HAVANA. THE HOTELS.
"Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn?" Yes, truly, if you can get it,
Jack Falstaff; but it is one thing to pay for comfort, and another thing
to have it. You certainly pay for it, in Havana; for the $3 or $3.50
_per diem_, which is your simplest hotel-charge there, should, in any
civilized part of the world, give you a creditable apartment, clean
linen, and all reasonable diet. What it does give, the travelling public
may like to learn.
Can Grande has left Woolcut's. The first dinner did not please him,--the
cup of tea, with only bread, exasperated,--and the second breakfast,
greasy, peppery, and incongruous, finished his disgust; so he asked for
his bill, packed his trunk, called the hotel detestable, and went.
Now he was right enough in this; the house is detestable;--but as all
houses of entertainment throughout the country are about equally so, it
is scarcely fair to complain of one. I shall not fear to be more
inclusive in my statement, and to affirm that in no part of the world
does one get so little comfort for so much money as on the Island of
Cuba. To wit: an early cup of black coffee, oftenest very bad; bread not
to be had without an extra sputtering of Spanish, and darkening of the
countenance;--to wit, a breakfast between nine and ten, invariably
consisting of fish, rice, beefsteak, fried plantains, salt cod with
tomatoes, stewed tripe and onions, indifferent claret, and an after-cup
of coffee or green tea;--to wit, a dinner at three or four, of which the
inventory varieth not,--to wit, a plate of soup, roast beef, tough
turkeys and chickens, tolerable ham, nameless stews, cayota, plantains,
salad, sweet potatoes; and for dessert, a spoonful each of West India
preserve,--invariably the kind you do not like,--oranges, bananas, and
another cup of coffee;--to wit, tea of the sort already described;--to
wit, attendance and non-attendance of negro and half-breed waiters, who
mostly speak no English, and neither know nor care what you want;--to
wit, a room whose windows, reaching from floor to ceiling, inclose no
glass, and are defended from the public by iron rails, and from the
outer air, at desire, by clumsy wooden shutters, which are closed only
when it rains;--to wit, a bed with a mosquito-netting;--to wit, a towel
and a pint of water, for all ablutions. This is the sum of your comforts
as to quantity; but as to their quality, experience alone can enlighten
you.
Taking pity on my exile at the Cerro, Can Grande and his party invite me
to come and spend a day at their hotel, of higher reputation, and
situated in the centre of things. I go;--the breakfast, to my surprise,
is just like Woolcut's; the dinner _idem_, but rather harder to get;
preserves for tea, and two towels daily, instead of one, seem to
constitute the chief advantages of this establishment. Domestic linens,
too, are fairer than elsewhere; but when you have got your ideas of
cleanliness down to the Cuban standard, a shade or two either way makes
no material difference.
Can Grande comes and goes; for stay in the hotel, behind those
prison-gratings, he cannot. He goes to the market and comes back, goes
to the Jesuit College and comes back, goes to the Banker's and gets
money. In his encounters with the sun he is like a prize-fighter coming
up to time. Every round finds him weaker and weaker, still his pluck is
first-rate, and he goes at it again. It is not until three, P. M., that
he wrings out his dripping pocket-handkerchief, slouches his hat over
his brows, and gives in as dead-beat.
They of the lovely sex meanwhile undergo, with what patience they may,
an Oriental imprisonment. In the public street they must on no account
set foot. The Creole and Spanish women are born and bred to this, and
the hardiest American or English woman will scarcely venture out a
second time without the severe escort of husband or brother. These
relatives are, accordingly, in great demand. In the thrifty North, Man
is considered an incumbrance from breakfast to dinner,--and the sooner
he is fed and got out of the way in the morning, the better the work of
the household goes on. If the master of the house return at an
unseasonable hour, he is held to an excuse, and must prove a headache,
or other suitable indisposition. In Havana, on the contrary, the
American woman suddenly becomes very fond of her husband:--"he must not
leave her at home alone; where does he go? she will go with him; when
will he come back? Remember, now, she will expect him." The secret of
all this is that she cannot go out without him. The other Angel of
deliverance is the _volante_, with its tireless horses and _calesero_,
who seems fitted and screwed to the saddle, which he never leaves. He
does not even turn his head for orders. His senses are in the back of
his head, or wherever his Mistress pleases. "_José, Calle de la Muralla,
esquina á los oficios_,"--and the black machine moves on, without look,
word, or sign of intelligence. In New York, your Irish coachman grins
approval of your order; and even an English flunkey may touch his hat
and say, "Yes, Mum." But in the Cuban negro of service, dumbness is the
complement of darkness. You speak, and the patient right hand pulls the
strap that leads the off horse, while the other gathers up the reins of
the nigh, and the horses, their tails tightly braided and deprived of
all movement, seem as mechanical as the driver. Happy are the ladies at
the hotel who have a perpetual _volante_ at their service! for they
dress in their best clothes three times a day, and do not soil them by
contact with the dusty street. They drive before breakfast, and shop
before dinner, and after dinner go to flirt their fans and refresh their
robes on the Paseo, where the fashions drive. At twilight, they stop at
friendly doors and pay visits, or at the entrance of the _café_, where
ices are brought out to them. At eight o'clock they go to the Plaza, and
hear the band play, sitting in the _volante_; and at ten they come home
without fatigue, having all day taken excellent care of Number One,
beyond which their arithmetic does not extend. "I and my _volante_" is
like Cardinal Wolsey's "_Ego et Rex meus_."
As for those who have no _volantes_, modesty becomes them, and
quietness of dress and demeanor. They get a little walk before
breakfast, and stay at home all day, or ride in an omnibus, which is
perhaps worse;--they pay a visit now and then in a hired carriage, the
bargain being made with difficulty;--they look a good deal through the
bars of the windows, and remember the free North, and would, perhaps,
envy the _volante_-commanding women, did not dreadful Moses forbid.
One alleviation of the tedium of hotel-life in the city is the almost
daily visit of the young man from the dry-goods' shop, who brings
samples of lawns, linen dresses, piña handkerchiefs, and fans of all
prices, from two to seventy-five dollars. The ladies cluster like bees
around these flowery goods, and, after some hours of bargaining,
disputing, and purchasing, the vendor pockets the golden honey, and
marches off. As dressmakers in Havana are scarce, dear, and bad, our
fair friends at the hotel make up these dresses mostly themselves, and
astonish their little world every day by appearing in new attire. "How
extravagant!" you say. They reply, "Oh! it cost nothing for the making;
I made it myself." But we remember to have heard somewhere that "Time is
Money." At four in the afternoon, a negress visits in turn every
bedroom, sweeps out the mosquitoes from the curtains with a
feather-brush, and lets down the mosquito-net, which she tucks in around
the bed. After this, do not meddle with your bed until it is time to get
into it; then put the light away, open the net cautiously, enter with a
dexterous swing, and close up immediately, leaving no smallest opening
to help them after. In this mosquito-net you live, move, and have your
being until morning; and should you venture to pull it aside, even for
an hour, you will appall your friends, next day, with a face which
suggests the early stages of small-pox, or the spotted fever.
The valuable information I have now communicated is the sum of what I
learned in that one day at Mrs. Almy's; and though our party speedily
removed thither, I doubt whether I shall be able to add to it anything
of importance.