The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1876-04-27
A MissOurian in Cuba.


correspondence Of the st. Louis Republican
The statement has been frequently
made, and is rather pleasant to believe,
that the odors Of this spicy and fragrant
land are waited by breezes far out to
sea, and are the first indications of
nearness to days of glory and nights of
balm. But have to say that spices do
not grow in Cuba, and that among the
sundry odors which assail the unac-
customed nose upon going ashore at
Havana there are none that are sweet. |
have seen more flowers on square
rod of Missouri woodland than in all
Cuba that has come under my observa-
ton. OF streams, falls, springs, or even
of standing water and aquatic vegeta-
ton there is little or none. In short,
Cuba is coral reef, rather elevated and
! arid in appearance, exceedingly rich in
spots, redeemed during half the year
| from being as bald as q monks pate
and as brown as bakers loaf only by
rains whose copiousness redeems, to the
opposite extreme, the dusty dryness of
the other half.
| But there are respects in which Gu
ba is tropical to highly satisfactory
/ extent. Heat-caloric-a cooking tenn
perature-a sun whose rays seem to
burn the strangers head and leave a
huge blister, constitute the burden of
| life. The whole of life is lived with
these emergencies ever present to be
! taken full consideration of. Your feet
seem blistering below and your head
being baked above, while the white
glare produces a sensation like snow
blindness. There green-spectacles and
white-umbrellas become fashionable,
and the temperature which precedes
the daily rain is like that of a steam
bath. Then do your boots, discarded
yesterday, become covered with a green
mold and your clothing is streaked
and spotted by mildew. Every thing
is of clammy moistRess, and the heavy
fog of the morning wraps the sea and
land in a wet blanket. This is the Gu
ba of the foreign resident-the balmy
shine which has in eight years killed a
hundred and fifty thousand Spanish
soldiers, which means nearly all that
have been sent.
What, then, is a crowded city like,
whose hordes are called to suffer such
vicissitudes. Let me assure you that
the tropical city, full-grown, crowded,
red-hot, is thing worth going many a
mile TO see, and Havana-''LG HabGnG
bonita lis the very queen of them all.
You can never imagine, by the aid of
all you may read or hear, the real SEN
sation of that bay, with its narrow
opening, spread out like human hand,
and the teeming city beside it, with its
narrow and crowded streets, its twelve
/ inch sidewalks, its walls of green, yell
low and blue, its ancient and mOldy
churches, its Moorish houses, its parti-
colored crowds, its bad smells and I'M
clean ways. In its outskirts it might
pass for Granada; in its by-ways it is
as dirty and oriental as Constantinople,
and in its dwellings it is old Spain with
all she inherited from the Moors. Over
all hangs in its blazing nOontide that
relentless sun, binding you with a
white-hot glare and heating to blood
warmth the very stones you stand upon.
Everywhere still flies the ugly flag of
Spain; everywhere are the signs of the
easily-won wealth which is in foreign
hands. The soldier seems to be every
second man upon the streets. The ne
gro is everywhere toiling unrequited.
The volante trundles by, exciting your
attention as the only original thing upon
the island. The DANES peep at you
| from behind the iron bars which guard
every huge and paneless window. The
men loiter, chatter, smoke necessarily,
and somehow convince you of wide
spread dilletanteism and uselessness.
The fruit-vender, the milk-peddler and
the sellers of all things for all uses sit
high upon their back-breaking horse
loads filling the street with strange
noises from hoarse Threats, and taken
altogether it is hard to realize that all
these things, so un-American and for
eign, can exist and not even change,
with so different a country, so opposite
a life, but hundred miles away.
The Cuban lady is a most extraor-
binary creature; a curiosity of the coHn-
try. Pages might be written of her pi-
quaint beauty and her rather bold black
eve, and for the born genius she has
for dressing herself to kill on sight,
| flirting an audaciouS fan and "dOIngn
| her hair. OF men she knows nothing
except from information gathered in
standing at the bars of her cage, and
J going with her mamma, or her Oldest
| and ugliest maiden aunt at night on the
plaza. And yet, have heard that this
surreptitiously obtained knowledge
sometimes turns out to be ample for all
purposes. Her sweetest hour of court
ing is stolen for sly chat with him,
whoever he is, throughthose same bars,
and, as for the poor young man, except
such chances as this he has none what
ever. He must, when he is at last adj
mitted to the house, say all his tender
nesses across the critical ear of her ma,
and maintain his siege in the presence
of the whole family. But | must add
that this precocious daughter of the
South has beauty which. entities her
to take place among the special types
of female loneliness. She has such eyes
as poets write of, and which lose not
their light with wrinkles and old age;
figure which, whatever else it may be,
is never what Americans call ''sCrawny,n
and if you have ever seen a brood of
ducklings on their way to the nearest
water, you have a very good idea of her
gait. Considering that she is a woman
whose "rights - are still so far off that
she has never even heard of them, and
one who is content to call that place
home which she must make and keep
alone, she is a good wife and mother.
But, in the sense in which we under
stand it there is no such thing as home.
There is no word for it in the Spanish
tongue, and no appreciation of it in the
Latin heart. 1t seems to be something
only possible together with hearths and
fires. On the, other hand, the cafes
glitter with gas-light, marble and cut
glass, and there on the sweet tropical
nights are all the men to be found who,
in other countries, constitute the fam
lily man" portion of the community.
This is the home of the male human in
Cuba. His "house," as he calls it, and
which is his only name for the residence
of his family, is only his headquarters,
where he sleeps and sometimes takes
his meals.
A TarFffia Foil Of Nofc