_St. Jago de Cuba._
A month has passed, since our arrival in this place, in such a round
of visits and such a variety of amusements, that I am afraid, my
dear friend, you will think I have forgotten you. We were received
by the gentleman, to whom Clara was directed, with the most cordial
friendship. He is an ancient Chevalier de St. Louis, and retains, with
much of the formality of the court of France, at which he was raised,
all its elegance and urbanity; and having lived a number of years in
this island, he is loved and respected by all its inhabitants.
The letters which father Philip and the governor of Barracoa gave us to
their friends, have procured us great attention.
The people here are much the same as at Barracoa; perhaps they are
a little more civilized. There is some wealth, with much poverty.
The women have made great progress towards improvement since such
numbers of French have arrived from St. Domingo.--They are at least a
century before the men in refinement, but women are every where more
susceptible of polish than the lords of the creation. Those of this
town are not generally remarkable for their beauty. There are some,
however, who would be admired even in Philadelphia, particularly the
wife of the governor; but they are all remarkable for the smallness of
their feet, and they dress their hair with a degree of taste in which
they could not be excelled by the ladies of Paris.
We arrived in the season of gaiety, and have been at several balls;
but their balls please me not!--Every body in the room dances a
minuet, which you may suppose is tedious enough; then follow the
country dances, which resemble the English, except that they are more
complicated and more fatiguing.
There are in this town eleven churches, all of them splendid, and the
number of priests is incredible! Many of them may be ranked among the
most worthless members of the community. It is not at all uncommon to
see them drunk in the street, or to hear of their having committed
the most shocking excesses. Some, however, are excellent men, who do
honour to their order and to human nature. But the thickest veil of
superstition covers the land, and it is rendered more impervious by the
clouds of ignorance in which the people are enveloped!
Clara, who speaks the language with the facility of a native, asked
some of her Spanish friends for books, but there was not one to be
found in the place. She complained some days ago of a head-ache, and a
Spanish lady gave her a ribbon, which had been bound round the head of
an image of the Virgin, telling her it was a sovereign remedy for all
pains of the head.
The bishop is a very young man and very handsome. We see him often at
church, where we go, attracted by the music. But one abominable custom
observed there, destroys our pleasure. The women kneel on carpets,
spread on the ground, and when they are fatigued, cross their legs, and
sit Turkish fashion; whilst the men loll at their ease on sofas. From
whence this subversion of the general order? Why are the women placed
in the churches at the feet of their slaves?
The lower classes of the people are the greatest thieves in the world,
and they steal with so much dexterity, that it is quite a science. The
windows are not glazed, but secured by wooden bars, placed very close
together. The Spaniards introduce between these bars long poles, which
have at one end a hook of iron, and thus steal every thing in the room,
even the sheets off the beds. The friars excel in this practice, and
conceal their booty in their large sleeves!
In the best houses and most wealthy families there is a contrast of
splendour and poverty which is shocking. Their beds and furniture are
covered with a profusion of gilding and clumsy ornaments, while the
slaves, who serve in the family, and even those who are about the
persons of the ladies, are in rags and filthy to the most disgusting
degree!
How different were the customs of St. Domingo! The slaves, who served
in the houses, were dressed with the most scrupulous neatness, and
nothing ever met the eye that could occasion an unpleasant idea.
The Spanish women are sprightly, and devoted to intrigue. Their
assignations are usually made at church. The processions at night,
and the masses celebrated before daylight, are very favourable to the
completion of their wishes, to which also their dress is well adapted.
They wear a black silk petticoat; their head is covered with a veil of
the same colour, that falls below the waist; and, this costume being
universal, and never changed, it is difficult to distinguish one woman
from another. A man may pass his own wife in the street without knowing
her. Their attachments are merely sensual. They are equally strangers
to the delicacy of affection or that refinement of passion which can
make any sacrifice the happiness of its object may require.
To the licentiousness of the people, more than to their extreme
poverty, may be attributed the number of children which are
continually exposed to perish in the street. Almost every morning, at
the door of one of the churches, and often at more than one, a new-born
infant is found. There is an hospital, where they are received, but
those who find them, are (if so disposed,) at liberty to keep them.
The unfortunate little beings who happen to fall into the hands of the
lower classes of the people, increase, during their childhood, the
throng of beggars, and augment, as they grow up, the number of thieves.
The heart recoils at the barbarity of a mother who can thus abandon her
child; but the custom, here, as in China, is sanctioned by habit, and
excites no horror!