Omaha daily bee., 1888-01-15
NElCHBORINC ISLES.
Cuba as a Resort for Americans
Some Rare Sights.
AN INTERESTING PEOPLE.
Entering a Cuban Harbor During q
Northcr'-The Harbors OF the
Northern Shorcs-Havana's
Domcs and Minarcts.

would be difficult to find any other in
teresting foreign land, when its access
sibility is considered, so worthy the at
tention of American travellers, as Cuba.
To the average thought of one who has
not visited it, it seems far, repellant,
barbarous. 1t Is none of these. The
great Ward steamers take YOU from the
American to the Cuban metropolis in
just three days. In that brief time one
has hardly an opportunity for study Of
companions, and no chance whatever
for ordinary ocean misery. for you are
constantly reaching summer seas and
skies: and there are now such hosts OF
gay and CHEEKY groups making Cuba
their winter home. that the trip to the
West Indies has positive delights. Nor
can there anywhere be found such in
teresting and hospitable people as these
of this Antilles pearl. The genuine
American is welcome and made glad in
Cuba in Il way he can know in no other
land. BY and by when it is properly
part of our own country, it will become
the vast winter pleasure ground of Il
continent.
So. too, there is winsome interest in
other than ones immediate surround
ings in this brief sea voyage to the
tropics. There is tranquilizing con-
sciousness in every miles added dis
tance from the growl and grip of our
northern winter. Lies asperities are
severer when the relentless elemental
forces. like Il horde of desperate ma
raudcrs, come out OF polar lairs for on
slaught. As the sun grows higher ut
midday. and the north-star sinks closer
to the horizon at midnight. there steals
upon the sense vague pulsings of well
come languor, innumerable seemings of
soothing presences, and consciousness
of blessed rest.
Nor can one tire of these personal,
inner realizations in repeated goings
from northern to southern seas. There
are ever and again these new-old de-
lights. 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 pres
cncc, to the intangible reality of half
forgotten good. so your heart lays hold
in ample affection upon the old, half
seen sights, half-heard sounds and half
known compassings of coast and sea and
1T is not altogether through an o'er-
quickened impressibility and seeming
that, as in these winter hours we sweep
from biting to balmy airs, there are
hourly such changes as cntice the at
teutive and enthrall the contemplativc
mind. All the long way is the friendly
nearnee of coast. Here, behind the
bleak shores lie the fields in wintry fall
low. and one almCst hears the bleating
of barn-yard tlocks or the chimes of
country side bells. A bit further are
the wide, wind-swcpt tracts of never
winter lands, whore in the deepest
valleys the warmth of summer never
quite departs. Following this are the
vast areas where winter is ever brown,
leafless summer a-chill. And then
come the reaches where we know the
gray swamps darken from the lordly
palmettO's shade, and the still waters
sleep in shadows of eternal green, while
beyond, in q mimic trOpic land within
our own, the red-bird ccaseless sings
and the OdOrous orange blooms. Be-
meath. in the wake of our speeding
steamer the white plume. spuming and
broadening rearward. grows whittier and
whittier by day, and more sparkling and
iridiscent by night, as if in keeping
with
TILE MAICliLESS VISIONS
of irmaments no eyes behold in north
ern latitudes; for nearer and nearer
come the stars, until the mighty con-
stellations pulse and glow with marvel
Gus colorings and fires. In bird. fish,
wave. horizon, sky and tremulous
zephyrs, there is constant and witching
change: until, having swept past the
balmy Bahamas, we plunge into the
green waters of the Mexican gulf and
before half settled in a loving contem-
plation and enjoyment of it all. the
weird, mountainous coast lines of Cuba
suddenly rise above the far horizons
edge, like a dream in winey purple
upon 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 deviltry of one of those biz
yards which ripen somewhere in the
storm center of Jay Cookies original
''isotherm'' up there in Dakota or Man
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
healthy form. would smile at It's weak
ened pretentions here. Though its real
power is gone, Cubans regard it with
even more horror than we. The suffer-
ing here on the part of these people
under a ''norther," when you and |
would be quite comfortable in our shirt
sleeves, while laugha5le 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 simply ight and
genial April or October weather. But
the way these tropical natures collapse
under even that, is something startling.
AS there Is neither stove nor fireplace
amywhere in Cuba, they simply pile all
sorts of clothing upon themselves, stay
in doors, pray in the name of the saints
for mascalor or more heat, let the coun-
try take care of itself, and. when the
''norther" has passed on to take a feeble
whirl at Haiti or Porto Rico, come out
of their abodes delorous catarrhal
objects that would cause a sensation in
Before Taking" advertisements.
And right here is suggestion for
those fillibusters who have designs on
Cuba. They should not make so much
fuss about it. All that is necessary is
an old tramp" steamer" or two and
thousand men. Watch the United
States weather reports along through
December, January and February.
When regular sure-enough blizzard
is loose up there in the glorious north