The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1853-05-05
FAMILIAR LETTERS FROM CUBA
Editor of the NotiondI Era:

outside of the Puerto del Monserrate, and near
the Tacon theatre.
] found the hotel an admirable one The
balcony commands a noble view Of the Paseo
Isabel H. of the city walls the Moro, and the
mouth of the harbor while watch-tower
above give you delightful bird's-eye view of
the whole city and district the tnrrete1, crowd
cd Havana within the walls, the square built,
terraced parti.colored, Moorish looking Havana
along the shore, the curiously -shaped port
Just such a one as the boys make in the sand,
with long neck and round basin--the gay,
green fields, the villas, and palm groves OF the
country. My room was at the top of the house,
and | was az thoroughly among the birds"
as Luther at the Wartburg; only, instead OF
the delicious MARBLES of the Thursingian for
ests, my aerial neighbors were shrill and shrek
ing parrots and paroquets, Gagged all around
the well-like, lofty walls OF the interior. The
| absence Of singing birds rs melancholy thing
in the Cuban passage. Excepting from some
foreign musicians from Florida, or the Spanish
Main which surrounded me on the southern
coast. no notes save the most discordant, fall
upon the travellers ear. The birds of Cuba
are birds of the ball-room-gaily Dressed, gor-
seous creatures but souliess and songless. |
should find this q weighty objection to living in
| the island. Ones regretful memories OF the
tuneful groves and gardens of Europe may be
somewhat appeased in the woods of New Eng
| land, where, il we may not hold our breath to
hear from the nightingales of Ferney or Swift
| erland
| the self same song that found path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when sick for home,
| She stood in tears amid the alien corn"
Or soar, with Shelley's skylark, out of sight and
thought of earth, we may at least follow the
! fine clarion of our own woOdthrush through
the aisles of the pine forest and listen joyfully
to the sweet melody of the Canadian whistler,
in the mountains of the State of New Hamp-
shire But land without song-birds would
always seem to me blighted land-a most
uncanny and unwholesome place and land
NTH parrots is worse than blighted it is pop
ulous with things of evil Depend on it, there
is q natural connection between scandal and
parrots; an electric affinity exists between
these malicious, shrewish, spiteful birds and
those ilLminded gossips, unmusical souls, hu-
man parrots, fit for the trcasons, strategems
and spoils" of social life. Perhaps my expires.
sion of this belief is somewhat aggravated by
the remembrance of the way in which have
been electrified into leaping from my bed q
dozen times during the last week by diaboli-
cal white parrot that hangs just under my
window.
Well-as boys say in their stories-we came
to the city to see the Easter shows The first
and greatest of these would have been the
procession of the Sacred Interment of Jesus
on Good Friday night, and the subsequent
wailings in the churches-a sort of et,ide d
deur crayonS-a caricature in black and vel
low white, of the magnificent ceremonies of
Rome-lcould have besn but was not, for the
rain fell in torrents from five o'clock in the
afternoon till ten at night Nothing was even
attempted; for which | was grateful, since
should have felt it my duty to see whatever
was to be seen, and, next to picnic on May
day, nothing is so pitiable as o damp process
sion The cafe men, who generally do a good
business on Good Friday night were disap-
pointed; the priests were disappointed; and
the public-all but the young ctizeus who
have to do escort duty to their female re!a-
| tiOns, and find them in countless ice creams all
along the route. But on Saturday morning
the sun rose clear, and by day break the Paseo
without the walls was crowded by carts and
wheeled vehicles of every kind, jostling and
jolting together for the precedence. At ten
o'clock, the circulation within the city begins
again, and the cartmen regard it as an omen
of good luck, for the whole year, to be first on
the wharves At ten precisely the cannon
doomed the bells began to ring and the roar
OF countless wheels, the brays of donkeys the
yells and cries of men, made the fair Easter
day hideous. They are worse here, with their
bells particularly, than in Italy A convent,
not far from lie Grand's rang out lively jig
in honor Of the sacred day, during four long
hours of Easter Sunday. They tell me the
priests find it good thing to dispose of their
negro penitents by setting them to ring these
bells aud the frequency with which the genu-
inc " breakdown" in it's various notifications,
assails the ear, inclines me to accept the story.
Ga Sunday afternoon, the first bull fight in
the new Plaza de Toros, was to have come off
but the eternal rain began again, at four
o'clock, to shear the show of it's splondors. A
Creole marquis, enriched by the ingenious APP
preparation to himself of great number of ne
groes confded to his care by the mixed COM
mission, and who is in consequence thereof g
very important man, intended to have gone to
| the Plaza in the state affected on such ocoa-
sions by the mobiles of Old Spain, in fne
coach, with outriders and banners, and what
not; but the rain spoiled his sport and. my
friends advising me that the Plaza would be
| inundated, ! determined, as ! only wished to
attend one bull-fght, that would postpone my
visit
The first ball of the Catalan Society of Be-
nefcence, which was to have taken place on
Sunday night, in a temporary building on the
Campo Marie, was postponed, the dancing
room being knee deep in water so that our
only show, on Easter Sunday, was at the Ca
thedral in the morning, where grand mass
was performed, and the TIE Deum sung in hon.
or of the queens escape from the knife of the
crazy priest Martina, a year ago. This was
really brilliant spectacle. The high altar of
course was all alight, with big and little can
dies The great aisle of tho nave was lined on
each side with mahogany benches, covered
with scarlet velvet, the floor between which
was appropriated to ladies.
Before nine O'Clock, flights of fair Cubans,
in their graceful costume, entering at the vari-
Gus doors, had occupied nearly all this space,
kneeling on the hassocks and carpets spread
for them by their little negro pages, whose gay
liveries, chiefly scarlet, or blue and white, con-
trasted finely with their dark faces, | was
astonshed to see how few of the ladies wore
tho old regulation black" Silks of every
color rustled and glistened in the bright SUM-
| light. | think the effect was much less fine
than that produced by the dark masses of
knceling figures in an Italian church but the
flowing mantillas and light floating wells were
there, and, remembering how near we are to
| the Hinvasion Of the bonnets,o was grateful
for what yet remained of the picturesque. Off
GERS in different uniforms, eeclesastics in capes
and cassocks, of yellow, and purple, and scar
let, and black, and green, kept coming in, and
the mahogany BENCHES soon began to be filled,
| while an increasing crowd OF mulattoes, and
quadroons, and negroes, Of lemon-colored dra-
goons, and infantry men in their full dress IF
blue and red, looking like awkward national
guards, Of young Creoles in their black and
white uniform, and foreigners in easy undress,
swarmed in tho side aisles. The Plaza was
full of volantes, and the fine horses reared, and
plunged, and backed, greatly to the delight of
the vOciferating caleseros.