the railroad, winding into the interior, to draw out the sugar freights,
makes a line of nearly one hundred miles. This adds to the length of our
journey, but also greatly to its interest.
In the cars are two Americans, who have also been visiting plantations.
They give me the following statistics of a sugar plantation, which they
think may be relied upon. Lands, machinery, 320 slaves, and 20 coolies,
worth $500,000. Produce this year, 4,000 boxes of sugar and 800 casks of
molasses, worth $104,000. Expenses, $35,000. Net, $69,000, or about 14
per cent. This is not a large interest on an investment so much of which
is perishable and subject to deterioration.
The day, as has been every day of mine in Cuba, is fair and beautiful.
The heat is great, perhaps even dangerous to a Northerner, should he be
exposed to it in active exercise, at noon--but, with the shade and
motion of the cars, not disagreeable, for the air is pure and elastic,
and it is only the direct heat of the sun that is oppressive. I think
one notices the results of this pure air, in the throats and nasal
organs of the people. One seldom meets a person that seems to have a
cold in the head or the throat; and pocket handkerchiefs are used
chiefly for ornament.
I cannot weary of gazing upon these new and strange scenes; the
stations, with the groups of peasants and Negroes and fruit-sellers that
gather about them, and the stores of sugar and molasses collected there;
the ingenios, glimmering in the heat of the sun, with their tall furnace
chimneys; the cane-fields, acres upon acres; the slow ox-carts carrying
the cane to the mill; then the intervals of unused country, the jungles,
adorned with little wild flowers, the groves of the weeping, drooping,
sad, homesick cocoa; the royal palm, which is to trees what the camel or
dromedary is among animals seeming to have strayed from Nubia or
Mesopotamia; the stiff, close orange tree, with its golden balls of
fruit; and then the remains of a cafetal, the coffee plant growing
untrimmed and wild under the reprieved groves of plantain and banana.
It is certainly true that there is such a thing as industry in the
tropics. The labor of the tropics goes on. Notwithstanding all we hear
and know of the enervating influence of the climate, the white man, if
not laborious himself, is the cause that labor is in others. With all
its social and political discouragements, with the disadvantages of a
duty of about twenty-five per cent on its sugars laid in the United
States, and a duty of full one hundred per cent on all flour imported
from the United States, and after paying heavier taxes than any people
on earth pay at this moment, and yielding a revenue, which nets, after
every deduction and discount, not less than sixteen millions a
year--against all these disadvantages, this island is still very
productive and very rich. There is, to be sure, little variety in its
industry. In the country, it is nothing but the raising and making of
sugar; and in the towns, it is the selling and exporting of sugar. With
the addition of a little coffee and copper, more tobacco, and some fresh
fruit and preserves, and the commerce which they stimulate, and the
mechanic and trading necessities of the towns, we have the sum of its
industry and resources. Science, arts, letters, arms, manufactures, and
the learning and discussions of politics, of theology, and of the great
problems and opinions that move the minds of the thinking world--in
these, the people of Cuba have no part. These move by them, as the great
Gulf Stream drifts by their shores. Nor is there, nor has there been in
Cuba, in the memory of the young and middle-aged, debate, or vote, or
juries, or one of the least and most rudimental processes of
self-government. The African and Chinese do the manual labor, the
Cubans hold the land and the capital, and direct the agricultural
industry; the commerce is shared between the Cubans, and foreigners of
all nations; and the government, civil and military, is exercised by the
citizens of Old Spain. No Cuban votes, or attends a lawful political
meeting, or sits on a jury, or sees a law-making assembly, except as a
curiosity abroad, even in a municipality; nor has he ever helped to
make, or interpret, or administer laws, or borne arms, except by special
license of government granted to such as are friends of government. In
religion, he has no choice, except between the Roman Catholic and none.
The laws that govern him are made abroad, and administered by a central
power, a foreign Captain-General, through the agency of foreign civil
and military officers. The Cuban has no public career. If he removes to
Old Spain, and is known as a supporter of Spanish royal power, his
Creole birth is probably no impediment to him. But at home, as a Cuban,
he may be a planter, a merchant, a physician, but he cannot expect to be
a civil magistrate, or to hold a commission in the army, or an office in
the police; and though he may be a lawyer, and read, sitting, a written
argument to a court of judges, he cannot expect to be himself a judge.
He may publish a book, but the government must be the responsible
author. He may edit a journal, but the government must be the
editor-in-chief.
At the chief stations on the road, there are fruit-sellers in abundance,
with fruit fresh from the trees: oranges, bananas, sapotes, and
coconuts. The coconut is eaten at an earlier stage than that in which we
see it at the North, for it is gathered for exportation after it has
become hard. It is eaten here when no harder than a melon, and is cut
through with a knife, and the soft white pulp, mixed with the milk, is
eaten with a spoon. It is luscious and wholesome, much more so than when
the rind has hardened into the shell, and the soft pulp into a hard
meat.
A little later in the afternoon, the character of the views begins to
change. The ingenios and cane-fields become less frequent, then cease
altogether, and the houses have more the appearance of pleasure retreats
than of working estates. The roads show lines of mules and horses,
loaded with panniers of fruits, or sweeping the ground with the long
stalks of fresh fodder laid across their backs, all moving towards a
common center. Pleasure carriages appear. Next comes the distant view of
the Castle of Atares, and the Príncipe, and then the harbor and the sea,
the belt of masts, the high ridge of fortifications, the blue and white
and yellow houses, with brown tops; and now we are in the streets of
Havana.
Here are the familiar signs--Por mayor y menor, Posada y Cantina,
Tienda, Panadería, Relojería, and the fanciful names of the shops, the
high-pitched falsetto cries of the streets, the long files of mules and
horses, with panniers of fruit, or hidden, all but their noses and
tails, under stacks of fresh fodder, the volantes, and the motley
multitude of whites, blacks, and Chinese, soldiers and civilians, and
occasionally priests--Negro women, lottery-ticket vendors, and the girl
musicians with their begging tambourines.
The same idlers are at the door of Le Grand's; a rehearsal, as usual, is
going on at the head of the first flight; and the parrot is blinking at
the hot, white walls of the court-yard, and screaming bits of Spanish.
My New York friends have got back from the country a day before me. I am
installed in a better room than before, on the house-top, where the sun
is hot, but where there is air and a view of the ocean.
XV.
HAVANA: Social, Religious and Judicial Tidbits
The warm bath round the corner is a refreshment after a day's railroad
ride in such heat; and there, in the front room, the man in his shirt
sleeves is serving out liquor, as before, and the usual company of
Creoles is gathered about the billiard tables. After a dinner in the
handsome, airy restaurant of Le Grand's, I drive into the city in the
evening, to the close streets of the Extramuros, and pay a visit to the
lady whom I failed to see on my arrival. I am so fortunate as to meet
her, and beside the pleasure to be found in her society, I am glad to be
able to give her personal information from her attached and sympathizing
friends, at the North.
While I am there, a tinkling sound of bells is heard in the streets, and
lights flash by. It is a procession, going to carry the viaticum, the
last sacrament, to a dying person.
From this house, I drove towards the water-side, past the Plaza de
Armas, the old Plaza de San Francisco, with its monastery turned into an
almacén (a store-house of merchandise,) through the Calle de los
Oficios, to the boarding-house of Madame Almy, to call upon Dr. and Mrs.
Howe. Mr. Parker left Havana, as he intended, last Tuesday, for Santa
Cruz. He found Havana rather too hot for his comfort, and Santa Cruz,
the most healthful and temperate of the islands, had always been his
destination. He had visited a few places in the city, and among others,
the College of Belén, where he had been courteously received by the
Jesuits. I found that they knew his reputation as a scholar and writer,
and a leading champion of modern Theism in America. Dr. Howe had called
at Le Grand's, yesterday, to invite me to go with him to attend a trial,
at the Audiencia, which attracted a good deal of interest among the
Creoles. The story, as told by the friends of Señor Maestri, the
defendant, is that in the performance of a judicial duty, he discharged
a person against whom the government was proceeding illegally, and that
this lead to a correspondence between him and the authorities, which
resulted in his being deposed and brought to trial, before the
Audiencia, on a charge of disrespect to the Captain-General. I have no
means of learning the correctness of this statement, at present--
"_I say the tale as 'twas said to me._"
The cause has, at all events, excited a deep interest among the Creoles,
who see in it another proof of the unlimited character of the
centralized power that governs them. I regret that I missed a scene of
so much interest and instruction. Dr. Howe told me that Maestri's
counsel, Señor Azcárate, a young lawyer, defended his friend
courageously; but the evidence being all in writing, without the
exciting conflicts and vicissitudes of oral testimony, and the written
arguments being delivered sitting; there was not much in the proceedings
to stimulate the Creole excitability. No decision was given, the Court
taking time to deliberate. It seems to have been a Montalembert trial,
on a small theater.
To-night there is again a máscara at the next door, but my room is now
more remote, and I am able to sleep through it. Once I awoke. It was
nearly five o'clock. The music was still going on, but in softer and
more subdued tones. The drums and trumpets were hushed, and all had
fallen, as if by the magic touch of the approaching dawn, into a trance
of sound, a rondo of constantly returning delicious melody, as nearly
irresistible to the charmed sense as sound can be conceived to be--just
bordering on the fusing state between sense and spirit. It is a
contradanza of Cuba. The great bells beat five, over the city; and
instantly the music ceases, and is heard no more. The watchmen cry the
hour, and the bells of the hospitals and convents sound their matins,
though it is yet dark.
XVI.
HAVANA: Worship, Etiquette and Humanitarianism
At break of day, I am in the delightful sea-baths again, not ill-named
Recreo and Elíseo. But the forlorn chain-gang are mustered before the
Presidio. It is Sunday, but there is no day of rest for them.
At eight o'clock I present myself at the Belén. A lady, who was passing
through the cloister, with head and face covered by the usual black
veil, turned and came to me. It was Mrs.----, whom I had seen last
evening. She kindly took me to the sacristy, and asked some one to tell
Father---- that I was there, and then went to her place in church. While
waiting in the sacristy, I saw the robing and unrobing of the
officiating priests, the preparation of altar ceremonials by boys and
men, and could hear the voices and music in the church, on the other
side of the great altar. The manner of the Jesuits is in striking
contrast with that at the Cathedral. All is slow, orderly and
reverential, whether on the part of men or boys. Instead of the hurried
walk, the nod and duck, there is a slow march, a kneeling, or a
reverential bow. At a small side altar, in the sacristy, communion is
administered by a single priest. Among the recipients are several men of
mature years and respectable position; and side by side with them, the
poor and the Negroes. In the Church, there is no distinction of race or
color.
Father---- appears, is unrobed, and takes me to the gallery of the
church, near the organ. From this, I looked down upon a sea of rich
costumes of women, veiled heads, and kneeling figures, literally
covering the floor of the church. On the marble pavement, the little
carpets are spread, and on these, as close as they can sit or kneel, are
the ladies of rank and wealth of Havana. A new-comer glides in among
them seeking room for her carpet, or room of charity or friendship on a
carpet already spread; and the kneelers or sitters move and gather in
their wide skirts to let her pass. Here and there a servant in livery
winds his way behind his mistress, bearing her carpet, and returns to
the porch when it has been spread. The whole floor is left to women. The
men gather about the walls and doorways, or sit in the gallery, which is
reserved for them. But among the women, though chiefly of rank and
wealth, are some who are Negroes, usually distinguished by the plain
shawl, instead of the veil over the head. The Countess Villanueva,
immensely rich, of high rank, and of a name great in the annals of Cuba,
but childless, and blind, and a widow, is lead in by the hand by her
Negro servant. The service of the altar is performed with dignity and
reverence, and the singing, which is by the Jesuit Brothers themselves,
is admirable. In the choir I recognized my new friends, the Rector and
young Father Cabre, the professor of physics. The "Tantum ergo
Sacramentum," which was sung kneeling, brought tears into my eyes, and
kept them there.
After service, Mr.---- came to me, and made an engagement to show me the
benevolent institutions on the Bishop's list, accepting my invitation to
breakfast at Le Grand's, at eleven o'clock. At eleven he came, and after
a quiet breakfast in a side room, we went to the house of Señor----,
whom he well knows, in the hope that he would go with us. The Señor was
engaged to meet one of the Fathers at noon, and could not go, but
introduced to me a relative of his, a young student of medicine in the
University, who offered to take me to the Presidio and other places, the
next day.
It occurred to us to call upon a young American lady, who was residing
at the house of a Spanish lady of wealth and rank, and invite her to go
with us to see the Beneficencia, which we thought she might do, as it is
an institution under the charge of nuns, and she was to go with a Padre
in full dress. But the customs of the country are rigid. Miss---- was
very desirous to go, but had doubts. She consulted the lady of the
house, who would know, if any one could, the etiquette of Havana. The
Señora's reply was, "You are an American, and may do anything." This
settled the matter in the negative, and we went alone. Now we drive to
Don Juan---- 's. The gate is closed. The driver, who is a white, gets
off and makes a feeble and timid rap at the door. "Knock louder!" says
my friend, in Spanish. "What cowards they are!" he adds to me. The man
makes a knock, a little louder. "There, see that! Peeking into the
keyhole! Mean! An Englishman would beat the door down before he would do
that." Don Juan is in the country, so we fail of all our expected
companions.
The Casa de Beneficencia is a large institution, for orphan and
destitute children, for infirm old persons, and for the insane. It is
admirably situated, bordering on the open sea, with fresh air and very
good attention to ventilation in the rooms. It is a government
institution, but is placed under charge of the Sisters of Charity, one
of whom accompanied us about the building. Though called a government
institution, it must not be supposed that it is a charity from the
crown. On the contrary, it is supported by a specific appropriation of
certain of the taxes and revenues of the island. In the building is a
church not yet finished, large enough for all the inmates, and a quiet
little private chapel for the Sisters' devotions, where a burning lamp
indicated the presence of the Sacrament on the small altar. I am sorry
to have forgotten the number of children. It was large, and included
both sexes, with a separate department for each. In a third department
are the insane. They are kindly treated and not confined, except when
violent; but the Sister told us they had no medical treatment unless in
case of sickness. (Dr. Howe told me that he was also so informed.) The
last department is for aged and indigent women.
One of the little orphans clung to the Sister who accompanied us,
holding her hand, and nestling in her coarse but clean blue gown; and
when we took our leave, and I put a small coin into her little soft
hand, her eyes brightened up into a pretty smile.
The number of the Sisters is not full. As none have joined the order
from Cuba, (I am told literally none,) they are all from abroad, chiefly
from France and Spain; and having acclimation to go through, with
exposure to yellow fever and cholera, many of those that come here die
in the first or second summer. And yet they still come, in simple,
religious fidelity, under the shadow of death.
The Casa de Beneficencia must be pronounced by all, even by those
accustomed to the system and order of the best charitable institutions
in the world, a credit to the island of Cuba. The charity is large and
liberal, and the order and neatness of its administration are beyond
praise.
From the Beneficencia we drove to the Military Hospital. This is a huge
establishment, designed to accommodate all the sick of the army. The
walls are high, the floors are of brick and scrupulously clean, as are
all things under the charge of the Sisters of Charity; and the
ventilation is tolerable. The building suffered from the explosion of
the magazine last year, and some quarters have not yet been restored for
occupation. The number of sick soldiers now in hospital actually exceeds
one thousand! Most of them are young, some mere lads, victims of the
conscription of Old Spain, which takes them from their rustic homes in
Andalusia and Catalonia and the Pyrenees, to expose them to the tropical
heats of Cuba, and to the other dangers of its climate. Most had fevers.
We saw a few cases of vómito. Notwithstanding all that is said about the
healthfulness of a winter in Cuba, the experienced Sister Servant
(which, I believe, is the title of the Superior of a body of Sisters of
Charity) told us that a few sporadic cases of yellow fever occur in
Havana, in all seasons of the year; but that we need not fear to go
through the wards. One patient was covered with the blotches of recent
smallpox. It was affecting to see the wistful eyes of these poor,
fevered soldier-boys, gazing on the serene, kind countenances of the
nuns, and thinking of their mothers and sisters in the dear home in Old
Spain, and feeling, no doubt, that this womanly, religious care was the
nearest and best substitute.
The present number of Sisters, charged with the entire care of this
great hospital, except the duty of cooks and the mere manual and
mechanic labor necessarily done by men, is not above twenty-five. The
Sister Servant told us that the proper complement was forty. The last
summer, eleven of these devoted women died of yellow fever. Every
summer, when yellow fever or cholera prevails, some of them die. They
know it. Yet the vacancies are filled up; and their serene and ever
happy countenances give the stranger no indication that they have bound
themselves to the bedside of contagious and loathsome diseases every
year, and to scenes of sickness and death every day.
As we walked through the passage-ways, we came upon the little private
chapel of the Sisters. Here was a scene I can never forget. It was an
hour assigned for prayer. All who could leave the sick wards--not more
than twelve or fourteen--were kneeling in that perfectly still,
secluded, darkened room, in a double row, all facing to the altar, on
which burned one taper, showing the presence of the Sacrament, and all
in silent prayer. That double row of silent, kneeling women, unconscious
of the presence of any one, in their snow-white, close caps and long
capes, and coarse, clean, blue gowns--heroines, if the world ever had
heroines, their angels beholding the face of their Father in heaven, as
they knelt on earth!
It was affecting and yet almost amusing--it would have been amusing
anywhere else--that these simple creatures, not knowing the ways of the
world, and desirous to have soft music fill their room, as they knelt at
silent prayer, and not having (for their duties preclude it) any skill
in the practice of music, had a large music-box wound and placed on a
stand, in the rear, giving out its liquid tones, just loud enough to
pervade the air, without forcing attention. The effect was beautiful;
and yet the tunes were not all, nor chiefly, religious. They were such
as any music-box would give. But what do these poor creatures know of
what the world marches to, or dances to, or makes love by? To them it
was all music, and pure and holy!
Minute after minute we stood, waiting for, but not desiring, an end of
these delightful sounds, and a dissolving of this spell of silent
adoration. One of the Sisters began prayers aloud, a series of short
prayers and adorations and thanksgivings, to each of which, at its
close, the others made response in full, sweet voices. The tone of
prayer of this Sister was just what it should be. No skill of art could
reach it. How much truer than the cathedral, or the great ceremonial! It
was low, yet audible, composed, reverent: neither the familiar, which
offends so often, nor the rhetorical, which always offends, but that
unconscious sustained intonation, not of speech, but of music, which
frequent devotions in company with others naturally call out; showing us
that poetry and music, and not prose and speech, are the natural
expressions of the deepest and highest emotions.
They rose, with the prayer of benediction, and we withdrew. They
separated, to station themselves, one in each ward of the hospital,
there, aloud and standing, to repeat their prayers--the sick men raising
themselves on their elbows, or sitting in bed, or, if more feeble,
raising their eyes and clasping their hands, and all who can or choose,
joining in the responses.
XVII.
HAVANA: Hospital and Prison
Drove out over the Paseo de Tacón to the Cerro, a height, formerly a
village, now a part of the suburbs of Havana. It is high ground, and
commands a noble view of Havana and the sea. Coming in, I met the
Bishop, who introduced me to the Count de la Fernandina, a dignified
Spanish nobleman, who owns a beautiful villa on this Paseo, where we
walked a while in the grounds. This house is very elegant and costly,
with marble floors, high ceilings, piazzas, and a garden of the richest
trees and flowers coming into the court-yard, and advancing even into
the windows of the house. It is one of the most beautiful villas in the
vicinity of Havana.
There are several noblemen who have their estates and titles in Cuba,
but are recognized as nobles of Spain--in all, I should say, about fifty
or sixty. Some of these have received their titles for civil or military
services; but most of them have been raised to their rank on account of
their wealth, or have purchased their titles outright. I believe there
are but two grades, the marquis and the count. Among the titles best
known to strangers are Villanueva, Fernandina, and O'Reilly. The number
of Irish families who have taken rank in the Spanish service and become
connected with Cuba, is rather remarkable. Beside O'Reilly, there are
O'Donnel, O'Farrel, and O'Lawlor, descendants of Irishmen who entered
the Spanish service after the battle of the Boyne.