This hotel (San Carlos) is situated right on the bay. The quay in front of
us is garnished with a row of dwarfy trees and dirty benches, these last
being decorated, in their turn, by slumbering Cubans. There were
colonnades underneath the hotel, where there were small shops, from which
the odor of garlic and tobacco, combined with the shrieks and the snapping
of the drivers' whips, reached us, as we sat above them on our balcony.
The hotel is square, with an open courtyard in the middle, and all the
rooms open on to the marble gallery which surrounds the courtyard. This
gallery is used as a general dining-room; each person eats at his own
little iron table placed before the door of his bedroom.
Our large room contains two iron beds (minus mattresses), with only a
canvas screwed on the iron sides, but covered with the finest of linen
sheets. An iron frame holds the mosquito-net in place.
Evidently a wash-stand is a thing to be ashamed of, for they are concealed
in the most ingenious way. Mine in the daytime is rather an attractive
commode; Laura's is a writing-table, which at night opens up and discloses
the wash-basin. Otherwise there is little furniture: two cane-bottomed
chairs, two bamboo tables (twins); one has a blue ribbon tied on its leg
to tell it from its brother. Two ingeniously braided mats of linen cord do
duty for the _descente de lit_. Oh yes! there is a mirror for each of
us, which in my hurry to finish my letter I forgot to mention; but they
are so small and wavy that the less we look in them the better we are
satisfied with ourselves.
We have a large balcony, which has a beautiful view of the harbor and the
opposite shore, two huge wooden so-called windows, which are not windows,
opening on to the balcony. There is a panel in the middle which you can
open if you want some fresh air. Glass is never used for windows, so that
when you shut your window you are in utter darkness. Opposite is the door
which is not a door, but a sort of a gate with lattice shutters, giving
the room the look of a bar-room. There is space above the shutters which
is open to the ceiling.
Any one in the gallery who wanted to could stand on a chair and peer over.
Everything that goes on in the gallery, every noise, every conversation,
can be clearly overheard, and if one only understood the language it might
be very interesting.
The bars and locks on our doors and windows date from the fifteenth
century, I should say, and it is with the most herculean efforts that we
manage to shut ourselves in for the night; and we only know that the day
has broken when we hear the nasal and strident Cuban voices, and the
clattering of plates on the other side of the gate. Then we work like
galley-slaves unbarring, and the blazing sun floods our room.
I don't know if bells are popular in Havana; but in this hotel we have
none. If you want a chambermaid, which you do about every half-hour, you
must open your gate and clap your hands, and if she does not come you go
on clapping until some one else comes.
For our early breakfast we begin clapping at an early hour, and finally
our coffee and a huge plate filled with the most delicious oranges, cut
and sugared, are brought to us. We tried to obtain some simple toast; but
this seemed unknown to the Cuban cuisine, and we had to content ourselves
with some national mixture called rolls.