MATANZAS.
A hot and dusty journey of some six hours brought us to Matanzas at high
noon. Our companions were Cubans, Spaniards, Americans, and
game-chickens, who travel extensively in these parts, sometimes in
little baskets, with openings for the head and tail, sometimes in the
hands of their owners, secured only by a string fastened to one foot and
passed over the body. They seem to be objects of tender solicitude to
those who carry them; they are nursed and fondled like children, and at
intervals are visited all round by a negro, who fills his mouth with
water, and squirts it into their eyes and under their feathers. They are
curiously plucked on the back and about the tail, where only the long
tail-feathers are allowed to grow. Their tameness in the hands of their
masters is quite remarkable; they suffer themselves to be turned and
held in any direction. But when set down, at any stage of the journey,
they stamp their little feet, stretch their necks, crow, and look about
them for the other cock with most belligerent eyes. As we have said that
the negro of the North is an ideal negro, so we must say that the
game-cock of Cuba is an ideal chicken, a fowl that is too good to be
killed,--clever enough to fight for people who are too indolent and
perhaps too cowardly to fight for themselves,--in short, the Gladiator
of the Tropics.
Well, as we have said, we and they arrived at our journey's end in the
extreme heat of the day; and having shown our paper and demanded our
trunks, we beat an instantaneous retreat before the victorious Monarch
of the skies, and lo! the Ensor House, dirty, bare, and comfortless, was
to us as a fortress and a rock of defence.
Here I would gladly pause, and giving vent to my feelings, say how
lovely I found Matanzas. But ever since Byron's time, the author is
always hearing the public say, "Don't be poetical," etc., etc.; and in
these days both writer and reader seem to have discovered that life is
too short for long descriptions,--so that when the pen of a G. P. R.
James, waiting for the inspirations of its master, has amused itself
with sketching a greater or less extent of natural scenery, the rule of
the novel-reader is invariably, "Skip landscape, etc., to event on
thirty-second page." Nevertheless, I will say that Matanzas is
lovely,--with the fair harbor on one hand and the fair hills on the
other, sitting like a mother between two beautiful daughters, who looks
from one to the other and wonders which she loves best. The air from the
water is cool and refreshing, the sky is clear and open, and the country
around seems to beckon one to the green bosom of its shades. "Oh, what a
relief after Havana!" one says, drawing a full breath, and remembering
with a shudder the sickening puffs from its stirring streets, which make
you think that Polonius lies unburied in every house, and that you nose
him as you _knows_ not, as you pass the door and window-gratings. With
this exclamation and remembrance, you lower yourself into one of Mr.
Ensor's rocking-chairs,--twelve of which, with a rickety table and a
piano, four crimson tidies and six white ones, form the furniture of the
Ensor drawing-room,--you lean your head on your hand, close your eyes,
and wish for a comfortable room with a bed in it. A tolerable room you
shall have; but for a bed, only a cot-bedstead with a sacking
bottom,--further, nothing. Now, if you are some folks that I know, you
will be able to establish very comfortable repose on this slender
foundation, Nature having so amply furnished you that you are your own
feather-bed, bolster, sofa-cushion, and easy-chair, a moving mass of
upholstery, wanting only a frame to be set down in and supported. But if
you should be one of Boston's normal skeletons, pinched in every member
with dyspepsia, and with the mark of the beast Neuralgia on your
forehead, then your skin will have a weary time of it, holding your
bones, and you will be fain to entreat with tears the merciful mediation
of a mattress.
Now I know very well that those of my readers who intend visiting Cuba
will be much more interested in statistics of hotels than in any
speculations, poetical or philosophical, with which I might be glad to
recompense their patience. Let me tell them, therefore, that the Ensor
House is neither better nor worse than other American hotels in Cuba.
The rooms are not very bad, the attendance not intolerable, the table
almost commendable. The tripe, salt-fish, and plantains were, methought,
much as at other places. There were stews of meat, onions, sweet
peppers, and _ochra_, which deserve notice. The early coffee was
punctual; the tea, for a wonder, black and hot. True, it was served on a
bare pine table, with the accompaniment only of a bit of dry bread,--no
butter, cake, nor _dulces_. But Mr. Ensor has heard, no doubt, that
sweet things are unwholesome, and is determined, at whatever cost to his
own feelings, to keep them out of the way of his guests, who are, for
the time, his children. Then there is an excellent English servant
called John, whom, though the fair Ensor did berate him, we must
enumerate among the comforts of the establishment. There is a dark
corner about _volantes_, which they are disposed to order for you at a
very unreasonable profit; but as there are plenty of livery stables at
hand, and street _volantes_ passing all the time, it will be your own
fault if you pay six dollars where you ought to pay three.
The first thing to be done at Matanzas is to drive out and see the
Cumbre, a hill in the neighborhood, and from it the valley of the
Yumori. The road is an improvement on those already described;--the ruts
being much deeper and the rocks much larger, the jolting is altogether
more complete and effective. Still, you remember the doctrine that the
_volante_ cannot upset, and this blind faith to which you cling carries
you through triumphantly. The Cumbre is lofty, the view extensive, and
the valley lovely, of a soft, light green, like the early leaves and
grass of spring, dotted everywhere with the palms and their dark
clusters. It opens far, far down at your feet, and on your left you see
the harbor quiet and bright in the afternoon sun, with a cheering
display of masts and pennons. You would look and linger long, but that
the light will wane, and you are on your way to Jenks his
sugar-plantation, the only one within convenient distance of the town.
Here the people are obviously accustomed to receive visitors, and are
decently, not superfluously, civil. The _major-domo_ hands you over to a
negro who speaks English, and who salutes you at once with, "Good-bye,
Sir!" The boiling here is conducted in one huge, open vat. A cup and
saucer are brought for you to taste the juice, which is dipped out of
the boiling vat for your service. It is very like balm-tea, unduly
sweetened; and after a hot sip or so you return the cup with thanks. A
loud noise, as of cracking of whips and of hurrahs, guides you to the
sugar-mill, where the crushing of the cane goes on in the jolliest
fashion. The building is octagonal and open. Its chief feature is a very
large horizontal wheel, which turns the smaller ones that grind the
cane. This wheel is turned after the following manner. In the centre of
the building, and as it were in the second story, stands a stout post,
to which are attached, at equal distances, six horizontal bars, which
are dragged round by six horses, vehemently flogged by the like number
of slaves, male and female. This is really a novel and picturesque
sight. Each negro is armed with a short whip, and their attitudes, as
they stand, well-balanced on the revolving wheel, are rather striking.
Liberal as they were of blows and of objurations to the horses, all
their cries and whipping produced scarcely a tenth of the labor so
silently performed by the invisible, noiseless slave that works the
steam-engine. From this we wandered about the avenues, planted with
palms, cocoas, and manifold fruit-trees,--visited the sugar-fields,
where many slaves were cutting the canes and piling them on enormous
ox-carts, and came at last to a great, open field, where many head of
cattle were quietly standing. Our negro guide had not been very lavish
or intelligible in his answers to our numerous questions. We asked him
about these cattle. "Dey cows," he replied. We asked if they gave milk,
and if butter was made on the plantation. He seemed quite puzzled and
confused, and finally exclaimed,--"_Dat cows no got none wife_." Coming
nearer, we found that the cows were draught oxen, employed in dragging
the canes and other produce of the plantation. Jenks his garden we found
in good order, and beautiful with many plants in full blossom; but Jenks
his house seemed dreary and desolate, with no books, a wretched print or
so, dilapitated furniture, and beds that looked like the very essence of
nightmare. Nothing suggested domestic life or social enjoyment, or
anything ----; but as Jenks is perfectly unknown to us, either by
appearance or reputation, we give only a guess in the dark, and would
suggest, in case it may displease him, that he should refurnish and
repaint a little, and diffuse an air of cheerfulness over his solitary
villa, remembering that Americans have imaginations, and that visitors
will be very apt to construct an unknown host from his surroundings.
The second thing to be done in Matanzas, if you arrive on Saturday, is
to attend military mass at the Cathedral on Sunday morning. This
commences at eight o'clock; but the hour previous may be advantageously
employed in watching the arrival and arrangement of the female
aristocracy of Matanzas. These enter in groups of twos and threes,
carrying their prayer-books, and followed by slaves of either sex, who
bear the prayer-carpet of their mistresses. The ladies are wonderfully
got up, considering the early hour; and their toilettes suggest that
they may not have undressed since the ball of the night before. All that
hoops, powder, and puffery can do for them has been done; they walk in
silk attire, and their hair is what is technically termed dressed. Some
of them bring their children, bedizened like dolls, and mimicking
mamma's gestures and genuflection in a manner more provoking to sadness
than to satire. If the dressing is elaborate, the crossing is also. It
does not consist of one simple cross, "_in nomine Patris_," etc.; they
seem to make three or four crosses from forehead to chin, and conclude
by kissing the thumb-nail, in honor of what or whom we could not
imagine. Entering the middle aisle, which is divided from the rest by a
row of seats on either side, they choose their position, and motion to
the dark attendant to spread the carpet. Some of them evince
considerable strategic skill in the selection of their ground. All being
now in readiness, they drop on their knees, spread their flounces, cross
themselves, open their books, and look about them. Their attendants
retire a little, spread a handkerchief on the ground, and modestly kneel
behind them, obviously expecting to be saved with the family. These are
neatly, sometimes handsomely dressed. In this _status_ things remain
until the music of the regiment is heard. With a martial sound of
trumpets it enters the church, and fills the aisles, the officers taking
place within the chancel, and a guard of honor of eight soldiers ranging
on either side of the officiating priest. And now our devotions begin in
good earnest; for, simultaneously with the regiment, the _jeunessé
dorée_ of Matanzas has made its appearance, and has ranged itself along
the two long lines of demarcation which separate the fair penitents from
the rest of the congregation. The ladies now spread their flounces
again, and their eyes find other occupation than the dreary Latin of
their missals. There is, so to speak, a lively and refreshing time
between the youths of both sexes, while the band plays its utmost, and
_Evangel_, _Kyrie_, and _Credo_ are recited to the music of Trovatore
and Traviata. That child of four years old, dressed in white and gold
flounces, and white satin boots with heels, handles her veil and uses
her eyes like Mamma, eager for notice, and delighted with the gay music
and uniforms. The moment comes to elevate the Host,--thump goes the
drum, the guard presents arms, and the soldiers, instead of kneeling,
bend forward, in a most uncomfortable manner. Another thump, and all
that is over; the swords are returned to their sheaths, and soon, the
loud music coming to an end, the regiment marches out of church, very
much as it marched in, its devotional experiences being known to Heaven
alone. Ladies and lovers look their last, the flounces rise in pyramids,
the prayer-carpets are rolled up, and with a silken sweep and rush,
Youth, Beauty, and Fashion forsake the church, where Piety has hardly
been, and go home to breakfast. To that comfortable meal you also betake
yourself, musing on the small heads and villanous low foreheads of the
Spanish soldiery, and wondering how long it would take a handful of
resolute Yankees to knock them all into---- But you are not a
Filibuster, you know.