nativity is not quite certain. There are deer, but it is known that their
ancestors were brought from some other country. There are wild dogs, wild
cats, and wild pigs, but all are only domestic animals run wild.
Perhaps the only animal of the kind known to be native is the _jutia_,
sometimes spelled, as pronounced, _hutia_. Some observers have referred to
it as a rat, but it climbs trees and grows to the size of a woodchuck,
or groundhog. It is sometimes eaten and is said to be quite palatable.
Reptiles are fairly common, but none of them is dangerous. The best known
is the _maja_, a snake that grows to a length, sometimes, of twelve or
fifteen feet. The country people not infrequently make of it a kind of
house pet. When that is done, the reptile often makes its home in the
cottage thatch, living on birds and mice. They are dull and sluggish in
motion. While visiting a sugar plantation a few years ago one of the hands
asked if I should be interested by their _maja_. He dipped his hand into a
nearby water-barrel in the bottom of which two of them were closely coiled.
He dragged out one of perhaps ten or twelve feet in length and four or five
inches in diameter, handling it as he would the same length of hawser. He
hung it over the limb of a tree so that I could have a good chance for
a picture of it. The thing squirmed slowly to the ground and crawled
sluggishly away to the place from which it had been taken. Of bird-life
there is a large representation, both native and migratory. Among them
are some fifty species of "waders." In some parts of the island, the very
unpleasant land-crab, about the size of a soup-plate, seems to exist in
millions, although thousands is probably nearer the actual. The American
soldiers made their acquaintance in large numbers at the time of the
Santiago campaign. They are not a proper article of food. They have a
salt-water relative that is most excellent eating, as is also the lobster
_(langosta)_ of Cuban waters. In the swamp known as the Cienega de Zapata
are both alligators and crocodiles, some of them of quite imposing
dimensions.
[Illustration: ROYAL PALMS]
The insect life of the island is extensive. From personal experience,
particularly behind the search-light of an automobile that drew them
in swarms, I, should say that the island would be a rich field for the
entomologist. There are mosquitos, gnats, beetles, moths, butterflies,
spiders, and scorpions. The bites of some of the spiders and the stings of
the scorpions are, of course, uncomfortable, but they are neither fatal nor
dangerous. With the exception of an occasional mosquito, and a perhaps more
than occasional flea, the visitor to cities only is likely to encounter
few of the members of these branches of Cuban zoology. There is one of
the beetle family, however, that is extremely interesting. That is
the _cucullo_, which Mr. Hazard, in his book on Cuba, calls a "bright
peripatetic candle-bearer, by whose brilliant light one can not only walk,
but even read." They are really a kind of glorified firefly, much larger
than ours, and with a much more brilliant light. I do not know their
candle-power, but Mr. Hazard exaggerates little if at all in the matter of
their brilliancy.
While those referred to in the foregoing are the most notable features
in this particular part of the Cuban field, there are others, though of
perhaps less importance, to which reference might be made. Among them would
be the sponge fisheries of the coast in the neighborhood of Batabano,
and the numerous mineral springs, some of them really having, and others
supposed to have, remarkable curative qualities. A half century or so ago,
a number of places not far from Havana were resorts to which rich and
poor went to drink or to bathe in springs hot or cold or sulphurous or
otherwise, for their healing. Among these were the baths at San Diego, near
the Organ Mountains in Pinar del Rio; Santa Rita, near Guanabacoa in Havana
Province; others near Marianao, on the outskirts of the city; and San
Antonio, also in Havana Province. Most of these places now appear to have
lost their popularity if not their medicinal virtues. Some, like those
at Madruga, not far from Havana, still have a considerable patronage.
Something may also be said of earthquakes and hurricanes. The former
occur, on a small scale, more or less frequently in Oriente, and much less
frequently and of less severity in Havana. The latter come from time
to time to work disaster to Cuban industries and, sometimes but not
frequently, to cause loss of life and the destruction of buildings. They
rarely occur except in the late summer and the autumn.
Nearly a hundred years ago, Alexander Humboldt, a traveller and a
scientist, wrote thus of the island of Cuba: "Notwithstanding the absence
of deep rivers and the unequal fertility of the soil, the island of Cuba
presents on every hand a most varied and agreeable country from its
undulating character, its ever-springing verdure, and the variety of its
vegetable formations."
IV
_THE OLD HAVANA_
Among the many pictures, stored away in the album of my memory, there are
two that stand out more vividly than any others. The subjects are separated
by half the world's circumference. One is the sunsets at Jolo, in the
southern Philippines. There the sun sank into the western sea in a blaze
of cloud-glory, between the low-lying islands on either hand with the rich
green of their foliage turned to purple shadows. The other is the sunrise
at Havana, seen from the deck of a steamer in the harbor. The long, soft
shadows and the mellow light fell on the blue and gray and green of the
buildings of the city, and on the red-tiled roofs, with the hills for a
background in one-half of the picture, and the gleaming water of the gulf
in the background of the other half. I had seen the long stretch of the
southern coast of the island, from Cape Antonio to Cape Maisi, while on an
excursion with a part of the army of occupation sent to Porto Rico in the
summer of 1898, and had set foot on Cuban soil at Daiquiri, but Havana in
the morning light, on January 2, 1899, was my first real Cuban experience.
It remains an ineffaceable memory. Of my surroundings and experiences aside
from that, I have no distinct recollection. All was submerged by that one
picture, and quickly buried by the activities into which I was immediately
plunged. I do not recall the length of time we were held on board for
medical inspection, nor whether the customs inspection was on board or
ashore. I recall the trip from the ship to the wharf, in one of the little
sailboats then used for the purpose, rather because of later experiences
than because of the first one. I have no purpose here to write a history
of those busy days, filled as they were with absorbing interest, with much
that was pathetic and not a little that was amusing. I have seen that
morning picture many times since, but never less beautiful, never less
impressive. Nowadays, it is lost to most travellers because the crossing
from Key West is made in the daytime, the boat reaching Havana in the
late-afternoon. Sometimes there is a partial compensation in the sunset
picture, but I have never seen that when it really rivalled the picture at
the beginning of the day.
The visitor to Cuba, unfamiliar with the island, should take it leisurely.
It is not a place through which the tourist may rush, guide book in hand,
making snapshots with a camera, and checking off places of interest as they
are visited. Picturesqueness and quaintness are not at all lacking, but
there are no noble cathedrals, no vast museums of art and antiquity, no
snow-clad mountains. There is a charm of light and shade and color that
is to be absorbed slowly rather than swallowed at a single gulp. It is
emphatically a place in which to dawdle. Let those who are obliged to do
so, work and hurry; the visitor and the traveller should take it without
haste. It is far better to see Havana and its vicinity slowly and
enjoyably, and look at pictures of the rest of the country, than it is to
rush through the island merely for the sake of doing so. In his essay on
_The Moral of Landscape_, Mr. Ruskin said that "all travelling becomes dull
in exact proportion to its rapidity." Nowhere is that more true than it
is in Cuba. There is very little in all the island that cannot be seen in
Havana and its immediate vicinity. It is well to see the other places if
one has ample time, but they should not be seen at the expense of a proper
enjoyment of Havana and its neighborhood. In Havana are buildings as old
and buildings as beautiful as any in the island. In its vicinity are sugar
plantations, tobacco fields, pineapples, cocoanuts, mangoes, royal palms,
ceibas, peasants' homes, typical towns and villages, all the life of the
people in the city and country. The common American desire to "see it all"
in a few days, is fatal to the greatest enjoyment, and productive mainly
of physical fatigue and mental confusion. It is the misfortune of most
travellers that they carry with them only the vaguest of ideas of what they
want to see. They have heard of Cuba, of Havana, the Morro, the Prado, of a
sunny island in the midst of a sapphire sea. While it is true that almost
everything in Cuba is worth seeing, it is best to acquire, before going,
some idea of the exhibition. That saves time and many steps. The old city
wall, La Fuerza, and La Punta, are mere piles of masonry, more or less dull
and uninteresting unless one knows something of their history. The manners
and customs of any country become increasingly interesting if one knows
something about them, the reason for them.
It is only a short trip to the Castillo del Principe, the fortress that
crowns the hill to the west of the city. From that height, the city and the
harbor are seen below, to the eastward. Across the bay, on the heights at
the entrance, are the frowning walls of Morro Castle surmounted by the
towering light-house, and the no less grim walls of La Cabaña. The
bay itself is a sprawling, shapeless body of water with a narrow neck
connecting it with the Florida Straits. Into the western side of the bay
the city thrusts itself in a shape that, on a large map, suggests more than
anything else the head and neck of an over-fed bulldog. Into this bay, in
1508, came Sebastian Ocampo, said to be the first white man to visit the
spot. He entered for the purpose of careening his little vessels in order
to remove the barnacles and accumulated weed-growth. It is possible that
the spot was discovered earlier, but there is no record of the discovery
if such was made. Ocampo gave it the name of Puerto de Carenas. The next
record is of its occupation, in 1519. Four years earlier, Diego Velasquez
had left a little colony near what is now called Batabano, on the south
coast. He gave the place the name of San Cristobal de la Habana, in memory
of the illustrious navigator and discoverer. Habana, or Havana, is a term
of aboriginal origin. It proved to be an uncomfortable place of residence,
and in 1519 the people moved across the island to the Puerto de Carenas,
taking with them the name given to the earlier settlement, and substituting
it for the name given by Ocampo. After a time, all was dropped except the
present title, Habana, or more commonly by English-speaking people, Havana.
It was not much of a place for a number of years, but in 1538 it was sacked
and burned by a French pirate, one of the many, of different nations, who
carried on a very lively buccaneering business in those and in later years
in West Indian waters. Hernando de Soto was then governor of the island,
with headquarters at the then capital city, Santiago de Cuba. He proceeded
at once to the scene of destruction. On his arrival, he ordered the
erection of a fortress. Some of the work then done still remains in the
old structure near the Palace, at the foot of Calle O'Reilly, known as La
Fuerza. A few years before this time, Hernan Cortes had conquered Mexico,
then called New Spain, and a business between Old Spain and New Spain soon
developed. The harbor of Havana made a convenient halting-place on the
voyages between the two, and the settlement assumed a steadily increasing
importance. A new governor, Gonzales Perez de Angulo, who arrived in 1549,
decided to make it his place of residence. The year 1552 is generally given
as the time of the creation of Havana as the capital city. It was at that
time made the residence city of the Governors, by their own choice, but
it was not officially established as the capital until 1589. The fortress
erected by order of de Soto proved somewhat ineffective. In 1554, another
French marauder attacked and destroyed the town. The principal industry of
those early days was cattle-raising, a considerable market being developed
for export to Mexico, and for the supply of vessels that entered the harbor
for food and water.
The continuance of incursions by pirates made necessary some further
provision for the defence of the city. In 1589, La Fuerza was enlarged and
strengthened, and the construction of Morro Castle was begun. To this
work was added La Punta, the little fortress on the western shore of
the entrance, at the point of the angle now formed by the Prado and the
Malecon. These ancient structures, of practically no value whatever in
modern warfare, are now among the most picturesque points of interest in
the neighborhood. Another, in the same class, of which only a little now
remains, is of a later time. This is the old city wall, the construction
of which was begun in 1671. Following the simile of the bull-dog's head,
a tract of land, formerly known as the Arsenal yard, and now the central
railway station, lies tucked away immediately under the animal's jaw. From
there to a point on the north shore, near La Punta, in a slightly curving
line, a high wall was erected for the purpose of defence on the western
or landward side. The old city lay entirely in the area defined by this
western wall and the shore of the harbor. At intervals, gates afforded exit
to the country beyond, heavy gates that could be closed to exclude any
possible attacking party. The fortifications erected from time to time were
supposed to afford a system of effective defence for the city. They are now
little else than picturesque features in the landscape, points of interest
for visitors. Taking the chain in its order, El Morro stands on the point
on the eastern side of the entrance to the harbor. Just beyond it is La
Cabaña. About a half a mile to the east of this was the stone fort on the
hill of San Diego. Three miles east of the Morro, on the shore at Cojimar,
is a small and somewhat ancient fortification. This group constituted the
defence system on the east. At the head of the bay, on an elevation a
little to the south of the city, stands El Castillo de Atares, begun in
1763, immediately after the capture and occupation of the city by the
British. This is supposed to protect the city on the south, as Castillo del
Principe is supposed to defend it on the west. This stands on a hill on
the western outskirts, a somewhat extensive structure, begun in 1774 and
completed about twenty years later. A little further to the west, at the
mouth of the Almendares river, stands a little fort, or tower, called
Chorrera, serving as a western outpost as Cojimar serves as an eastern
outpost. Both were erected about the year 1650. On the shore generally
north of Principe was the Santa Clara battery, and between that and La
Punta, at the foot of the Calzada de Belascoain, stood the Queen's battery.
From any modern point of view, the system is little more than military
junk, better fitted for its present use as barracks, asylums, and prisons
than for military defence. But it is all highly picturesque.
In the beginning, most of the buildings of the city were doubtless of wood,
with palm-thatched roofs. In time, these gave place to rows of abutting
stone buildings with tiled roofs. Most of them were of one story, some were
of two stories, and a few "palaces" had three. The city within the wall
is today very much as it was a century and more ago. Its streets run,
generally but not accurately, at right angles, one set almost due east and
west, from the harbor front to the line of the old wall, and the other set
runs southward from the shore of the entrance channel to the shore of the
inner harbor. Several of these streets are practically continuous
from north to south or from east to west. But most of them are rather
passage-ways than streets. The houses come to their very edges, except
for a narrow strip hardly to be classed as a sidewalk, originally left,
presumably, only for the purpose of preventing the scraping of the front of
the building by the wheels of passing carts and carriages. It is a somewhat
inconvenient system nowadays, but one gets quite used to it after a little,
threads the narrow walk a part of his way, takes to the street the rest
of the way, and steps aside to avoid passing vehicles quite as did the
carriageless in the old days. One excellent way to avoid the trouble is to
take a carriage and let the other fellow step aside. Riding in the _coche_
is still one of the cheapest forms of convenience and entertainment in the
city, excepting the afternoon drive around the Prado and the Malecon. That
is not cheap. We used to pay a dollar an hour. My last experience cost me
three times that.
[Illustration: CUSTOM HOUSE, HAVANA _Formerly Franciscan Convent Begun_
1574, _finished_ 1591]
Much of the old city is now devoted to business purposes, wholesale,
retail, and professional. But there are also residences, old churches, and
old public buildings. On the immediate water-front, and for many years used
as the custom house, stands the old Franciscan convent, erected during the
last quarter of the 16th Century. It is a somewhat imposing pile, dominated
by a high tower. I have not visited it for a number of years and do not
know if its interior is available for visitors without some special
introduction, but there is much worth seeing inside its walls, the flying
buttresses of the super-structure, some old and interesting frescoes, and
a system of dome construction that is quite remarkable. To the latter, my
attention was first called by General Ludlow, a distinguished engineer
officer of the United States Army, then acting as governor of the city. To
him belongs, although it is very rarely given, the credit for the cleansing
of Havana during the First Intervention. He frequently visited the old
convent just to see and study that interior dome construction. Immediately
behind the Palace is the old convent of the Dominicans, less imposing but
of about the same period as the Franciscan structure. It is now used as
a high-school building. The Cathedral, a block to the northward of the
Dominican convent building, is of a much later date, having been begun as
recently as 1742. It was originally the convent of the Jesuits, but became
the Cathedral in 1789. Many have believed, on what seems to be acceptable
evidence, that here for more than a hundred years rested the bones of
Christopher Columbus. He died in Valladolid in 1506, and was buried there.
His remains were removed to the Carthusian Monastery, in Seville, in 1513.
From there they are said to have been taken, in 1536, to the city of Santo
Domingo, where they remained until 1796, when they were brought to Havana
and placed in a niche in the walls of the old Cathedral, there to remain
until they were taken back to Spain in 1898. There is still an active
dispute as to whether the bones removed from Santo Domingo to Havana were
or were not those of Columbus. At all events, the urn supposed to contain
them was in this building for a hundred years, below a marble slab showing
a carving of the voyager holding a globe, with a finger pointing to the
Caribbean. Beneath this was a legend that has been thus translated:
OH! REST THOU, IMAGE OF THE GREAT COLON,
THOUSAND CENTURIES REMAIN, GUARDED IN THE URN,
AND IN THE REMEMBRANCE OF OUR NATION.
In this neighborhood, to the east of the Plaza de Armas, on which the
Palace fronts, is a structure known as _El Templete_. It has the appearance
of the portico of an unfinished building, but it is a finished memorial,
erected in 1828. The tradition is that on this spot there stood, in 1519,
an old ceiba tree under which the newly arrived settlers celebrated their
first mass. The yellow Palace, for many years the official headquarters and
the residence of successive Governors-General, stands opposite, and speaks
for itself. In this building, somewhat devoid of architectural merit, much
of Cuba's history, for the last three-quarters of a century, has been
written. The best time to see all this and much more that is to be seen,
is the early morning, before the wheels begin to go around. The lights and
shadows are then the best, and the streets are quieter and less crowded.
The different points of interest are easily located by the various guide
books obtainable, and the distances are not great. A cup of _cafe con
leche_ should precede the excursion. If one feels lazy, as one is quite
apt to feel in the tropics and the sub-tropics, fairly comfortable open
carriages are at all times available. With them, of course, a greater
area can be covered and more places seen, though perhaps seen less
satisfactorily. There is much to be seen in the early morning that is best
seen in those hours, and much that is not seen later in the day. In all
cities there is an early morning life and Havana is no exception. I confess
to only a limited personal knowledge of it, but I have seen enough of it,
and heard enough about it, to know that the waking-up of cities, including
Havana, is an interesting process. I have, at least, had enough personal
experience to be sure that the early morning air is delicious, the best of
the day. I am not speaking of the unholy hours preceding daybreak, but
of six to eight o'clock, which for those of us who are inclined to long
evenings is also the best time to be in bed. The early morning church bells
are a disturbance to which visitors do not readily adjust their morning
naps. Mr. Samuel Hazard, who visited Cuba about the year 1870, and wrote
quite entertainingly about it, left the following description of his
experience in Havana:
"Hardly has the day begun to break when the newly arrived traveller is
startled from his delightful morning doze by the alarming sound of bells
ringing from every part of the town. Without any particular concert of
action, and with very different sounds, they ring out on the still morning
air, as though for a general conflagration, and the unfortunate traveller
rushes frantically from his bed to inquire if there is any hope of safety
from the flames which he imagines, from the noise made, must threaten the
whole town. Imagine, O reader! in thy native town, every square with its
church, every church with its tower, or maybe two or three of them, and
in each particular tower a half-dozen large bells, no two of which sound
alike; place the bell-ropes in the hands of some frantic man who pulls
away, first with one hand and then the other, and you will get a very faint
idea of your first awakening in Havana. Without apparent rhyme or reason,
ding, dong, ding they go, every bell-ringer at each different church
striving to see how much noise he can make, under the plea of bringing the
faithful to their prayers at the early morning mass."
[Illustration: BALCONIES IN OLD HAVANA STREET IN HAVANA]