visitors; the old fortress, el Castillo del Principe, and the cemetery.
In the latter are some notable monuments. One is known as the Firemen's
Monument. For many years, Havana has had, supplementary to its municipal
organization, a volunteer firemen's corps. In various ways the latter
resembles a number of military organizations in the United States. It is at
once a somewhat exclusive social club and a practical force. Membership
is a social distinction. If you are in Havana and see men in admirably
tailored, uniforms and fire helmets, rushing in a particular direction in
cabs, carriages or automobiles, you may know that they are members of the
_Bomberos del Comercio_ on their way to a conflagration. Most excellent
real work they have done again and again in time of fire and flood. On
parade, they look exceedingly dapper with their helmets, uniforms, boots
and equipment, somewhat too dandified even to suggest any smoke other than
that of cigars or cigarettes. But they are the "real thing in smoke-eaters"
when they get to work. They have a long list of heroic deeds on their
records. The monument in Colon Cemetery commemorates one of those deeds.
In an extensive and dangerous fire, in May, 1890, thirty of these men
lost their lives. A few years later, this beautiful and costly shaft was
erected, by private subscription, as a tribute to their valor and devotion.
Another shaft, perhaps no less notable, commemorates a deplorable and
unpardonable event. A number of medical students, mere boys, in the
University of Havana, were charged with defacing the tomb of a Spanish
officer who had been killed by a Cuban in a political quarrel. At
its worst, it was a boyish prank, demanding rebuke or even some mild
punishment. Later evidence indicates that while there was a demonstration
there was no defacement of the vault. Forty-two students were arrested as
participants, tried by court-martial, and sentenced to be shot. Eight of
them were shot at La Punta, at the foot of the Prado near the sea-front,
and the remainder sentenced to imprisonment for life. All of these, I
believe, were afterward released. The Students' Monument expresses the
feeling of the Cubans in the matter, a noble memorial. There are numerous
other shafts and memorials that are notable and interesting. A number of
Cuba's leaders, Maximo Gomez, Calixto Garcia, and others, are buried in
this cemetery.
[Illustration: A RESIDENCE IN EL VEDADO]
Further on, to the southeast, are other sections of the new Havana, the
districts of Cerro and Jesus del Monte. El Vedado has largely supplanted
these neighborhoods as the "court end" of the city. Many of the fine old
residences of forty or fifty years ago still remain, but most of them are
now closely surrounded by the more modest homes of a less aristocratic
group. A few gardens remain to suggest what they were in the earlier days.
Still further out, in the west-and-south quarter-circle, are little towns,
villages, and hamlets, typically Cuban, with here and there the more
imposing estate of planter or proprietor. But, far the greater number of
visitors, perhaps with greater reason, find more of charm and interest
in the city itself than in the suburbs or the surrounding country. The
enjoyment of unfamiliar places is altogether personal. There are many who
really see nothing; they come away from a brief visit with only a confusion
of vague recollections of sights and sounds, of brief inspection of
buildings about which they knew nothing, of the big, yellow Palace, of this
church and that, of the Morro and the harbor, of sunny days, and of late
afternoons along the Prado and the Malecon. To me, Havana is losing its
greatest charm through an excess of Americanization, slowly but steadily
taking from the place much of the individuality that made it most
attractive. It will be a long time before that is entirely lost, but
five-story office buildings, automobiles in the afternoon parade, steaks
or ham and eggs at an eight or nine o'clock breakfast, and all kinds of
indescribable hats in place of dainty and graceful _mantillas_, seem to
me a detraction, like bay-windows and porticos added to an old colonial
mansion.
VI
_AROUND THE ISLAND_
A hundred years ago, the Cubans travelled from place to place about the
island, just as our ancestors did in this country, by water and over rough
trails few of which could, with any approach to correctness, be described
as roads. It was not until about a hundred years ago that we, in this
country, began to build anything even remotely resembling a modern highway.
Our towns and cities were on the seaboard or on the banks of rivers
navigable for vessels of size sufficient for their purposes. Commodities
carried to or brought from places not so located were dragged in stoutly
built wagons over routes the best of which was worse than the worst to be
found anywhere today. Because real road-making in Cuba is quite a modern
institution, an enterprise to which, in their phrase, the Spanish
Government did not "dedicate" itself, the Cuban wagons and carts of today
are chiefly those of the older time. They are heavy, cumbrous affairs with
large wheels, a diameter necessitated by the deep ruts through which a
passage was made. A smaller wheel would soon have been "hub-deep" and
hopelessly stuck. So, too, with the carriages of the nabobs. The poorer
people, when they travelled at all, went on foot or on horseback, as our
ancestors did. The nabobs had their _volantes_, still occasionally, but
with increasing rarity, seen in some parts of the island. Forty years ago,
such vehicles, only a little changed from the original type, were common
enough in Havana itself. About that time, or a few years earlier, the
four-wheeler began to supplant them for city use.
There is a technical difference between the original type of _volante_ and
its successor which, though still called a _volante_ was properly called a
_quitrin_. The only real difference was that the top of the _quitrin_ was
collapsible, and could be lowered when desirable, while the top of
the _volante_ was not. I have ridden in these affairs, I cannot say
comfortably, over roads that would have been quite impossible for any other
wheeled vehicle. At the back, and somewhat behind the body were two wheels,
six feet in diameter. From, the axle, two shafts projected for a distance,
if memory serves me, of some twelve or fifteen feet. A little forward of
the axle, the body, not unlike the old-fashioned American chaise, was
suspended on stout leather straps serving as springs. Away off in front, at
the end of the shafts, was a horse on which the driver rode in a heavy and
clumsy saddle. For long-distance travel, or for particularly rough roads,
a second horse was added, alongside the shaft horse, and sometimes a third
animal. The motion was pleasant enough over the occasional smooth places,
but the usual motion was much like that of a cork in a whirlpool, or of a
small boat in a choppy sea. Little attention was paid to rocks or ruts; it
was almost impossible to capsize the thing. One wheel might be two feet or
more higher than the other, whereupon the rider on the upper side would be
piled on top of the rider or riders on the lower side, but there was always
a fair distribution of this favor. The rocks and ruts were not always on
the same side of the road. The safety from overturn was in the long shafts
which allowed free play. In the older days, say sixty or seventy years
ago, the _volante_ or the _quitrin_ was an outward and visible sign of a
well-lined pocket-book. It indicated the possessor as a man of wealth,
probably a rich planter who needed such a vehicle to carry him and his
family from their mansion in the city to their perhaps quite as costly home
on the plantation. The _calisero_, or driver, was dressed in a costume
truly gorgeous, the horses were of the best, and the vehicle itself
may have cost two thousand dollars or more. The operation of such a
contrivance, extending, from the rear of the wheels to the horse's nose,
for twenty feet or more, in the narrow streets of the old city, was a
scientific problem, particularly in turning corners.
Cuba was early in the field with a railway. In 1830, the United States
had only thirty-two miles of line, the beginning of its present enormous
system. Cuba's first railway was opened to traffic in November, 1837. It
was a forty-five mile line connecting Havana with the town of Guines,
southeast of the city. While official permission was, of course, necessary
before the work could be undertaken, it was in fact a Cuban enterprise, due
to the activity of the _Junta de Fomento_, or Society for Improvement. It
was built with capital obtained in London, the construction being in charge
of Mr. Alfred Cruger, an American engineer. Ten years later there were
nearly three hundred miles of line. At the beginning of the American
occupation, in 1899, there were about nine-hundred and fifty miles. There
are now more than 2,000 miles of public service line in operation, and in
addition there are many hundreds of miles of private lines on the sugar
estates. Several cities have trolley lines. For some years after the
American occupation, as before that experience, there was only a
water-and-rail connection, or an all-water route, between the eastern and
western sections of the island. The usual route from Havana to Santiago
was by rail to Batabano or to Cienfuegos, and thence by steamer. The
alternative was an all-water route, consuming several days, by steamer
along the north coast, with halts at different ports, and around the
eastern end of the island to the destination. It is now an all-rail run of
twenty-four hours. The project for a "spinal railway" from one end of
the island to the other had been under consideration for many years. The
configuration lent itself excellently to such a system, and not at all
well to any other. A railway map of such a system shows a line, generally,
through the middle of the island along its length, with numerous branch
lines running north and south to the various cities and ports on the coast.
The plan, broadly, is being carried out. A combination of existing lines
afforded a route to the city of Santa Clara. From these eastward, the Cuba
Company, commonly known as the Van Home road, completed a through line in
1902. In its beginning, it was a highly ambitious scheme, involving the
building of many towns along the way, the erection of many sugar mills, and
the creation of a commercial city, at Nipe Bay, that would leave Havana in
the back-number class. All that called for a sum of money not then and not
now available. But the "spinal railroad" was built, and from it a number of
radiating lines have been built, to Sancti Spiritus, Manzanillo, Nipe
Bay, and to Guantanamo. About the only places on the island, really worth
seeing, with the exception of Trinidad and Baracoa, can now be reached by a
fairly comfortable railway journey.
[Illustration: THE VOLANTE _Now quite rare_]
In most of the larger cities of the island, a half dozen or so of them, the
traveller is made fairly comfortable and is almost invariably well fed. But
any question of physical comfort in hotels, more particularly in country
hotels, raises a question of standards. As Touchstone remarked, when in the
forest of Arden, "Travellers must be content." Those who are not ready to
make themselves so, no matter what the surroundings, should stay at home,
which, Touchstone also remarked, "is a better place." If the standard is
the ostentatious structure of the larger cities of this country, with its
elaborate menu and its systematized service, there will doubtless be cause
for complaint. So will there be if the standard is the quiet, cleanly inn
of many towns in this country and in parts of Europe. The larger towns and
villages of the island have a _posada_ in which food and lodging may be
obtained; the smaller places may or may not have "a place to stay." Cuba
is not a land in which commercial travellers swarm everywhere, demanding
comfort and willing to pay a reasonable price for it. However, few
travellers and fewer tourists have any inclination to depart from known
and beaten paths, or any reason for doing so. Nor does a fairly thorough
inspection of the island necessitate any halting in out-of-the-way places
where there is not even an imitation of an inn. All that one needs to see,
and all that most care to see, can be seen in little tours, for a day, from
the larger cities. Yet if one wants to wander a little in the by-paths, it
is easy enough to do so.
What one sees or does in Cuba will depend mainly upon the purpose of the
visit, and upon the violence of the individual mania for seeing as many
places as possible. If the object is merely an excursion or an escape from
the rigors of a northern winter, there is no occasion for wandering out of
sight of the capital city. There is more to see and more to do in Havana
than there is in all the rest of the island. Nor is there much to be seen
elsewhere that cannot be seen in the immediate vicinity of that city. This,
of course, does not cover the matter of scenery. There are no mountains,
no forest jungles in that neighborhood, but forests in Cuba are not
particularly interesting, and even the mountains of Oriente are no more
beautiful or majestic than are our own summits, our own White Hills of New
Hampshire, the Adirondacks, the Blue Ridge, the Alleghenies, the Rockies,
and the Sierras. The charm of Cuba, and it is extremely charming, is not
its special "points of interest." It is rather a general impression, a
combination of soft and genial climate with varying lights and shades and
colors. Even after much experience there, I am not yet quite ready either
to admit or to deny that the island, taken as a whole, is either beautiful
or picturesque, and yet there is much of both. Attention is rarely
challenged by the sublime or the majestic, but is often arrested by
some play of light and shade. Cuban villages, with few exceptions, are
unattractive, although there is not infrequently some particular building,
usually a church, that calls for a second look or a careful examination.
Most of these little communities consist of a row of low and ungraceful
structures bordering the highway. They are usually extended by building on
at the ends. If the town street gets undesirably long, a second street or a
third will be made, on one or both sides of the main street, and thus the
town acquires breadth as well as length. The houses are built immediately
upon the roadside, and sidewalks are quite unusual. Nor, until the place
becomes a large town or a small city, is there, in most cases, any attempt
at decoration by means of shade trees. A tree may be left if there happened
to be one when the village was born, but rarely do the inhabitants turn
their streets into tree-shaded avenues. There would be an excellent
opportunity for the activities of Village Improvement Societies in Cuba, if
it were not for the fact that such tree-planting would involve pushing all
the houses ten or fifteen feet back from the roadside.
I have never studied the system of town building in the island, yet it is
presumable that there was some such system. In the larger places, there is
usually a central park around which are arranged the church, the public
buildings, and the stores. Whether these were so constructed from an
original plan, or whether they are an evolution, along a general plan, from
the long, single street, I do not know. I am inclined to believe that the
former was the case, and that it followed the location of a church. The
custom is, of course, of Spanish origin, and is common throughout the
greater part of Latin America. It finds a fair parallel in our own country
custom, by no means infrequent, of an open "green" or common in front
of the village church and the town hall. Tree-setting along the Cuban
highways, more particularly in the neighborhood of the cities, is not at
all unusual, and some of these shaded roads are exceedingly charming. Some
are entirely over-arched by laurel trees and the gorgeous _flamboyan_,
making long tunnels of shade "through whose broken roof the sky looks in."
Evidently the Spanish authorities were too much interested in making money
and enjoying themselves in the cities to care very much for what happened
to the Cubans in the villages, as long as they paid the money that filled
the official pocket and paid for the official entertainment, and the Cubans
were too busy getting that money to have much time for village improvement.
The Spaniards, following their home custom, might decorate a military
highway to some extent, but the rough trail over which the peasant carried
his little crop did not concern them. That was quite the business of the
peasant who had neither the time nor money to do anything about it.
The question of good roads in Cuba is very much what it is in this country.
Cuba needs more good roads than its people can afford to build; so does the
United States. At the time of the American occupation, in 1899, there were
only 160 miles of improved highway in the entire island. Of this, 85 miles
were in Havana Province, and 75 miles in Pinar del Rio. The remainder of
the island had none. Some work was done during the First Intervention
and more was done under the Palma government. At the time of the Second
Intervention, there were about 380 miles. That is, the United States and
the Cuban Republic built, in six years, nearly 40 per cent, more highway
than the Spanish authorities built in four hundred years. During the Palma
regime, plans were drawn for an extensive road system, to be carried out
as rapidly as the financial resources permitted. Not unlike similar
proceedings in this country, in river and harbor work and public
buildings, politics came into the matter and, like our own under similar
circumstances, each Congressman insisted that some of such work as could
immediately be undertaken, some of the money that could be immediately
spent, should benefit his particular district. The result was that what was
done by the Cubans was somewhat scattered, short stretches built here and
there, new bridges built when there might or might not be a usable road to
them. The Cuban plan involved, for its completion, a period of years and
a large appropriation. It called for comparatively small yearly
appropriations for many roads, for more than four hundred different
projects. Then came the Second Intervention, in 1906, with what has seemed
to many of us an utterly unwise and unwarranted expenditure for the
completion of certain selected projects included in the Cuban plan. It may
be granted that the roads were needed, some of them very much needed, but
there are thousands of miles of unconstructed but much needed roads in
the United States. Yet, in this country, Federal, State, county, and town
treasuries are not drained to their last dollar, and their credit strained,
to build those roads. From the drain on its financial resources, the island
will recover, but the misfortune appears in the setting of a standard for
Federal expenditure, in its total for all purposes amounting to about
$40,000,000 a year, far beyond the reasonable or proper bearing power of
the island. But the work was done, the money spent, and the Cubans were
committed to more work and to further expenditure. I find no data showing
with exactness the mileage completed by the Magoon government, which came
to an end in January, 1909, but a Cuban official report made at the end of
1910 shows that the combined activities of the respective administrations,
Spanish, American, and Cuban, had given the island, at that time,
practically a thousand miles of improved highway, distributed throughout
the island.
To see the real Cuba, one must get into the country. Havana is the
principal city, and for many it is the most interesting place on the
island, but it is no more Cuba than Paris is France or than New York is the
United States. The real Cuba is rural; the real Cuban is a countryman, a
man of the soil. If he is rich, he desires to measure his possessions in
_caballerias_ of 33-1/3 acres; if poor, in _hectareas_ of 2-1/2 acres. I do
not recall any Cuban cartoon representing the Cuban people that was not a
picture of the peasant, the _guajiro_. Cuba, as a political organism, is
shown as a quite charming _senorita_, but _el pueblo Cubano_, the Cuban
people, are shown as the man of the fields. With the present equipment
of railroads, trolley lines, automobile busses, and highways, little
excursions are easily made in a day. The railways, trolleys, and automobile
busses are unsatisfactory means of locomotion for sight-seeing. The
passenger is rushed past the very sights that would be of the greatest
interest. To most of us, a private hired automobile is open to the very
serious objection of its expensiveness, an item that may sometimes be
reduced by division. It has been my good fortune in more recent years to be
whirled around in cars belonging to friends but my favorite trip in earlier
days is, I presume, still open to those who may care to make it. I have
recommended it to many, and have taken a number with me over the route.
It is an easy one-day excursion of about sixty miles, by rail to Guanajay,
by carriage to Marianao, and return to Havana by rail. Morning trains
run to Guanajay, through a region generally attractive and certainly
interesting to the novice, by way of Rincon and San Antonio de los Banos, a
somewhat roundabout route, but giving a very good idea of the country, its
plantations, villages, and peasant homes. At Guanajay, an early lunch, or a
late breakfast, may be obtained at the hotel, before or after an inspection
of the town itself, a typical place with its little central park, its old
church, and typical residences. Inquiry regarding the transportation to
Marianao by carriage should not be too direct. It should be treated as a
mere possibility depending upon a reasonable charge. I have sometimes spent
a very pleasant hour in intermittent bargaining with the competitors for
the job, although knowing very well what I would pay and what they would
finally accept. Amiably conducted, as such discussions should be in
Cuba, the chaffering becomes a matter of mutual entertainment. A bargain
concluded, a start may be made about noon for a drive over a good road,
through a series of typical villages, to Marianao, in time for a late
afternoon train to Havana, reaching there in ample time for dinner. Along
the road from Guanajay to Marianao, Maceo swept with ruthless hand in
1896, destroying Spanish property. Here the Spaniards, no less ruthless,
destroyed the property of Cubans. It is now a region of peaceful industry,
and little or nothing remains to indicate its condition when I first saw
it. The little villages along the way were in ruins, the fields were
uncultivated, and there were no cattle. At intervals there stood the walls
of what had been beautiful country estates. Only one of many was left
standing. At intervals, also, stood the Spanish blockhouses. All along that
route, in 1906, were the insurrectos of the unfortunate experience of that
year. In the village of Caimito, a short distance from Guanajay, along that
road, I visited Pino Guerra at his then headquarters when he and his
forces so menaced Havana that Secretary Taft, in his capacity of Peace
Commissioner, ordered their withdrawal to a greater distance. The trip by
rail and road, exhibits most of Cuba's special characteristics. There are
fields of sugar cane and fields of tobacco, country villages and peasant
homes, fruits and vegetables, ceiba trees, royal palms, cocoanut palms, and
mango trees. There is no other trip, as easily made, where so much can be
seen. But there are other excursions in the vicinity, for many reasons best
made by carriage or by private hired automobile. Within fifteen miles or so
of the city, are places like Calvario, Bejucal, and Managua, all reached
by good highways through interesting and typical country, and all well
illustrating the real life of the real Cubans. It was in the vicinity of
those places that Maximo Gomez operated in 1895 and 1896, terrorizing
Havana by menacing it from the south and the east while Maceo threatened it
from the west. Another short and pleasant trip can be made around the head
of the harbor to Guanabacoa, and thence to Cojimar. Another interesting and
easily reached point is Guines, a good example of places of its size and
class.