is ever grave and unchangeable. His
eyes--or more correctly speaking, his spectacles--never wander from the
mystic page, save when he trims his taper of brown wax, or exchanges it
for another and a longer. One cannot help remarking how on all
occasions the 'oppressed' negro preserves his natural gravity. Whether
it be his pleasure or his pain, he takes it stoically, without any
observable alteration in his sombre physiognomy.
How do you reconcile the singular anomaly of a nigger with his face
painted black? Here is one, whose face and bare arms are besmeared with
soot and ink. His thick lips start out in bright scarlet relief, his
eyebrows are painted white, and his spare garments (quite filthy enough
before) are bedaubed with tar and treacle. This piece of grimy humanity
is worthy of note as showing that the despised nigger is really not so
black as he is painted; if the truth were known, perhaps, the man
himself has adopted this disguise with a view to prove to the meditative
world that there may yet be another, and a blacker, population!
It is not wise to be too contemplative, and to stay at home, on a
carnival day in Cuba. All the world recognises you in the character of a
moralising recluse, and all the carnival world will surely make you its
victim. As I sit, despising these frivolities, as I call them, a great
'comparsa' of whites--the genuine article--comes rushing along in my
direction. Out of the carnival season, the dramatis personae of this
comparsa are respectable members of society, in white drill suits and
Spanish leather boots. To-day they are disreputable-looking and
unrecognisable. Their faces are painted black, red, and mulatto-colour.
Their disguise is of the simplest, and withal most conspicuous nature,
consisting of a man's hat and a woman's chemise--low-necked,
short-sleeved, and reaching to the ground. They dance, they sing, and
jingle rattles and other toys, and are followed by a band of music of
the legitimate kind. In it are violins, a double-bass, a clarionet, a
French horn, a bassoon, a brace of tambours, and the indispensable
nutmeg-grater, performed upon with a piece of wire exactly as the actual
grater is by the nutmeg. The musicians, who are all respectably dressed
blacks, hired for the occasion, play the everlasting 'Danza Cubana.'
This is Cuba's national dance, impossible to be described as it is
impossible to be correctly played by those who have never heard it as
executed by the native. In a country where carnivals are objected to by
the police, I have heard but one pianoforte player who, in his very
excellent imitation of the quaint music of 'La Danza,' has in the least
reminded me of the original, with its peculiar hopping staccato bass and
running and waltzing treble; but he had long been a resident in the
Pearl of the Antilles.
The comparsa just described has halted before my balcony, as I guessed
it would from the fact that its members were white people, and possibly
friends. Oh, why did I not follow Nicasio's example and accept Jose
Joaquin's invitation last evening to make one of a comparsa of wax
giantesses! But I preferred seclusion to-day, and must take the
consequences! Here they come straight into my very balcony with their
'Hola! Don Gualterio. No me conoces?' in falsetto voices. Do I know you?
How should I in that ungentlemanly make-up? Let me see. Yes, Frasquito
it is, by all that's grimy! What! and Tunicu, too, and Bimba? I feel
like Bottom the weaver when he summoned his sprites. Que hay, amigos? By
this time my amigos have taken unlawful possession of my innermost
apartments. It's of no use to expostulate. I must bottle up my
indignation, and uncork my pale ale. I do the latter by producing all
my English supply of that beverage; but it proves insufficient. The
thirst of my burglarious intruders is not easily sated. The cry is
still: 'Cerveza!' Convinced that I have exhausted all my beer, they are
content to fall back upon aguardiente; which very plebeian liquor, to
judge from their alcoholic breath, my guests have been falling back upon
ever since the morning.
'Musica! Vamos a bailar!' The chemised cavaliers propose a dance.
Musica! The musica strikes up with a deafening echo under my spacious
roof. At the inspiring tones of 'La Danza,' a dozen spectators from the
pavement, consisting chiefly of mulatto girls and white neighbours,
invite themselves in. Here's a pretty thing! An extemporised public
masked ball in my private dwelling in the middle of the day! If this
were Cornwall-road, Bayswater, I would have every one of them prosecuted
for trespass. Music--a! Aguardiente! They combine singing with dancing,
and mix these with cigar smoking and aguardiente drinking. To save my
credit, the genuine white brandy I provide is diluted to ten degrees of
strength, and costs only two dollars and a quarter the garafon! I find
myself suddenly whirled round by one of my uninvited visitors. I would
not have selected such a partner, but I have no choice. Smoke is said to
be a disinfectant; so I smoke as I dance. For the closeness of the
atmosphere, and the muskiness of mulatto girls, are not congenial to
one's olfactory and respiratory organs. At last the final drop of
aguardiente is drained, the music ceases, and my friends, and my
friends' friends, and the strangers that were without my gate, take
their not unwelcome departure.
This has been a warning, which, as I live, I'll profit by. I
extemporise and assume a home-made disguise. A strange sensation of
guilt, of going to do something wrong, comes over me and makes me quake
from the top of my extemporised turban to the sole of my sandal
slippers. Whither shall I wander, forlorn pantomimist that I am? I
loiter about the least frequented neighbourhoods, until the shades of
eve--which in this climate come with a rush--have fallen, and then I mix
fearlessly with the throng, among whom I am but as a drop in a Black
Sea. In my peregrinations I meet a company of negro masqueraders, who,
without the least ceremony, are entering the private dwelling of an
opulent Don. The illustrious family are tranquilly seated in the elegant
sala; but what care their visitors? It is carnival time and they, serfs
of that same house, are licensed to bring themselves and their friends.
They bear between them a painted screen, which they unfold and plant in
the middle of the saloon. It forms a theatrical proscenium on a small
scale. An orchestra of tambours, tin-trays, and nutmeg-grating gueiros
opens the performances, and then the actors proceed to saw the air. They
perform this operation in turn, by reason of the limited proportions of
their stage; and one very tall negro, who appears to have been
altogether omitted in the carpenter's calculations, has to speak his
speech behind the top drop. He speaks it trippingly too; for in the
middle of a most exciting monologue, he upsets the whole paraphernalia
and himself into the bargain. The entertainment, including refreshments,
has lasted some fifteen minutes, when the itinerant troupe (who derive
no benefit from their labours save what honour and self-enjoyment yield)
pick up their portable proscenium and walk away.
By far the gayest region of the city during a carnival is the spacious
square called the Plaza de Armas. Here are the governor's house, the
residences of Cuban Belgravia, the cafes, and the cathedral. Myriads of
masqueraders, in every variety of motley and domino, congregate in the
plaza after their day's perambulations, and dance, sing, or bewitch each
other with their disguises. There is a party of masqued and dominoed
ladies: genuine whites all--you can tell it by the shape of their
gloveless hands and the transparent pink of their
finger-nails--endeavouring to hoax a couple of swains in false noses and
green spectacles, both of whom have been already recognised. The
perplexed youths try their hardest to discover their fair interlocutors
by peeping at their profiles through their wire masks, but in vain. At
the next quiet tertulia these same ladies will have rare fun with their
puzzled victims of the night of the masquerade. Within earshot of where
I am standing are a small crew of ancient mariners, Britons every one of
them; unless they happen to be Americans from Boston: it does not matter
which to a Cuban. They belong to the good ship _Mary Barker_, lately
arrived from Halifax, in quest of Cuban copper. Jack has come ashore
to-night to see the sights and collect material for a new yarn, which he
will deliver at his native fireside one of these odd days. Some masker
has approached the group, and has brought them the astounding
information that he--the unknown--belongs to the _Mary Barker_. Jack
turns to his messmates with a bewildered air. Then, addressing the
masker, 'What, Joe?' says he at a venture.
'No, not Joe,' says the man behind the mask. 'Try again.'
'Shiver my timbers!' exclaims Jack, 'I give it up. Here, Tom,' says he
to a shipmate of that name, 'you're good at conhumdrums; just step
for'ard and tell this here lubber who he his.'
Tom tries and fails, but arrives at the possible conclusion that it is
'some o' them 'ere Cubeyans a-making game on us.'
Refreshment stalls stand at intervals along the pavement of the plaza.
Each table has a white tablecloth, and is dimly illumined by candles
sheltered from the wind by enormous stand shades of glass, or lamps of
portable gas. Leather-bottomed chairs are placed invitingly around, and
charcoal braziers for warming drinks keep their respectful distances.
Egg-flip, bottled ale, cafe noir, and a kind of soupe a la Julienne,
called by the natives 'aijaco,' are dispensed by negress vendors, who
charge double for everything, and drive a roaring trade. Approaching one
of the tables, I call for a plate of aijaco, and am perfectly understood
by the dark divinity, who places before me a pot-pourri of yams, green
bananas, cut pumpkins, 'aguacates,' chicken, and broth of the same. I do
full justice to this rich and substantial repast, and, by way of
dessert, conclude with a very small cup of properly made cafe noir and a
genuine Yara. I then betake myself to the nearest coffee-house. After
black coffee cometh what is popularly termed 'plus-cafe,' and this being
an unlicensed spirit, cannot be had in the street. The coffee-saloon is
well patronised, and the air of carnival is here very strong. Everybody
and everything seem to follow the masquerade lead, the very furniture
forming no exception to the rule: for the gas chandeliers are encased in
fancy papers, the walls and pictures are adorned by tropical leaves and
evergreens, the chairs are transformed into shapes of seated humanity,
the marble slabs of the little round tables are partially disguised in
robes of glass and crystal. As for the white-jacketed proprietor and his
myrmidons, including Rubio, the mixer of liquors, behind the counter,
they all wear smiles or holiday faces, while they carefully conceal
their natural sleepiness.
'Mozo! garcon! Una copita con cognac!' The waiter hears, but does not
obey, having already too many copitas on his mind. 'Alla voy, senor!'
he, however, says; and as it is some consolation to know that he will
come eventually, I forgive his procrastination, and bide my time.
Meanwhile, I watch a group of maskers who surround a guitar-playing
improvisatore, who assures his audience in song that he is expiring
because of the faithlessness of his mulatto, who has rejected his
advances with ridicule.
iAy, ay, ay! que me estoy muriendo, si.
iAy, ay, ay! por una mulata;
Y ella esta reyendose,
Que es cosa que me mata!
In an opposite corner are a pair of moralising Davids gravely descanting
upon the frailty of woman to the accompaniment of a windy accordion and
a gueiro nutmeg-grater, something after this fashion:--
Women there are in this world, we see,
Whose tongues are long enough for three;
They bear their neighbours' skins about,
And twist and turn them inside out.
Pellejo ajeno! lo viran al reves.
This is the whole song, and nothing but the song: for negro melodies,
of which the above is a specimen, are essentially epigrammatic.
A rush is made to the big barred windows and open doors of the cafe. An
important comparsa of Congo negroes of both sexes is passing in
procession along the street. They have just been paying their respects
to no less a personage than his Excellency the Governor of Santiago, in
the long reception-room of whose palace, and in whose august presence
they have dared to dance! The troupe is headed by a brace of blacks, who
carry banners with passing strange devices, and a dancing mace-bearer.
These are followed by a battalion of colonels, generals, and
field-marshals, in gold-braided coats and gilded cocked-hats. Each wears
a broad sash of coloured silk, a sword and enormous spurs. These are not
ordinary, masqueraders be it known, but grave subjects of his sombre
majesty King Congo, the oldest and blackest of all the blacks: the
lawfully appointed sovereign of the coloured community. It seems to form
part of the drilling of his majesty's military to march with a
tumble-down, pick-me-up step, for as each member of the corps moves, he
is for ever losing his balance and finding his equilibrium; but whether
on the present occasion this remarkable step proceeds from loyalty or
liquor, I cannot say. In the rear of his Congo Majesty's officers are a
crowd of copper-coloured amazons, in pink muslins trimmed with flowers
and tinsel, who march trippingly in files of four, at well-measured
distances, and form a connecting link with each other by means of their
pocket-handkerchiefs held by the extreme corners. Each damsel carries a
lighted taper of brown wax, and a tin rattle, which she jingles as she
moves. The whole procession terminates in a military band, composed of
musicians whose hard work and little pay are exhibited in their
uniforms, which are limited to buttonless shirts and brief
unmentionables. Their instruments are a big drum, hand tambours, huge
cone-shaped basket rattles, a bent bamboo harp with a solitary string,
and the indispensable gueiro or nutmeg-grater. There is harmony in this
outline of an orchestra, let him laugh who may. No actual tune is there,
but you have all the lights and shadows--the skeleton, so to speak--of a
tune, and if your imagination be musical, that will suffice to supply
the melody. The peculiar measure adopted in the negro drum-music, and
imitated in 'La Danza' and in church-bell chiming, has an origin which
those who have a taste for natural history will do well to make a note
of. There is an insect--I forget the name, but you may hear it any fine
night in the wilds of a tropical country--that gives out a continuous
croak, which exactly corresponds with this measure.
'Al fin y al cabo,' I have taken my plus-cafe; and now that it is very
early morning, I take the nearest way to my virtuous home. On my way
thither, I pause before the saloons of the Philharmonic, where a grand
bal masque of genuine, and doubtful, whites is being held. From my
position on the pavement I can see perfectly well into the salon de bal,
so I will not evade the door-keeper, as others do, by introducing myself
in disguise as somebody else. I observe that the proceedings within have
already begun to grow warm. There is no lack of partners in carnival
time, as everybody, save the black musicians, is dancing the everlasting
contra-danza. Some of the excited toe-trippers have abandoned their
masks. One of these, an olive-complexioned senorita, wears a tell-tale
patch of blue paint on her left cheek; condemning testimony that at some
period of the evening she danced with that 'mamarracho' whose face is
painted like an Indian chief! In a dark corner of the billiard-room,
where two gentlemen attired in the garb of Philip the Second are playing
carambola against a couple of travestied Charles the Fifths, are seated
a snug couple--lover and mistress to all appearance. The dominoed lady
is extremely bashful, her replies are brief and all but inaudible. The
fond youth has proposed a saunter into the refreshing night air, where a
moon, bright enough to read the smallest print by, is shining. His
proposal is acceded to. His heart is glad now: but what will his
feelings be when he discovers that the beloved object is a bearded brute
like himself! The orchestra is playing one of Lino Boza's last danzas.
Lino Boza is, as I have already stated, a negro composer and clarionet
player of great renown in Cuba, and this particular danza is one of the
'pegajosa' or 'irresistible' kind. You have heard it played all over the
town to-day, and to-morrow you will hear it sung with a couple of
doggerel rhymes in creole Spanish, which fit into the music so well as
to 'appear to be the echoes of the _melody_.' The way in which Lino
helps the dancers in their favourite gyrations by his inimitable and
ever-varied performance on the clarionet, should be a warning to
protecting mammas! The step of 'La Danza' is difficult for an amateur to
acquire, but when once it is achieved, and you are fortunate enough to
secure a graceful partner, the result is highly satisfactory. I am
almost tempted to trespass upon the early hours of the morning, for the
sake of the music of 'La Danza' and those open-air refreshment stalls
where everything looks hot and inviting. The night breeze is, moreover,
cool and exhilarating, and, after all, it is not later than nine
P.M.--in Europe. I lead on, nevertheless, in the direction of the
heights of El Tivoli, where I reside; stopping not in my upward career,
save to pay a flying visit at a ball of mulattoes. A crowd of uninvited
are gazing, like myself, between the bars of the huge windows; for the
ball is conducted upon exclusive principles, and is accessible only with
tickets of admission. Two 'policias,' armed with revolvers and short
Roman Swords, are stationed at the entrance-door, and this looks very
much like the precursor of a row. Mulatto balls generally do end in some
unlooked-for 'compromisa,' and it would not surprise me if this
particular ball were to terminate in something sensational.
I am home, and am myself again, ruminating upon the events of the day
and night, and I arrive at the conclusion that the despised and
oppressed negro is not so ill off as he is made out to be, especially in
carnival time. As I enter, our grulla thinks it must be six o'clock, and
essays to shriek that hour, as is her custom; but I startle her in the
middle of her fourth chime, and she stops at half-past three. Then I
climb into my aerial couch, in whose embrace I presently invoke that of
the grim masker, Morpheus!