, 1886-07-31
TWo SUNNY CUBAN HOURS.


The hostelry was a posada y fonda, a
grocery, a confectionery and bakery
combined; and it is here the celebrated
pan de Paula or Paula bread, so noted
throughout Cuba, is made. A delight
full little breakfast was served. Among
the dishes new to me were ~ajaico, a ma
tional Cuban dish of meats and vege-
tables, which, told in the fewest English
words, would be known as Cuban all
sorts: pal de cascade or cascade bread,
made of the roots of the yucca grated,
formed with milk into thin paste pat
ties on plates. and unflavored, dried
quickly, though not baked, in ovens;
and a Cuban country cheese, similar to
the German schmeerkase or our own
cottage cheese, but compressed, par
tally dried, and possessing n delicate
flavor. Many Cubans add strip to this
cheese as a dressing, spreading the MKT
ure upon bread in the place of butter.
We sauntered about San Francisco de
Paula, climbing the mountain to inspect
the old church, which, in this peculiar
atmosphere, seemed to us from the val
ley below a tremendous structure loom
ing against the steel blue sky, but which
on approaching dwindled to n little old
pile of century eaten stone, with no win
dows, with but one door, and with a
chime of bells no bigger han the bells
our American cows rattle, half muffled
in clover, at the flies in the meadows.
But the climbing showed us where there
were more enhancing studies than the
quaintest of old churches. Every home
- fhs, villa oa moot xrao lilo n hit IF old
Doric salem set in a frame of honeysuckle,
jasmine and rose; and every pillared por-
tico, wide and big as the house itself, was
a cen for an artist and student of sim
pie toll and glowing beauty. Here, too,
was a delightful surprise in the pleasing
discovery that the delicate beauty, the
Cuban woman, could work. These were
the sweetest of Cubanas and every one
was as busy as pretty. And what bright,
engaging groupings they were as we
passed, making u admiration as plain
in our eyes and loiterings as they all
showed us in their own eyes and bushes
they were glad that they pleased I'm
conscious beauty may give unconscious
grace, but conscious, honesty beauty
ever wins the truest and most grateful
admiration.
You must know we were chivalrous
~caballeros, the don and myself, and that
no good women are indifferent to true
interest and admiration in any country.
So 1t was with no rudeness on our part
nor alarm on theirs hat we soon found q
group of some twenty senoritas' and
ninas, presided over by two or three
pleasant yet grave and serious senoras,
picturesquely bestowed upon a great
bower-embowered portico, singing dainty
snatches of Spanish ballads, ~bandying
back and forth harmless jests, and full
as the vines of blossoms of the alert ag-
g~ressjons and repulses of budding wom-
anhood. San Francisco de Paula's homes
are all diminutive factories of the cool,
light hat known in our country as
the palm leaf" the same being a lead
ing article of export from Yucatan to
the states, though it is said the Ameri-
can are only sent the inferior grades;
and here these fair maids, in setting of
architecture, of quaint environments,
and blossoms prettier than ever given us
on the operate stage, were making their
dainty and deft fingers fly m%arvelously.
The ninas, or little girls, split the leaf of
the already bleached palma guiana, of
fan palm, with thin-bladed knifes, each,
little one true and dextrous in her work
and rarely making a wrong stroke or de-
stroying a slender strand.
We set the entire coterie in a fiutter
by contracting for the making for zach
of us of a hat, the dicker being gravely
conducted by the don with one of the
discreet senoras; and no two men were
ever put in a pleasanter waiting than we
during those two sunny Cuban hours.
With the delicious hospitality of these
Cubans everywhere we must needs be
made as comfortable as royal guests, and
while the stately don was placed in a
great rockingham near the fair girl
whose nimble hands were already weav-
ing the snow-white strands of his SOM
brero, without any ado 1 must accept a
plaited-grass hammock swung by the
sid of the enhancing senorita whose
dexterous fingers fluttered among the
rustling palm-strands with the rapidity
of the swift coming and going of the
bushes upon the perfect face. The old
senoras beamed; the young senoritas
kept up an undertone of gay %sallies, in
terspersed with gurgles of laughter; the
little ninas giggled Historically; a crowd
of fat negroes looked on grinningly; the
don rocked benignly to and fro in his
capacious chair; l swung leisurely in my
plated hammock, and l pledge you that,
looking lazily through our curling
cigarette smoke, as the old senoras
smoked with us, 1 saw much romance
and situations in the real scene and sur
roundings of this n Cuban portico as
the comedy-opera makers might utilize
with exquisite pleasure and delight
Edgar l.. Wakeman in Chicago News.