The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1873-03-22
Life in Havana.
Extract from a Letter. |
HAVANA. March 8

~" Wv AhC Law dud. w uO WOulu uOG
be charmed with experience of life in the torp-
les? What is the brightness of sea and sky at
home, compared with the glittering waves and
blazing stars of this glowing region? What is
the rank growth of oaks and elms compared
with the teeming life of this torrid vegetation ?
Somehow, however, the country about Havana
at the first glance, presents itself as singuarly
fiat and bare, and the town itself, after a few
hours residence, suggests the definition of
Getty Of smells and noises" The entrance to
the bay, the ''finest harbor in the world,' is
pleasing, not striking. There is nothing grand
in the low scrubby hill on the right, where the
famous forts of Ell Moro and Caranas are
bristling with cannon. The city on your left,
lying on level patch of land between the har-
Dor and the open sea, looks gay and sunny
enough with its quantity painted houses, tower
ed over by the Jail, the most prominent and
conspicuous object, and by multitude of
church domes and steeples in every variety of
bad taste and style.
On alighting, you tread narrow, crowded
Streets thanked on either side by fetid cutters,
paved with the hardest and most uneven stones,
with raised footpaths ten inches wide Wheth-
er you walk OF drive, you feel you are proceed
ing at the risk of life or limb. There are 5000
hackney conveyances plying in these streets,
as the natives hasten to inform you with great
glee. The far-famed Tolante, that gig on very
long shafts and very high wheels, about which
humorsts have made themselves merry, but
which was after all, one of the most practical
things of Cuba, is rapidly disappearing from
the narrow thoroughfares, and it's place lis now
Isurped by the so-called Victoria, one horse
carriage drawn by sorry nag, and driven by a
rash, unskillful and obstinate driver, humping
and humping madly along, running over the
footway at every street corner, and only appar-
emily becoming aware of other vehicles when
the driver has locked their wheels or stove in
their panel.
forth into the now town, over any of the wide
gaps everywhere cut through the ancient line
OF walls, and you come to "City of Ma milf
cent Distances" to broad unpaved roads and
wide open places, over deep ruts and dismal
holes and qnagmires, where your driver dashes
along haphazard, never dreams of picking his
way, but goes through thick and thin as if he
were running a race, causing his "fare" to
jump high on his seat, and splashing the green
i;h water of every puddle up to his very eyes.
This is the new town. Here is the Field of
Mars, with the Telegraph Hotel, the Prone
made, the railway station; a row of haif-demol.
ished bastions and half built palaces: maze
of broad streets, the abode of dust and mud,
fnll of holes, numbered with big, loose ones
all unfinished, many impossible. The town is
in state of transition. 1t will be all right to-
morrow the Spanish tomorrow.
In all this disorder, however something like
beauty may be deserted. The shops, ali open
in front. shaded by many-colored awnings, look
cool, and not untidy. The houses with doors
and windows cut down to the ground, have a
fresh, cheerful appearance, in spite Of the iron
bars doing duty for glass, blinds and shutters.
and at certain hours revealing the interior to
ITS very holy of holies of domestic privacy.
stately mansions are everywhere run up at
random by the side of squalid negro huts with
ahsr al td cnllaren OF all hues pggng to-
men trailing their one muslin garment i'm the
dust, and allowing it to slip with PICTURESQUE
negligence from their dusky shoulders. What
strikes the stranger at first sight is the profn-
sion of smooth, white marble-marble halls.
starcases, sitting and sleeping room floors.
With great deal of marble and polished tiles
and no glass, and here and there bits of gar
dens, the wealthy classes manage to live In lux
ury. Their houses are mostly on the ground
floor; barely one in hundred can boast of an
upper story; the roofs of new dwellings are all
Hat, laid out in terraces, where the linen is
Crying by day, and ladies and cats are lounging
at eve Whatever green there is for miles
around Havana, is to be found in the private
GROUNDS: Some OF the gardens, and especially
that of the Captain Generals countay seat ex-
h'blt all the pride and luxuriance of tropical
bower, with enormously tall and big, ROYAL
palms, mango trees, tamarinds, China 1aurels,
and prodigious variety of fower-walks-
Everywhere else the land is bare, not flat. Init
in easy fluctuations which if clad with trees,
might attain great loneliness.
. There are no sugar or tobacco estates in the
immediate vicinity of Havana; the ground, by
no means barren, is laid out in niggardly crops
We have everywhere here piles of oranges, but
am yet to see an orange grove.
Both in and out of the town the elements of
the beautiful are easily to be seen. AS things
are now, however, the beauty is merely rudi-
mentary. Havana is still the city of smells and
noises. Crossing the new town in every direc-
ton are open sewers. In many of the thor
oughfares built and inhabited on both sides,
the filth rises to such height that neither Vol
ante nor Victoria can venture into them But,
even if the hapless stranger outlives the smells
of Havana, he must in the long run be killed
by its sounds. There can be but little peace in
private houses, but there is none in hotels
Railways and tramways all run in the open
streets and ''Look out for the engine when the
bell rings" Alas the bell is perpetually ring
ing; the engine incessantly roaring. Broad
streets and low houses permit the din to extend
freely over the town and suburbs. Where you
have not the railway you have the steamer and
trains and mail boats start at every hour
Binding with the racket of the traffic, you have
the never-ending peal of the church bells, morn
ing bells, evening bells, midnight bells; the
frantic ecclesiastics Juggling away at the ropes
ior no apparent reason Except cruel deter
mlnation that where they wake,no hereto shall
s oeS N to sleep Add to this the rolling of
tSe haaetorias, the horse-cars, the omnibuses,
cla s hea w wagons of every description the
hideous'i t dates and billiard rooms making night
twang Of i}anoer, the babel of voices, the
to crown an the squeak of the fiddles. and,
small hours Of 1n t6s at your door in the
ter asking ther H WORT by some stupid wal
and II ahsS1 tine SsqsE train to Man
rest ous etSrna snd nbos whose
that be likes Havana" We induced TO say
Delaware has so much money in ito r