turn out many a traveller at the hour when Havana is really at its best.
Yet, as I read the descriptive tales left by those who wrote forty, fifty,
and sixty years ago, I am struck by the fact, that, after all, the old
Havana has changed but little. There are trolley lines, electric lights,
and a few other so-called modern improvements, but there is still much of
the old custom, the old atmosphere. The old wall, with its soldier-guarded
gates, is gone, and there are a few modern buildings, but only a few, for
which fact I always feel thankful, but the old city is much what it was
when Mr. Ballou, and Mr. Dana, and Mr. Kimball, and numerous others wrote
about it soon after 1850, and when Mr. Hazard wrote about it in 1870. The
automobile is there now in large numbers, in place of the old volante, and
there are asphalted streets in place of cobble-stones. The band plays in
the evening in the Parque Central or at the Glorieta, instead of in the
Plaza de Armas, but the band plays. The restaurants are still a prominent
feature in Havana life, as they were then. The ladies wear hats instead
of _mantillas_, but they buy hats on Calle Obispo just as and where their
mothers and grandmothers bought _mantillas_. Bull-fighting is gone,
presumably forever, but crowds flock to the baseball grounds. The midday
suspension of business continues, generally, and the afternoon parade, on
foot and in carriages, remains one of the important functions of the day.
There are many who know Havana, and love it, who pray diligently that it
may be many years before the city is Americanized as, for instance, New
Orleans has been.
Most of the life of the city, as it is seen by most visitors, is outside
the old city, and probably few know that any distinction is made, yet the
line is drawn with fair clearness. There is a different appearance in both
streets and buildings. While there are shops on San Rafael and Galiano and
elsewhere, the principal shopping district is in the old city, with Calle
Obispo as its centre. They have tried officially, to change the name of the
street, but the old familiar name sticks and seems likely to stick for a
long time yet. Far be it from a mere man to attempt analysis or description
of such a place. He might tell another mere man where to buy a hat, a pair
of shoes, or eyeglasses, or a necktie, or where to find a lawyer, but the
finer points of shopping, there or elsewhere, are not properly for any
masculine description. The ladies may be trusted to learn for themselves,
and very quickly, all that they need or want to know about that phase of
Havana's commerce. I am leaving much to the guide books that can afford
space for all necessary information about churches, statues, and other
objects of interest for visitors. Havana's retail merchants have their own
way of trading, much as they do in many foreign countries, and in not a few
stores in our own country. Prices are usually a question of the customer's
ability to match the commercial shrewdness of the dealer. Much of the trade
of visitors is now confined to the purchase of such articles as may be
immediately needed and to a few souvenirs. One of the charms of the place
is the cheap transportation. If you are tired, or in a hurry, there is
always a coach near at hand that will take you where you wish to go, for a
peseta, or a quarter, if within certain officially prescribed bounds. If
you desire to go beyond those bounds, make a bargain with your driver or
be prepared for trouble. Down in the old city are to be found several
restaurants that are well worth visiting, for those who want good food. I
shall not advertise the particular places, but they are well known. As the
early morning is the best time to see the old city, the forenoon is the
best time for shopping. Such an expedition may well be followed by the
_almuerzo_, the midday breakfast or lunch, whichever one sees fit to call
it, at one of these restaurants. After that, it is well to enjoy a midday
_siesta_, in preparation for the afternoon function on the Prado and the
Malecon.
V
THE NEW HAVANA
The new Havana, the city outside the old wall, is about as old as Chicago
but not nearly as tall. There is no reason why it should be. Here are wide
streets and broad avenues, and real sidewalks, some of them about as wide
as the entire street in the old city. About 1830, the region beyond the
wall was held largely by Spaniards to whom grants of land had been made
for one reason or another. These tracts were plantations, pastures, or
unimproved lands, according to the fancy of the proprietor who usually
lived in the city and enjoyed himself after the manner of his kind. Here
and there, a straggling village of palm-leaf huts sprang up. The roads were
rough tracks. To Governor-General Tacon seems due much of the credit for
the improvement beyond the walls. During his somewhat iron-handed rule
several notable buildings were erected, some of them by his authority.
The most notable feature of the district is the renowned Prado, a broad
boulevard with a park between two drive-ways, running from the water-front,
at the entrance to the harbor, southward for about a mile. A few years ago,
rows of trees shaded the central parkway, but they were almost entirely
wrecked by the hurricanes in 1906 and 1910.
A half mile or so from its northern end, the Prado runs along the west side
of the Parque Central, the most notable of the numerous little squares of
walks and trees and flowers. A block or two further on is a little park
with an excellent statue, known as La India. Opposite that is another
really beautiful park, from the western side of which runs a broad street
that leads to the Paseo de Carlos Tercero, formerly the Paseo de Tacon, one
of the monuments left to his own memory by one of Cuba's most noted Spanish
rulers. The Paseo runs westward to El Castillo del Principe, originally a
fortress but now a penitentiary. The Prado stops just beyond the companion
parks, La India and Colon. These originally formed the Campo de Marte, laid
out by General Tacon and, in his time, used as a military parade ground.
In a way, the Parque Central is the centre of the city. It is almost that,
geographically, and perhaps quite that, socially. In its immediate vicinity
are some of the leading hotels and the principal theatres. One of the
latter, facing the park on its western side, across the Prado, is now known
as the Nacional. Formerly it was the Tacon, a monument to that notable man.
There is quite a story about that structure. It is somewhat too long for
inclusion here, but it seems worth telling. The following is an abridgment
of the tale as it is told in Mr. Ballou's _History of Cuba_, published in
1854. Tacon was the Governor of the island from 1834 to 1838. At that time,
a certain man named Marti was eminent in the smuggling and piracy business,
an industry in which many others were engaged. But Marti seems to have
stood at the top of his profession, a man of skill and daring and evidently
well supplied with brains. Tacon's efforts to capture him, or to break up
his business, were entirely unsuccessful, and a large reward was offered
for his body, alive or dead. Mr. Ballou tells the story in somewhat
dramatic manner:
"It was a dark, cloudy night in Havana, a few months after the announcement
of the reward, when two sentinels were pacing backward and forward before
the main entrance to the Governor's palace. A little before midnight, a man
was watching them from behind a statue in the park, and after observing
that the sentinels paced their brief walk so as to meet each other, and
then turned their backs as they separated, leaving a brief moment in the
interval when the eyes of both were turned away from the entrance, seemed
to calculate upon passing them unobserved. It was an exceedingly delicate
manoeuvre, and required great care and dexterity to effect it; but, at
last, it was adroitly done, and the stranger sprang lightly through the
entrance, secreting himself behind one of the pillars of the inner court.
The sentinels paced on undisturbed. The figure which had thus stealthily
effected an entrance, now sought the broad stairs that led to the
Governor's suite, with a confidence that evinced a perfect knowledge of the
place. A second guard-post was to be passed at the head of the stairs; but,
assuming an air of authority, the stranger offered a cold military salute
and passed forward, as though there was not the most distant question of
his right to do so; and thus avoiding all suspicion in the guard's mind, he
boldly entered the Governor's reception room unchallenged, and closed the
door behind him."
In his office, alone, the stranger found Tacon, who was naturally surprised
at the appearance of an unannounced caller. He demanded to know who the
visitor was, but a direct answer was evaded. After referring to the matter
of the reward offered for the discovery of Marti, and the pledge of
immunity to the discoverer, the caller demanded and obtained a verbal
endorsement of the promise of immunity, under the Governor's word of honor,
whatever might be the circumstances of his revelation. He then announced
himself as the much-sought pirate and smuggler, Marti. Tacon was somewhat
astounded, but he kept his word. Marti was held overnight, but "on the
following day," the Ballou account proceeds, "one of the men-of-war that
lay idly beneath the guns of Morro Castle suddenly became the scene of the
utmost activity, and, before noon, had weighed her anchor, and was standing
out into the gulf stream. Marti the smuggler was on board as her pilot;
and faithfully did he guide the ship on the discharge of his treacherous
business, revealing every haunt of the rovers, exposing their most valuable
depots; and many a smuggling craft was taken and destroyed. The amount of
money and property thus secured was very great." The contemptible job
of betraying his former companions and followers being successfully
accomplished, Marti returned with the ships, and claimed his reward from
Tacon. The General, according to his word of honor, gave Marti a full
and unconditional pardon for all his past offences, and an order on the
treasury for the amount of the reward offered. The latter was declined but,
in lieu of the sum, Marti asked for and obtained a monopoly of the right
to sell fish in Havana. He offered to build, at his own expense, a public
market of stone, that should, after a specified term of years, revert to
the government, "with all right and the title to the fishery." This
struck Tacon as a good business proposition; he saved to his treasury
the important sum of the reward and, after a time, the city would own a
valuable fish-market. He agreed to the plan. Marti thereupon went into
the fish business, made huge profits, and became, so the story goes, the
richest man in the island. After a time, being burdened with wealth, he
looked about for means of increasing his income. So he asked for and
obtained a monopoly of the theatre business in Havana, promising to build
one of the largest and finest theatres in the world. The result of the
enterprise was the present Nacional theatre, for many years regarded as
second only to the Grand theatre in Milan. But it was named the Tacon. Its
special attraction was internal; its exterior was far from imposing. It has
recently been considerably glorified. Having thus halted for the story of
the theatre, we may return to the Prado on which it fronts. Here, Havana
society used to gather every afternoon to drive, walk, and talk. The
afternoon _paseo_ was and still is the great event of the day, the great
social function of the city. At the time of my first visit, in 1899, there
was no Malecon drive along the shore to the westward. That enterprise
was begun during the First Intervention, and continued by succeeding
administrations. In the earlier days, the route for driving was down the
east side of the Prado, between the Parque Central and the _Carcel_, and
up the west side, around and around, up and down, with bows and smiles to
acquaintances met or passed, and, probably, gossip about the strangers.
Many horsemen appeared in the procession, and the central promenade was
thronged with those who walked, either because they preferred to or because
they could not afford to ride around and around. In the Parque Central were
other walkers, chatting groups, and lookers-on. Some days the band played.
Then the Prado was extended to the water-front; the _glorieta_ was erected;
and that became another centre for chatterers and watchers. The building of
the Malecon extended the range of the driveway. This afternoon function is
an old established institution and a good one. It may not compare favorably
with the drive in some of our parks in this country, but it is the best
substitute possible in Havana. Indulgence in ices, cooling drinks,
chocolate, or other refections, during this daily ceremony, is fairly
common but by no means a general practice. The afternoon tea habit has not
yet seized upon Havana. The ices are almost invariably excellent. Some of
them are prepared from native fruit flavors that are quite unknown here.
The _guanabana_ ice is particularly to be recommended. All such matters are
quite individual, but a decoction called _chocolate Espanol_ is also to be
recommended. It is served hot, too thick to drink, and is to be taken with
a spoon, to the accompaniment of cake. It is highly nourishing as well as
palatable. There is a wide variety of "soft drinks," made with oranges,
limes, or other fruits, and the _orchata_, made from almonds, and the
products of American soda fountains, but there is little use of the
high-ball or the cocktail except by Americans.
[Illustration: STREET AND CHURCH OF THE ANGELS _Havana_]
The Cubans are an exceedingly temperate people. Wine is used by all
classes, and _aguadiente_, the native rum, is consumed in considerable
quantity, but the Cuban rarely drinks to excess. I recall an experience
during the earlier years. I was asked to write a series of articles on the
use of intoxicants in the island, for a temperance publication in this
country. My first article so offended the publishers that they declined
to print it, and cancelled the order for the rest of the series. It was
perhaps somewhat improper, but in that article I summed up the situation
by stating that "the temperance question in Cuba is only a question of how
soon we succeed in converting them into a nation of drunkards." Beer is
used, both imported and of local manufacture. Gin, brandy, and anisette,
cordials and liqueurs are all used to some but moderate extent, but
intoxication is quite rare. One fluid extract I particularly recommend,
that is the milk of the cocoanut, the green nut. Much, however, depends
upon the cocoanut. Properly ripened, the "milk" is delicious, cooling and
wholesome, more so perhaps on a country journey than in the city. The nut
not fully ripened gives the milk, or what is locally called the "water," an
unpleasant, woody taste. I have experimented with it in different parts of
the world, in the Philippines, Ceylon, and elsewhere, and have found it
wholesome and refreshing in all places.
The houses in the new Havana are, on the whole, vastly more cheerful
than are the dwellings in the old city. They are of the same general
architectural type, but because of the wider streets, more air and sunshine
gets into them. Some of the best and most costly are along the Prado.
A Cuban house interior generally impresses an American as lacking in
home-like quality. Some of the best are richly adorned, but there is a
certain bareness and an absence of color. As is usual with customs unlike
our own, and which we are therefore prone to regard as inferior to ours,
there are excellent reasons for Cuban interior decoration, or rather the
lack of it. A little experience, or even a little reflection, shows clearly
the impossibility of anything resembling American house decoration in
such a climate as that of Cuba. Our warm colors, hangings, upholstered
furniture, rugs, and much else that we regard as essential in northern
latitudes, would be utterly unendurable in Cuba. There, the marble or tiled
floors, the cool tones of wall and ceiling, and the furniture of wood and
cane, are not only altogether fitting but as well altogether necessary. Our
glass windows would only serve to increase heat and shut out air. As some
barrier is necessary to keep passers, even Americans, from intrusive
entrance by the windows whose bottoms are at floor level, the system of
iron bars or elaborate grille work is adopted. Few Americans see much, if
anything, of Cuban home life except as they see it through these barriers
as they pass. It is not the custom of the country to invite promiscuous or
casual acquaintances to call. It is even less the custom there than it is
with us. A book about Cuba, published a few years ago, gives a somewhat
extended account of what is called "home life," but it is the home life of
workmen and people who do laundry work to eke out a meagre living. It is
not even the life of fairly paid artisans, or of people of modest but
comfortable income. It is no more a proper description of the domestic life
of the island than would be a presentation of the life in the palaces of
the wealthy. Such attempts at description are almost invariably a mistake,
conveying, whether from purpose or from indifference to truth, a false
impression. Domestic economy and household management vary in Cuba as
they vary in the United States, in France, England, Japan, or Mexico. The
selection of an individual home, or of several, as a basis for description,
in Cuba or anywhere else, can only result in a picture badly out of drawing
and quite misleading.
There are Cuban homes, as there are American homes, that are slatternly and
badly managed, and there are Cuban homes that are as spick and span and as
orderly in their administration as any home in this country. Their customs,
as are ours, are the result of environment and tradition. To some of us, a
rectangle of six or eight rocking-chairs, placed in the centre of a room,
in which family and visitors sit and rock while they talk, may seem
curious, but it is a custom that we may not criticize either with fairness
or common decency. The same may be said of the not uncommon custom of using
a part of the street floor of the house as a stable. It is an old custom,
brought from Spain. But I have wandered from description to incident. I
have no intention to attempt a description of Cuban home life, beyond
saying that I have been a guest in costly homes in the city and in the
little palm-leaf "shacks" of peasants, and have invariably found in both,
and in the homes of intermediate classes, only cordial hospitality and
gracious courtesy. Those who have found anything different have carried it
with them in their own attitude toward their hosts. Many of us, probably
most of us, in the United States, make a sort of fetich of the privacy of
what we call our home life. We are encased in walls of wood or masonry,
with blinds, curtains, or shades at our windows. It might be supposed that
we wanted to hide, that there was something of which to be ashamed. It
might at least be so interpreted by one unfamiliar with our ways. It is
only, like the open domestic life in Cuba, a custom, a habit of long
standing. Certainly, much of the domestic life of Cuba is open. The
mistress of the house chides a servant, rebukes or comforts a child, sits
with her embroidery, chaffers with an itinerant merchant or with the
clerk from a store, all in plain sight and hearing of the passer-by. What
everyone does, no one notices. The customs of any country are curious only
to those from other countries where customs are different. Our ways of life
are quite as curious to others as are their ways to us. We are quite
blind to that fact chiefly because of an absurd conviction of the
immense superiority of our ways. We do not stop to consider reasons for
differences. A cup of coffee on an American breakfast table usually
consists of about four parts coffee and one part milk or cream. Most Cubans
usually reverse these percentages. There is a good reason for it. In
our climate, we do not need the large open doors and windows, the high
ceilings, and the full and free ventilation that make life endurable
in tropical and sub-tropical countries. Their system here would be as
impossible as would be our system there. Houses in Cuba like those of an
American city or town would make life a miserable burden. The publicity, or
semi-publicity, of Cuban home life is a necessary result of conditions.
It is, naturally, more in evidence in the city proper, where the houses,
abutting immediately on the street, as do most of our city houses, are
built, as ours are, in solid rows. We avoid a good deal of publicity by
piling our homes on top of each other, and by elevators and stair-climbing.
The location of a residence in Havana gives no special idea of the wealth
or the social standing of those who occupy it. Not a few well-to-do people
still live in the old city, where the streets are narrow and where business
is trying to crowd out everything except itself. The home in that quarter
may be in a block in which a number of buildings are residences, or it
may stand with a warehouse on one side and a workshop on the other. A few
people, of unquestionable social position still live in buildings in which
the street floor is a store or an office. There is nothing curious about
this. In many American cities, old families have clung to old homes, and
not a few new families have, from one reason or another, occupied similar
quarters. Such a residence may not conform to modern social ideas and
standards, but there are Americans in this country, as well as Cubans and
Spaniards in Havana, who can afford to ignore those standards. The same is
true of many who live in the newer city, outside the old walls. There as
here, business encroaches on many streets formerly strictly residential.
This holds in the newer part of the city as well as in the old part. A
number of streets there are, for a part of their length, quite given over
to business. Even the Prado itself is the victim of commercial invasion.
What was once one of the finest residences in the city, the old Aldama
place fronting on the Campo de Marte, is now a cigar factory. A little
beyond it is the Tacon market, occupying an entire block. Stores and shops
surround it. The old avenue leading to the once fashionable Cerro, and
to the only less fashionable Jesus del Monte, is now a business street.
Another business street leads out of the Parque Central, alongside the
former Tacon theatre. The broad Calzada de Galiano, once a fashionable
residence street, is now largely commercial. While less picturesque than
some parts of the old city within the walls, the most attractive part of
Havana is undoubtedly the section of El Vedado, the westward extension
along the shore. Here are broad streets, trees, gardens, and many beautiful
and costly dwellings. This is really the modern Havana. A part of it is
only a little above sea-level, and behind that strip is a hill. A few years
ago, only a small number of houses were on the hillside or the hilltop.
Now, it is well built over with modern houses. The architectural type is
generally retained, and it is rather a pity that there should be even
what variation there is. El Vedado is the region of the wealthy and the
well-to-do, with a large percentage of foreigners. It has its social ways,
very much as other places have, in this country, in France, Hong Kong, or
Honolulu. They are not quite our ways, but they are a result of conditions,
just as ours are.