, 1888-01-15
In EIGHBoRING-rsLEs
Fascinating Description OF the City of
Havana.

Is considered, SO worthy the attention OF
American travellers as Cuba. To the
average thought OF one who has not Wis
tied 1t, 1t seems far, repellant, barbarous.
1t is none of these. The great Ward
steamers take you from tho American to
the Cuban metropolis in Just three days.
In that brief time one has hardly D
tunity for study of companions, and no
chance whatever for ordinary ocean mis-
cry, for you are constantly reaching sun
nier seas and skies; and there are now
such hosts o fgay and CHEEKY groups max
ing Cuba their winter home, that the
trip to the West Indies has positive de-
lights. Nor can there anywhere be found
such interesting and hospitable people as
these of this Antilles pearl. The genuine
American is welcomed and made glad in
Cuba in a way he can know in no other
land. By and by when it is properly a
part of our country. it will become the
vast winter pleasure ground of a CONT
nent.
So, too, there is winsome interest in
other than ones immediate surroundings
in this brief sea voyage to the tropics.
There is tranquilizlng consciousness in
every miles added distance from the
growl and grip of our northern winter.
Life s asperities are severer when the re-
l~entless elemental forces, like a horde of
desperate ~marauders, come out of polar
lairs for onslaught. As the sun grows
higher at midday, and the north star
sinks closer to the horizon at midnight,
there steals upon the sense vague pulls
ings OF welcome languor, innumerable
seemings OF soothing presences, and con-
seriousness of blessed rest.
No one can tire of these personal, inner
realizatlons in repeated goings from north
ern to southern seas. There are ever and
again these new old delights. They come
to you like sudden, sunny smiles on old
friends faces; and as when you take
these old friends by the hand you look
and feel and know beyond the hand, the
face, or the presence, to the Intangible
reality OF half forgotten good, so your
heart lays hold in simple affection upon
the old, half seen sights, half heard
sounds and half known compassings of
coast and sea and sky, in wondrous rea-
wakened zest.
1t is not altogether through an DER
quickened impressibility and seeming
that, as in these winter hours we sweep
from biting to balmy airs, there are hour
ly such changes as entice the attentive,
and enthrall the contemplative, mind.
All the long way, is the friendly nearness
of coast. Here, behind the bleak shores
lie the fields in wintry fallow, and one al
most hears the bleating of barn-yard focks
or the chimes of country side bells. A
bit further, are the wide, wind-swept
tracts of never-winter lands, where in the
deepest valleys the warmth of summer
never quite departs. Following this, are
the vast areas where winter is ever brown
l~eafless summer a-chill. And then come
the reaches where we know the gray
swamps darken from the lordly palmet-
to's shade, and still waters sleep in shall
lows Of eternal green; while beyond In a
mimic tropic-land within our own, the
red-bird ceaseless sings and the odorous
orange blooms. Beneath, in the wake of
our speedy steamer, with white plume,
spuming and broadening rearward, grows
winter and winter by day, and more
sparkling and iridiscent by night, as if in
keeping with the matchless visions of fir
maments no eyes hold in northern lati-
tudes; for nearer and nearer come the
stars, until the mighty consultations pulse
and glow with marvellous colorings and
fires, In bird, fish, wave, horizon, sky and
tremulous zephyrs, there is constant
and witching change; until
ildNluB oNCDI past llC Uulluy bhlhLlhSt
we plunge into the green waters of the
Mexican gulf, and before half settled in a
loving contemplation and enjoyment Of it
all, the weird, mountainous coast lines of
Cuba suddenly rise above the far hori-
IONS edge, like a dream in whey purple
craven upon a bed of misty, evanescent
blue.
As luck would have it We came upon
Cuba with the most furious of north
ers." A''norther" in Cuba is the nearly
expended d~eviltry of one of those biz
yards which ripen somewhere in the
storm center of Jay Cookies original
"%isotherm'' up there in Dakota or Mani
toba, and after waltzing all over the
North American continent until people
have got tired of its airs, comes down
here like an old adventurer to make these
passionate veined people wish they were
dead.
You who know the blizzard in its heal
thy form, would smile at its weakened
pretentions here. Though its real power
is gone, Cuban's regard it with even more
horror than we. The suffering here on
the part OF these people under a "norther''
when you and | would be quite comforta-
Bile in our shirt-sleeves, while laughable
is still pitiable. The sun is shining, the
flowers are blooming, the whole physical
expression of nature is one of comfort
and delight. To us it would be himply
bright and genial April or October wealth
er. But the way these tropical natures
collapse under even that, is something
startling. As there is neither stove nor
replace anywhere in Cuba, they simply
pile all sorts of clothing upon themselves,
stay in doors, pray in the name OF the
saints for mas calor or more heat, let the
country take care of itself, and, when the
"norther' has passed on to take a feeble
whirl at Hayti or Porto Rico, come ont of
their abodes dolorous catarrhal objects
that would cause a sensation in Before
Taking advertisements.
And right here is suggestion for
those fllibustcrs who have designs on
Cuba. They should not make 80 much
fuss about it. All that is necessary is an
old tramp" steamer or two and a thous-
and men. Watch the United States
weather reports along through December,
January and February. When q regular
sure enough blizzard is let loose up in the
glorious Northwest, make ready. 1t will
surely wind up its debauch in a north
- L., Ia =, H. H. Al - Il