THE PASEO--THE PLAZA--DINING OUT.
"As this Sunday is Carnival, you cannot do better than drive about the
city, and then go to the Plaza to see the masks. My partner's wife, with
whom you have now so comfortably breakfasted, will call for you in her
_volante_ this afternoon, between five and six o'clock. She will show
you the Paseo, and we will go and see the masks afterwards."
So spoke a banker, who, though not _our_ banker, is our friend, and
whose kind attentions we shall ever recall, when we remember Cuba. So he
spoke, and so it befell. The pretty American lady, Cubanized into
paleness, but not into sallowness, called at the appointed hour, and in
her company we visited the principal streets, and the favorite drive of
the Matanzasts. The Paseo is shorter than that of Havana, but much
prettier. We found it gay with _volantes_, whose fair occupants kept up
an incessant bowing and smiling to their friends in carriages and on
horseback. The Cubans are generally good riders, and their saddle-horses
have the easiest and pleasantest gait imaginable. The heat of the
climate does not allow the severe exercise of trot and gallop, and so
these creatures go along as smoothly and easily as the waves of the sea,
and are much better broken to obedience. The ladies of Matanzas seem to
possess a great deal of beauty, but they abuse the privilege of powder,
and whiten themselves with _cascarilla_ to a degree that is positively
ghastly. This _cascarilla_ is formed by the trituration of egg-shells;
and the oval faces whitened with it resemble a larger egg, with features
drawn on it in black and red. In spite of this, they are handsome; but
one feels a natural desire to rush in amongst them with a feather
duster, and lay about one a little, before giving an available opinion
of their good looks.
If the Paseo was gay, the streets of the city were gay also; the windows
filled with faces and figures in full dress, with little groups of
children at the feet of the grown people, like the two world-famous
cherubs at the feet of the Madonna di San Sisto. There were crowds of
promenaders too, everywhere, interspersed with parties of maskers, who
went about screaming at the public with high, shrill voices. Leaving the
_volante_, we descend to the Plaza, where is now the height and centre
of movement, we find it flanked on all sides with little movable
kitchens, where good things are cooked, and with tables, where they are
sold and eaten. Fried cakes, fish, and meats seem the predominant bill
of fare, with wine, coffee, and fruits. The masks are circulating with
great animation; men in women's clothes, white people disguised as
negroes, and negroes disguised as whites, prodigious noses, impossible
chins and foreheads; the stream of popular fancy ran chiefly in these
channels. We met processions consisting of a man carrying a rat in a
cage, and shouting out, "Catch this rat!" followed by a perfect stampede
of wild creatures, all yelling, "Catch that rat!" at the top of their
voices. The twanging of the guitar is heard everywhere, accompanied by
the high nasal voices of the natives, in various strains of monotony. In
some spots the music is more lively, accompanied by the shaking of a
gourd filled with dry seeds, which is called _ghirra_, and whose
"chick-a-chick, chick-chick" takes the place of the more poetical
castanets;--here you find one or more couples exhibiting their skill in
Cuban dances, with a great deal of applause and chattering from the
crowd around. Beside those of the populace, many aristocratic groups
parade the Plaza, in full dress, crowned with flowers and jewels;--a
more motley scene can hardly be imagined. Looking up, one sees in
curious contrast the tall palms with which the Plaza is planted, and the
quiet, wondering stars set in the deep tropical heavens.
But in our evening's programme, tea has been omitted; now, what availeth
a Bostonian without his tea? By eight o'clock, we are pensive, "most
like a tired child at a show,"--by half-past eight, stupid,--by nine,
furious. Two hours of folly, taken on an empty stomach, alarm us for our
constitution. A visit to the _café_ is suggested and adopted. It proves
to be crowded with people in fancy attire, who have laid aside their
masks to indulge in beer, orgeat, and sherbet. While our Cuban friends
regale themselves with sour-sop and _zapote_ ice sweetened with brown
sugar, we call for a cup of delicious Spanish chocolate, which is served
with a buttered toasted roll, worthy of all imitation. Oh, how much
comfort is in a little cup of chocolate! what an underpinning does it
afford our spiritual house, a material basis for our mental operations!
In its support, we go it a little longer on the Plaza, see more masks,
hear more guitars and "catch this rat!" and finally return, in a hired
_volante_, to the Ensor House, where rest and the bedless cots await us.
But we have friends in Matanzas, real born Cubans, who will not suffer
us to remain forever in the Ensor House. They send their _volante_ for
us, one day, and we visit them. Their house, of the inevitable Cuban
pattern, is richly furnished; the marbles of the floor are pure and
smooth, the rug ample and velvety; the wainscoting of the walls, so to
speak, is in handsome tiling,--not in mean, washy painting; the cane
chairs and sofas are fresh and elegant, and there is a fine Erard piano.
The Master of the house is confined to his room by illness, but will be
happy to see us. His son and daughters speak English with fluency. They
inform us, that the epidemic colds which prevail in Cuban winters are
always called by the name of some recent untoward occurrence, and that
their father, who suffers from severe influenza, has got the President's
Message. We find Don José in a bedroom darkened by the necessary closing
of the shutters, there being no other way of excluding the air. The
bedsteads are of gilded iron, with luxurious bedding and spotless
mosquito-nettings. His head is tied up with a silk handkerchief. He
rises from his rocking-chair, receives us with great urbanity, and
expresses his appreciation of the American nation and their country,
which he himself has visited. After a short interview we leave him, but
not until he has placed his house and all it contains "_á la disposition
de Usted_." We are then shown the pretty bedroom of the young ladies,
whose toilettes are furnished in silver, the bath lined with tiling, the
study, and the dining-room, where luncheon awaits us. We take leave,
with a kind invitation to return and dine the next day, which, upon
mature deliberation, we accept.
The _volante_ comes for us next day, with Roqué, brightest of all living
_caleseros_, fixed in his boots and saddle. After a pleasant drive we
attain the house, and are received by its hospitable inmates as before.
The interval before dinner, a tolerably long one, is filled up by
pleasant chitchat, chiefly in English. The lady of the house does not,
however, profess our vernacular, and to her understanding we lay siege
in French, Italian, and laughter-provoking Spanish. Before dining we pay
a second visit to the host, who is still busy digesting the President's
Message. Obviously, the longer he has it under consideration, the worse
he finds it. He has nausea from its bragging, his head aches with its
loudness, and its emptiness fills him with wind. We are at our wits' end
to prescribe for him, and take our leave with grave commiseration,
telling him that we too have had it, but that the symptoms it produces
in the North are a reddening in the cheek and a spasmodic contraction of
the right arm. Now comes great dinner on. A slave announces it, and with
as little ceremony as may be we take our places. And here we must
confess that our friend the banker had rendered us an important service.
For he had said,--"Look not upon the soup when it is hot, neither let
any victuals entice thee to more than a slight and temporary
participation; for the dishes at a Cuban dinner be many, and the guest
must taste of all that is presented; wherefore, if he indulge in one
dish to his special delectation, he shall surely die before the end."
And it came to pass that we remembered this, and walked through the
dinner as on egg-shells, gratifying curiosity on the one hand, and
avoiding satiety on the other; with the fear of fulness, as it were,
before our eyes. For oh, my friends! what pang is comparable to too much
dinner, save the distress of being refused by a young woman, or the
comfortless sensation, in times of economy, of having paid away a
five-dollar gold piece in place of a silver quarter of a dollar?
But you, Reader, would like more circumstantiality in the account of
this dinner, which united many perfections. It was handsome, but not
splendid,--orderly, but not stately,--succulent, but not unctuous. It
kept the word of promise to the smell and did not break it to the taste.
It was a dinner such as we shall wish only to our best friends, not to
those acquaintances who ask how we do when they meet us, and wish we
were dead before we part. As for particulars, we should be glad to
impart much useful information and many choice receipts; but the
transitory nature of such an entertainment does not allow one to improve
it as one could wish. One feature we remember, which is that the whole
dinner was placed on the table at once, and so you had the advantage of
seeing your work cut out before you. None of that hope deferred, when,
after being worried through a dozen stews and _entrées_, you are
rewarded at last with an infinitesimal fragment of the _rôti_. Nor, on
the other hand, the unwelcome surprise of three supplementary courses
and a dessert, when you have already dined to repletion, and feel
yourself at peace with all the world. Here all was fair play; you knew
what to expect and what was expected of you. Soup, of course, came
first,--then fish,--then meat stewed with potatoes and onions,--then
other meat with _ochra_ and tomatoes,--then boiled chicken, which is
eaten with a _pilaff_ of rice colored with saffron,--then delicious
sweet potatoes, yams, plantains, and vegetables of every sort,--then a
kind of pepper brought, we think, from the East Indies, and intensely
tropical in its taste,--then a splendid roast turkey, and ham strewed
with small colored sugar-plums,--then ---- well, is not that enough for
one person to have eaten at a stretch, and that person accustomed to a
Boston diet? Then came such a display of sweetmeats as would exercise
the mind of a New England housekeeper beyond all power of repose,--a
pudding,--a huge tart with very thick crust,--cakes of _yuca_,--a dish
of cocoa-nut, made into a sort of impalpable preserve, with eggs and
sugar,--then a course of fruits,--then coffee, of the finest quality,
from the host's own plantation,--and then we arose and went into the
drawing-room, with a thankful recollection of what we had had, and also
a thankful assurance that we should have no more.
A drive by moonlight was now proposed, to see the streets and the masks,
it being still Carnival. So the _volante_ was summoned, with its
smiling, silent Roqué, and the pretty daughter of the house took seat
beside us. The streets around the Plaza proved quite impassable from the
crowd, whose wild movements and wilder voices went nigh to scaring the
well-trained horses. The little lady was accustomed, apparently, to
direct every movement of her charioteer, and her orders were uttered in
a voice high and sweet as a bird-call. "_Dobla al derecho, Roqué!
Roqué, dobla al derecho_!" Why did not Roqué go mad, and exclaim,--"Yes,
Señorita, and to heaven itself, if you bid me so prettily!" But Roqué
only doubled as he was bid, and took us hither and thither, and back to
the nest of his lady-bird, where we left her and the others with
grateful regrets, and finally back to the Ensor House, which on this
occasion seemed to us the end of all things.