PUBLIC BUILDINGS OF HAVANA, AND THE TOMB OF COLUMBUS.
The Tacon Theatre.--The Fish Market.--Its Proprietor.--The
Cathedral.--Its adornments.--View of Romanism.--Infidelity.--The
Tomb of Columbus.--The Inscription.--Reflections suggested by
it.--The Removal of his Remains.--Mr. Irving's eloquent
reflections.--A misplaced Monument.--Plaza de Armas.
Among the public buildings in Havana, there are many worthy of a particular
description. Passing over the Governor's House, the Intendencia, the
Lunatic Asylum, Hospitals, etc., to which I had not time to give a personal
inspection, I shall notice only the Tacon Theatre, the Fish Market, and the
Cathedral.
The Tacon Theatre is a splendid edifice, and is said to be capable of
containing four or five thousand spectators. It has even been stated, that,
at the recent masquerade ball given there, no less than seven thousand were
assembled within its walls. This building was erected by an individual, at
an expense of two hundred thousand dollars. It contains three tiers of
boxes, two galleries, and a pit, besides saloons, coffee-rooms, offices,
etc., etc. A trellis of gilded iron, by which the boxes are balustraded,
imparts to the house an unusually gay and airy appearance. The pit is
arranged with seats resembling arm-chairs, neatly covered, and comfortably
cushioned. The Habaneros are a theatre-going people, and bestow a liberal
patronage upon any company that is worthy of it.
The Fish Market is an object of no little interest in Havana, not only for
the rich variety of beautiful fishes that usually decorate its long marble
table, but for the place itself, and its history. It was built during the
administration of Tacon, by a Mr. Marti, who, for a service rendered the
government, in detecting a gang of smugglers, with whom it has been
suspected he was too well acquainted, was permitted to monopolize the sale
of fish in the city for twenty years. Having the prices at his own control,
he has made an exceedingly profitable business of it, and is now one of the
rich men of the island. He is the sole proprietor of the Tacon Theatre,
which is one of the largest in the world, and which has also the privilege
of a twenty years monopoly, without competition from any rival
establishment.
The Fish Market is one hundred and fifty feet in length, with one marble
table extending from end to end, the roof supported by a series of arches,
resting upon plain pillars. It is open on one side to the street, and on
the other to the harbor. It is consequently well ventilated and airy. It is
the neatest and most inviting establishment of the kind that I have ever
seen in any country; and no person should visit Havana, without paying his
respects to it.
The Cathedral is a massive building, constructed in the ecclesiastical
style of the fifteenth century. It is situated in the oldest and least
populous part of the city, near the Fish Market, and toward the entrance of
the port. It is a gloomy, heavy looking pile, with little pretensions to
architectural taste and beauty, in its exterior, though the interior is
considered very beautiful. It is built of the common coral rock of that
neighborhood, which is soft and easily worked, when first quarried, but
becomes hard by exposure to the atmosphere. It is of a yellowish white
color, and somewhat smooth when laid up, but assumes in time a dark, dingy
hue, and undergoes a slight disintegration on its surface, which gives it
the appearance of premature age and decay.
In the interior, two ranges of massive columns support the ceiling, which
is high, and decorated with many colors in arabesque, with figures in
fresco. The sides are filled, as is usual in Roman Catholic churches, with
the shrines of various Saints, among which, that of St. Christoval, the
patron of the city, is conspicuous. The paintings are numerous; and some of
them, the works of no ungifted pencils, are well worthy of a second look.
The shrines display less of gilding and glitter than is usual in other
places. They are all of one style of architecture, simple and unpretending;
and the effect of the whole is decidedly pleasing, if not imposing. This
effect is somewhat heightened by the dim, uncertain light which pervades
the building. The windows are small and high up towards the ceiling, and
cannot admit the broad glare of day, to disturb the solemn and gloomy
grandeur of the place of prayer.
It has been observed by residents as well as by strangers, that the
attendance on the masses and other ceremonies of the Roman church, has
greatly diminished within a few late years. I have often seen nearly as
many officiating priests, as worshippers, at matins and vespers. They are
attended, as in all other places, chiefly by women, and not, as the
romances of the olden time would have us suppose it once was, by the young,
the beautiful, the warm-hearted and enthusiastic, but by the old and ugly,
so that a looker-on might be led to imagine that the holy place was only a
_dernier resort_, and refuge for those, for whom the world had lost its
charms. That there were some exceptions, however, to this remark, my memory
and my heart must bear witness--some, whose graceful, voluptuous figures,
bent down before their shrines, their beaming faces and keen black eyes
scarce hidden by their mantillas, might have furnished a more stoical heart
than mine with a very plausible excuse for paying homage to them, rather
than to the saints, before whose shrines they were kneeling.
In the various religious orders of this church, there has been a
corresponding diminution of numbers and zeal. The convents of friars, in
Havana, have been much reduced, and but few young men are found, who are
disposed to join them; so that, in another generation, they may become
quite extinct, unless their numbers are replenished from the mother
country. The Government has taken possession of their buildings, and
converted them to other uses, and pensioned off their inmates, allowing a
premium to those who would quit the monastic life, and engage in secular
business.
Among the people, infidelity seems to have taken the place of the old
superstition. Their holy-days are still kept up, because they love the
excitement and revelry, to which they have been accustomed. Their frequent
recurrence is a great annoyance to those who have business at the Custom
House, and other public offices, while they add nothing to the religious or
moral aspect of the place. Sunday is distinguished from the other days of
the week, only by the increase of revelry, cock-fighting, gambling, and
every other species of unholy employment. These are certainly no
improvement upon the customs of other days, for blind superstition is
better than profaneness, and ignorance than open vice. But, in one respect,
the protestant sojourner in Havana may feel and acknowledge that times have
changed for the better, since he is not liable now, as formerly, to be
knocked down in the street, or imprisoned, for refusing to kneel in the
dirt, when "the host" was passing.
In this Cathedral, on the right side of the great altar, is "The Tomb of
Columbus." A small recess made in the wall to receive the bones, is covered
with a marble tablet about three feet in length. Upon the face of this is
sculptured, in bold relief, the portrait of the great discoverer, with his
right hand resting upon a globe. Under the portrait, various naval
implements are represented, with the following inscription in Spanish.
iO Restos e Imagen del grande Colon!
Mil siglos durad guardados en la Orna,
Y en la remembranza de nuestra Nacion.
On the left side of the high Altar, opposite the tomb, hangs a small
painting, representing a number of priests performing some religious
ceremony. It is very indifferent as a work of art, but possesses a peculiar
value and interest, as having been the constant cabin companion of
Columbus, in all his eventful voyages, a fact which is recorded in an
inscription on a brass plate, attached to the picture.
The Lines on the tablet may be thus translated into English.
O Remains and Image of the great Columbus!
A thousand ages may you endure, guarded in this Urn;
And in the remembrance of our Nation.
Such is the sentiment inscribed on the last resting place of the ashes of
the discoverer of a world. An inscription worthy of its place, bating the
arrogance and selfishness of the last line, which would claim for a single
nation, that which belongs as a common inheritance to the world. It is a
pardonable assumption however; for, where is the nation, under the face of
heaven, that would not, if it could, monopolize the glory of such a name?
The glory of a name! Alas! that those who win, are so seldom allowed to
wear it! Through toil and struggle, through poverty and want, through
crushing care and heart-rending disappointments, through seas of fire and
blood, and perhaps through unrelenting persecution, contumely and reproach,
they climb to some proud pinnacle, from which even the ingratitude and
injustice of a heartless world cannot bring them down; and there, alone,
deserted and pointed at, like an eagle entangled in his mountain eyrie,
amid the screams and hootings of inferior birds, they die,--bequeathing
their greatness to the world, leaving upon the generation around them a
debt of unacknowledged obligation, which after ages and distant and unborn
nations, shall contend for the honor of assuming forever. The glory of a
name! What a miserable requital for the cruel neglect and iron injustice,
which repaid the years of suffering and self-sacrifice, by which it was
earned!
Columbus died at Valladolid, on the 20th of May, 1506, aged 70 years. His
body was deposited in the convent of St. Francisco, and his funeral
obsequies were celebrated with great pomp, in the parochial church of Santa
Maria de la Antigua. In 1513, his remains were removed to Seville, and
deposited, with those of his son, and successor, Don Diego, in the chapel
of Santo Christo, belonging to the Carthusian Monastery of Las Cuevas. In
1536, the bodies of Columbus and his son were both removed to the island of
Hispaniola, which had been the centre and seat of his vice-royal government
in this western world, and interred in the principal chapel of the
Cathedral of the city of San Domingo. But even here, they did not rest in
quiet. By the treaty of peace in 1795, Hispaniola, with other Spanish
possessions in these waters, passed into the hands of France. With a
feeling highly honorable to the nation, and to those who conducted the
negotiations, the Spanish officers requested and obtained leave to
translate the ashes of the illustrious hero to Cuba.
The ceremonies of this last burial were exceedingly magnificent and
imposing, such as have rarely been rendered to the dust of the proudest
monarchs on earth, immediately after their decease, and much less after a
lapse of almost three centuries. On the arrival of the San Lorenzo in the
harbor of Havana, on the 15th of January, 1796, the whole population
assembled to do honor to the occasion, the ecclesiastical, civil, and
military bodies vying with each other in showing respect to the sacred
relics. On the 19th, every thing being in readiness for their reception, a
procession of boats and barges, three abreast, all habited in mourning,
with muffled oars, moved solemnly and silently from the ship to the mole.
The barge occupying the centre of these lines, bore a coffin, covered with
a pall of black velvet, ornamented with fringes and tassels of gold, and
guarded by a company of marines in mourning. It was brought on shore by the
captains of the vessels, and delivered to the authorities. Conveyed to the
Plaza de Armas, in solemn procession, it was placed in an ebony
sarcophagus, made in the form of a throne, elaborately carved and gilded.
This was supported on a high bier, richly covered with black velvet,
forty-two wax candles burning around it.
In this position, the coffin was opened in the presence of the Governor,
the Captain General, and the Commander of the royal marines. A leaden
chest, a foot and a half square, by one foot in height, was found within.
On opening this chest, a small piece of bone and a quantity of dust were
seen, which was all that remained of the great Columbus. These were
formally, and with great solemnity pronounced to be the remains of the
"_incomparable Almirante Christoval Colon_." All was then carefully closed
up, and replaced in the ebony sarcophagus.
A procession was then formed to the Cathedral, in which all the pomp and
circumstance of a military parade, and the solemn and imposing grandeur of
the ecclesiastical ceremonial, were beautifully and harmoniously blended
with the more simple, but not less heartfelt demonstrations of the civic
multitude--the air waving and glittering with banners of every device, and
trembling with vollies of musketry, and the ever returning minute guns from
the forts, and the armed vessels in the harbor. The pall bearers were all
the chief men of the island, who, by turns, for a few moments at a time,
held the golden tassels of the sarcophagus.
Arrived at the Cathedral, which was hung in black, and carpeted throughout,
while the massive columns were decorated with banners infolded with black,
the sarcophagus was placed on a stand, under a splendid Ionic pantheon,
forty feet high by fourteen square, erected under the dome of the church,
for the temporary reception of these remains. The architecture and
decorations of this miniature temple, were rich and beautiful in the
extreme. Sixteen white columns, four on each side, supported a splendidly
friezed architrave and cornice, above which, on each side, was a
frontispiece, with passages in the life of Columbus figured in bas-relief.
Above this, rising out of the dome of the pantheon, was a beautiful
obelisk. The pedestal was ornamented with a crown of laurels, and two olive
branches. On the lower part of the obelisk were emblazoned the arms of
Columbus, accompanied by Time, with his hands tied behind him--Death,
prostrate--and Fame, proclaiming the hero immortal in defiance of Death
and Time. Other emblematic figures occupied the arches of the dome.
The pantheon, and the whole Cathedral, was literally a-blaze with the light
of wax tapers, several hundred of which were so disposed as to give the
best effect to the imposing spectacle. The solemn service of the dead was
chanted, mass was celebrated, and a funeral oration pronounced. Then, as
the last responses, and the pealing anthem, resounded through the lofty
arches of the Cathedral, the coffin was removed from the Pantheon, and
borne by the Field Marshal, the Intendente, and other distinguished
functionaries, to its destined resting place in the wall, and the cavity
closed by the marble slab, which I have already described.
"When we read," says the eloquent Mr. Irving, "of the remains of Columbus,
thus conveyed from the port of St. Domingo, after an interval of nearly
three hundred years, as sacred national reliques, with civic and military
pomp, and high religious ceremonial; the most dignified and illustrious men
striving who should most pay them reverence; we cannot but reflect, that it
was from this very port he was carried off, loaded with ignominious chains,
blasted apparently in fame and fortune, and followed by the revilings of
the rabble. Such honors, it is true, are nothing to the dead, nor can they
atone to the heart, now dust and ashes, for all the wrongs and sorrows it
may have suffered: but they speak volumes of comfort to the illustrious,
yet slandered and persecuted living, showing them how true merit outlives
all calumny, and receives it glorious reward in the admiration of after
ages."
Near the Quay, in front of the Plaza de Armas, is a plain ecclesiastical
structure, in which the imposing ceremony of the mass is occasionally
celebrated. It is intended to commemorate the landing of the great
discoverer, and the inscription upon a tablet in the front of the building,
conveys the impression that it was erected on the very spot where he first
set foot upon the soil of Cuba. This, however, is an error. Columbus
touched the shore of Cuba, at a point which he named Santa Catalina, a few
miles west of Neuvitas del Principe, and some three hundred miles east of
Havana. He proceeded along the coast, westward, about a hundred miles, to
the Laguna de Moron, and then returned. He subsequently explored all the
southern coast of the island, from its eastern extremity to the Bay of
Cortes, within fifty miles of Cape Antonio, its western terminus. Had he
continued his voyage a day or two longer, he would doubtless have reached
Havana, compassed the island, and discovered the northern continent.
The Plaza de Armas is beautifully ornamented with trees and fountains. It
is also adorned with a colossal statue of Ferdinand VII.; and during the
evenings, when the scene is much enlivened by the fine music of the
military bands stationed in the vicinity, it is the general resort of
citizens and strangers;--the former of whom come hither to enjoy the
cheering melody of the music and the freshness of the breeze,--the latter,
for the purpose of doing homage to the memory of him whose footsteps are
supposed to have sanctified the ground. Here, and around the sepulchre of
the departed, a holy reverence seems to linger, which attracts the visitor
as to "pilgrim shrines," before which he bends with respect and
admiration.
The village of Regla, one of the suburbs of Havana, is situated on the
eastern side of the harbor, about a mile from the city, and having constant
communication with it, by means of a ferry. It is a place of about six
thousand inhabitants, and is the great depot of the molasses trade. Immense
tanks are provided to receive the molasses, as it comes in from the
neighboring estates. I say the _neighboring_ estates, for the article is of
so little value, that it will not pay the expense of transportation from
any considerable distance; and very large quantities of it are annually
thrown away. In some places you may see the ditches by the road side filled
with it. In others, the liquid is given to any who will take it away,
though in doing so, they are expected to pay something more than its real
value for the hogshead.
The greater part of the molasses that comes to Regla from the interior, to
supply the export trade of Havana, is brought in five gallon kegs, on the
backs of the mules, one on each side, after the manner of saddle-bags, or
panniers. A common mule load is four or six kegs, equal to half, or
two-thirds of a barrel. Large quantities are also transported in lighters
from all the smaller towns on the coast, much of it coming in that way from
a distance of more than a hundred miles. A large proportion of the article
shipped from this port hitherto, having been unfit for ordinary domestic
uses, and suitable only for the distillery, the trade in it has been
greatly diminished by the operation of the mighty Temperance reform, which
has blessed so large a portion of our favored land. I have not the means at
hand to show the precise results; but will venture to assert, from
personal observation and knowledge of the matter, that the exports of this
article from Cuba to this country, for distilling purposes, have fallen off
more than one half in the last ten years.
The concentration of this once active and lucrative traffic at Regla, gave
it, in former times, the aspect of a busy, thriving place. Now, it looks
deserted and poor. It was formerly one of the many resorts of the pirates,
robbers, and smugglers, who infested all the avenues to the capital, and
carried on their business as a regular branch of trade, under the very
walls of the city, and in full view of the custom-house and the castle.
Thanks to the energetic administration of Tacon, they have no authorized
rendezvous in Cuba now. Regla is consequently deserted. Its streets are as
quiet as the green lanes of the country. Its houses are many of them going
to decay. Its theatre is in ruins, and the spacious octagonal amphitheatre,
once the arena for bull-fighting, the favorite spectacle of the Spaniards,
both in Spain and in the provinces, and much resorted to from all quarters
in the palmy days of piracy and intemperance, is now in a miserably
dilapidated condition; affording the clearest proof of the immoral nature
and tendency of the sport, by revealing the character of those who alone
can sustain it. Tacon and temperance have ruined Regla.
The only amusement one can now find in Regla, is in listening to the wild
and frightful stories of the robbers and robberies of other days. It is
scarcely possible to conceive that scenes such as are there described, as
of daily, or rather nightly occurrence, could have taken place in a spot
now so quiet and secure, and without any of those dark, mysterious lurking
places, which the imagination so easily conjures up, as essential to the
successful prosecution of the profession of an organized band of outlaws.
The system set in operation by Tacon, is still maintained; and mounted
guards are nightly seen scouring the deserted and comparatively quiet
avenues, offering an arm of defence to the solitary and timid traveller,
and a caution to the evil-disposed, that the stern eye of the law is upon
them. Volumes of entertaining history, for those who have the taste to be
entertained by the marvellous and horrible, might be written on this spot.
And I respectfully recommend a pilgrimage to it, and a careful study of its
scenery and topography, to those young novelists and magazine writers, who
delight to revel in carnage, and blood, and treachery.