MATANZAS.
The immediate environs of Havana are disappointing, although some of the
neighbouring villages are pretty enough. Every visitor to Havana is sure
to be taken to three places--Puentes Grandes, Marianao, and Carmelo. A
little railway carries you, as slowly as steam can do it, in about an
hour, out to Marianao. If it were not for the groups of palm trees and
the huge plantain leaves, generally very dusty and tattered, hanging
over the garden walls, you might easily mistake the country for certain
districts in Northern France. It undulates, just as it does in Normandy,
up and down over low-lying hills, and the straight roads, bordered with
coca palm trees, reminded me forcibly of the poplar avenues round Rouen.
Before very long, however, you are made aware that you are under the
Southern Cross, for, just before you reach your destination, you form
your first acquaintance with the banyan tree, of which there is a
celebrated group, considered one of the finest in the West Indies,
standing in the middle of a field. The central tree, which must be of
great age, is of vast size. From its upper branches it has cast down
numerous feelers, which, in their turn, have become big trees, and so
the one growth contrives to cover some four or five acres of ground.
After you have amused yourself by walking in and out of the innumerable
arches and avenues formed by this grand specimen of perhaps the most
extraordinary species of tree in existence, you follow a narrow path,
and walk on to Marianao, a Cuban village boasting an odd-looking church
painted a vivid blue, and some very nice country houses, embedded in
orange and banana orchards. There are a number of restaurants in the
place, and on Sundays the foreign residents, especially the Germans,
come out here to eat supper and drink lager-beer. What pleased me most
about Marianao were the country lanes, which are bordered by hedgerows
covered with delightful creepers, the coral,--with its clusters of pink
and white flowers,--the morning glory, with its wealth of azure
blossoms,--the scarlet passion flower,--the blue sweet pea,--and a
species of wild stephanotis, with an overpowering scent.
[Illustration: MATANZAS.]
Puentes Grandes lies half-way between Marianao and Havana. It possesses
the only nail factory in the country, worked by several hundred coolies.
Carmello is a village of restaurants and cabarets, situated at the head
of a little sandy bay glorified by a tradition that it was once visited
by Columbus. Hither people drive out of an evening from Havana, to eat
oysters, lobsters, and other crustacea, and, above all, to enjoy the
cool sea breeze. Here I first beheld the most astonishing of all
flowers--the _aristolochia pelicana_. It is a variety of the
_aristolochia sipho_, which has been recently brought over to England
from America and acclimatised, and which is popularly known as the
"Dutchman's pipe," on account of the peculiar shape of the flower, which
is exactly like a little tobacco-pipe. The Cuban variety is a sturdy
creeper, with enormous, heart-shaped leaves. This flower must be seen to
be appreciated. When open, it presents the appearance of a huge porous
plaster about a foot in diameter. The edge is perfectly white and waxy,
the centre a dark brown, with a slit in the middle, opening into a
pod-shaped cup, and furnished with sharp bristles, usually garnished
with drops of syrup, to allure the flies and other insects, which, when
once they enter that little "parlour," find themselves in a veritable
ogre's castle, whence no escape is possible, for the hungry flower soon
absorbs and devours them. When the pouch is full,--and it will contain
several hundred insects,--the enormous flower closes, and assumes the
exact shape of a beautiful white duck. Severed from its stem, and placed
in the centre of a bouquet of flowers, or on a sheet of looking-glass in
the centre of a dining-table, this weird flower produces a very
startling effect. It is the custom in Havana to place one of these
strange freaks of nature in the centre of a bouquet, which is always
offered to a successful prima-donna on her first appearance at the
National Theatre.
One fine morning towards the middle of Lent I left Havana with a friend,
to make a tour of the other cities of the island, beginning with
Matanzas.
A Cuban railway is unlike any other railway in the world. The carriages
are built on the American plan, with a promenade from end to end, but
there are no glass windows, and when one considers the heat, one is
thankful that there are no cushions, to harbour dust and insects. The
conductor stands in front, and is perpetually ringing a bell, which does
not seem to help on the speed of the train in the very least degree.
Havana has no far-stretching suburbs, like most European cities, and you
very soon find yourself quite in the open country. It chanced that, on
this particular morning, a thick, low fog hung like a misty veil over
the fields, and the lofty palm trees shot up into the clear atmosphere
above in the most fantastic manner. However, by-and-bye, as the sun grew
stronger, the mist lifted entirely, and towards midday we found
ourselves passing through an extremely pretty country, traversed in
every direction by interminable lines of coca palm trees, which wound
through the sugar-cane fields, otherwise not particularly picturesque.
We stopped for luncheon at a village called, I think, Rincon, where
there is a regular Cuban buffet. The principal dish, I remember, was
roast sucking-pig, cold but succulent. Coolies and negroes came round
with baskets of fruit--bananas, pineapples, oranges, mangoes, and
zapadillos. After this station, we travelled between rocky cliffs, in
the fissures of which grew the most exquisite ferns I have ever seen out
of a hot-house, the hardy, glossy, oak-leaf fern, so sought after in
Covent Garden Market being especially plentiful. At last, after a
pleasant, but deadly slow journey, we arrived safely at Matanzas, which,
after the capital and Santiago, is by far the most flourishing city in
the island. Its real name is San Carlos, though it is popularly known as
Matanzas, or the "Butcheries." Most of the encyclopaedias inform you that
it is so called after a frightful massacre of Caribbees, which took
place early in the 16th century. This is an error. There was no city
here till 1649, when the town was founded on the site of an old
slaughter-house, owned by the Havana butchers.
We drove straight from the station to the "Leon de Oro," reputed the
best hotel in the island. Cuban hotels, even those in the capital, are
none of them of superlative excellence, and although in all that
concerns the elegances of life the "Inglaterra", the "Louvre" and the
"Pasage" at Havana are infinitely superior to the old "Leon de Oro,"
they are distinctly its inferiors in point of cleanliness, and, above
all, in the matter of cooking.
Very brilliantly painted in fresco are the walls of the "Golden Lion" of
Matanzas. Venus rises from the sea in your bedroom, or rather in that
portion of an enormous dormitory which is allotted to you. Paris offers
the golden apple to the three goddesses in the dining-room, and the
whole court of Olympus, more or less successfully limned by an Italian
artist, occupies the lofty walls of the general sitting-room on the
first and only floor. The waiters are nearly all Coolies, and very clean
and tidy they are. The landlady, in the days of my youth, was a French,
coloured dame of enormous size, but also of almost preternatural
activity. "Madame" was everywhere, upstairs and downstairs, and never
seemed to go to sleep. It mattered little at what hour of the day or
night you happened to come in, you were sure to find the old lady, with
a huge turban on her head, ready to bid you welcome, with the very
broadest of smiles. As my friend and myself had brought her a letter,
which, by-the-way, she could not read, of introduction from one of her
Havanese patrons, she made a prodigious fuss in our honour. She felt
sure, she said, that, being Englishmen, we should like to have a bedroom
all to ourselves, to which reasonable proposition we very naturally
assented. Presently she took us upstairs to a very long and very lofty
dormitory, furnished with about a dozen brass bedsteads, arranged
against the walls in a double line, each duly protected by mosquito
curtains, and supplemented by a table, a chair, an iron tripod, bearing
a basin and jug, and a flat candlestick. Having paraded us once or twice
up and down this apartment, she suddenly stopped in front of two neat
little bedsteads standing side by side, and, pointing to them, informed
us in Creole French (she came from Martinique) that she destined them
for our accommodation. But what about the proffered privacy? Were we to
dress and undress in the presence of the strange occupants of the other
dozen beds, and were we to be soothed, or otherwise, throughout the
dreary watches of the night, by their combined snores. We resolved,
between ourselves, to make no comment, to leave fate and Madame to work
out our destiny. We descended to our dinner without venturing the least
observation. When we went upstairs again to unpack our travelling
trunks, we were heartily amused to find that the worthy old soul had
fenced us off from our future companions, with four long sheets,
fastened by old-fashioned washing-pegs, to a rope stretched tightly
across the room.
I remember we had an excellent dinner, the best we had yet eaten in
Cuba. There was a very good broth--_sopa de pan_--followed by a fair
preparation of fresh fish--_pescado frito_. Then came a great national
dish--sheeps' brains fried in butter, with tomato sauce, succeeded by a
reasonably fat and tender chicken, _a la Creola_, that is to say, with a
delicious sauce made with various vegetables; and a dish of _ternero
asado_ (roast veal) ended what might be termed the serious portion of
the meal. Then came guava jelly, eaten with little cakes, and a splendid
dessert of fresh bananas,--the small, stumpy, fat one, _plantano de
Guinea_, is the only one which is eaten as a fruit in Cuba. The large
ones, of the sort sent to England, are considered as vegetables, and
either fried as a separate dish, like potatoes, or cut up in slices and
used in salads. The Cuban oranges are magnificent, very large, pale in
colour, and innocent of seeds. The pine-apples are, of course, splendid,
and are cooked as sweet dishes, in a variety of ways. There is one
necessary of life which you are obliged to dispense with, and that is
butter, which is only likely to appear in the houses of the very rich,
or at one or two of the best hotels in Havana. There is an appalling
decoction called _mantiquella_, which is kept in a bottle, and poured
out for the benefit of American and English visitors, who are asked to
believe it is butter! God save the mark, it's exactly like train-oil.
Everything is fried in olive oil, but of excellent quality, so you soon
learn to do without butter to your bread, and, indeed, with as little
bread as may be, for nowhere is it very good. Otherwise, Cuban cooking
is not bad when once the traveller knows the ropes, and what to order.
It is certainly much better than the Spanish _cuisine_. There is a Cuban
cookery book in the British Museum, printed and published in Havana in
the year 1879, the perusal of which I commend to those of my readers who
are interested in such matters. They will learn how to make some
excellent and very succulent dishes. Cuban cooks are not strong on
sweetmeats, and they rarely, if ever, attempt pastry. On the other hand,
their fruit cheeses, especially the famous guava jelly, are worthy of
their world-wide renown. Ice was only introduced into the island about
forty years ago, and is even now considered a great luxury; but a
cocoa-nut gathered before dawn, and kept as much in the shade as
possible until wanted, is the most refreshing of drinks. The milk which
it contains is icy cold, and with a few spoonfuls of rum or brandy, and
a little sugar thrown in, is really excellent. Then, too, wherever you
go, you are sure to be offered _narangiata_, or orangeade, which all
Cubans make to perfection. Excellent Spanish and French wines and lager
beer are to be had in almost all the inns.
The lower part of every Cuban hotel is used as a cafA(C) and restaurant,
and stands open to the four winds of heaven. It begins to fill
immediately after sunset, and in warm weather is never empty until four
o'clock in the morning. In the middle of the cafA(C) is the kitchen, and
in the centre of the kitchen will be found an indispensable retreat
which does not add to the sanitary advantages of the establishment.
Otherwise, a Cuban kitchen affords much interest and amusement to those
in search of the picturesque. Round it are arranged little open charcoal
stoves, above which are suspended an endless number of copper saucepans.
Sometimes, up in a corner, is an image of our Lady of Guadaloupe,
blessing, apparently, from the interior of her glass case, the motley
gathering of cooks of all ages and colours, who are intently busy doing
nothing. Here on the floor sits a little darkie shelling peas, and near
him another small sable urchin howls because his ears have just been
boxed for licking his fingers. Yonder is a group of chattering
mulatresses whipping a cream, and there "Madame" herself roars at the
top of her voice at the chief cook, standing frying chicken livers,
strung on a skewer, over one of the innumerable charcoal fires, whose
fumes would suffocate the whole noisy party, if this weird kitchen were
not, but for its ceiling, quite an open air arrangement, for there are
no glass windows anywhere in the house, the only protection against a
storm being the green venetian blinds.
Our first night at the "Leon de Oro" was a memorable one. The hotel was
packed, and, notwithstanding the seclusion of our canvas walls, it was
impossible to get a wink of sleep,--in the first place, on account of
the mosquitoes, and in the second on that of the chorus of snores which
resounded on all sides after two o'clock in the morning, when our
neighbours, after chattering among themselves like so many magpies, and
even singing in chorus, finally succumbed to the claims of nature, and
tumbled to sleep. The next day Madame found us two small rooms at the
top of the house, where we were quite comfortable for the rest of our
visit.
Matanzas is a well-built city, situated on a very beautiful bay, and
backed by an admirable range of hills. Two rivers flow through it, the
Yumurri and San Juan. The fine Plaza de Armas, in front of the
Cathedral, and in the very centre of the town, is planted with a double
row of magnificent acacias. The church, dedicated to St Charles, is fair
sized, and has an imposing tower, but is not otherwise interesting.
There are two other smaller churches in the town, but Matanzas is looked
upon, throughout the country, as anything but orthodox. There are,
however, several convents, and two very well managed hospitals. The
fashionable quarter of the city is called "Versailles." Here the
wealthier citizens have built themselves a number of beautiful villas,
in the usual classical, one-storied style. These dazzling white marble
columns, elaborate iron-work balconies, mosaic pavements and handsome
porticoes, are doubtless a very accurate reproduction of the sort of
house which lined the Via Appia in the palmy days of ancient Rome. Most
of these houses are frescoed with mythological subjects, and painted in
bright colours, whose somewhat garish tones are subdued by the deep
green of the wonderful vegetation which surrounds them, and by the
dazzling glare of the sunlight, which, pouring down from the deepest of
blue skies, seems to mellow even the gaudiest colours into delightful
harmony.
The chief attractions of Matanzas are not, however, within the city
walls, but a pleasant drive's distance beyond its gates. The first of
these are the far-famed caves of Bellamar. There are certain
much-talked-of wonders of nature, the first sight of which is apt to
disappoint you,--Niagara Falls, for instance, and even the Mammoth Caves
of Kentucky; but the Matanzas caverns are so dazzlingly beautiful that
you are both astonished and delighted. They surprise by their size, they
fascinate by the clearness and brilliance of their crystal walls. The
first chamber, called the "Gothic Temple," is 250 feet in length by 83
in width. Its walls are of pure crystal. From the lofty roof hang
monster stalactites covered with millions of flashing crystals full of
prismatic hues. Following the guide, who carries a limelight, you next
enter a large hall, or chamber, which looks absolutely as if it had been
made of whipped cream. Then, after passing through endless crystal
halls, you reach the _fuente de nieve_, the snow-fountain, in which the
stalactites have assumed the semblance of a cascade of frosted snow.
These caves extend for about three miles, and are between 300 and 500
feet below the surface of the earth, and may therefore be reckoned
amongst the largest in the world. They were discovered quite
accidentally, some fifty years ago, by the workmen of a certain Don
Manuel Santos Parga, who, whilst digging in this vicinity, fell into
what afterwards proved to be one of the principal of the thirty-eight
halls, or caves, which have subsequently been discovered. To the credit
of their proprietor, they are most beautifully kept, no one being
allowed to use smoky torches, or defile the crystals in any way, and
commodious bridges and foot-paths, which add considerably to the comfort
of the visitor, have been built at the owner's expense.
The next attraction of Matanzas is the famous valley of the Yumurri. To
see it to perfection, it should be visited, not by pale moonlight, but
at the decline of day, when the sun is setting behind the low-lying
hills on the opposite side of the fertile valley, through which the
Yumurri river meanders like a silver ribbon, fringed with innumerable
tiny tributary streams, which immensely increase the productive powers
of this magnificent expanse of richly cultivated land. The vegetation is
indescribably beautiful and varied. Every sort of palm tree grows, and
as the land is undulating in character, the panorama is broken up in the
most charming manner, by groups of slender columns, surmounted by waving
plumes, which intercept, without impeding, the view of golden cane
fields and the tender green coffee plantations which stretch in all
directions, until it fades into the delicate mauve tint of approaching
evening. The view over the valley of the Yumurri is one of those
glorious things which a Milton might have described, a Turner or a
Martin might have painted. It baffles the efforts of my humble pen. All
I can say is that I have seen a good half of the fair world in which man
is called to spend his petty span, but never have my eyes rested on any
scene which could equal this in poetic loveliness. It is a fragment,
surely, left of that Paradise from which our first parents managed
between them to shut out their descendants for ever. We lingered long,
wondering at the beauty of it all, quite unable to tear ourselves away.
The sun, having passed through the closing phases of its daily course,
became a ball of glowing fire, and quenched itself within a violet
cloud. The moon rose and flooded the happy valley with golden radiance,
so brilliant that only the stars in the larger constellations, such as
the Southern Cross, were visible.