The record-union., 1893-03-04
Especial Correspondence of the RECORD
UNION. Copyright, 1898.
LONDON, February 20, 1893.

LONDON, February 20, 1893.
You are always received at the century,
old bodega Y posada, or inn of Cuba, as
person of great distinction. This, how
ever, is wholly in the ethical sense. 1t in
nowise betters the quality of your food,
ministers to your bodily needs, or clears
the filth, fleas and cobwebs from your
dim old alcobas. An out of the way inn
IN Cuba is a shelter much inferior to
night in the open air. Mine host will
dance all around you with ineffable well
comes. He will call upon all the saints
to guard you. He will protest endlessly.
My house is thiner' Then he will go
to sleep. He awakens just before you de-
part, and showers blessings and bills
upon you. Ii, in the meantime, you
have got anything but quaint and laugh
able studies you are, in truth, born
diplomatic.
The country roads of Cuba crook and
turn to avoid obstacles, just as the Cuban
Will do six days labor 10 avoid one.
Beware the pantanos,' is the warning
heard from every tongue throughout the
DAY. Those 'pantanos" are sinks in the
clay soil where ones animal plunges from
perfectly solid footing fairly out of sight.
the "pantanos" are bad enough, but the
desechos literally refusals, avoidances)
are worse. These are ways cut around
!mpassable places involving serious rid
ing through bogs and jungles, and not
lnIrequent goings astray in the dense for
eSts.
The fences of these remarkable ''rosds"
are curious affairs. Frequently they are
of the Spanish bayonet, and the hemiquen
with broad leaf and barbed point six
inches long, strong enough to impale
your horse. Again strips of stone fence
VIII be seen. Others are of pima de ra-
ton, or bastard pineapple tree. But the
larger number are of phones botja.
Green limbs are cut from this, and when
thrust in the ground grow instantly and
1uXurIously. Between the branches the
NeJuco de angarilla, a hardy vine, is
planted. This weaVes itself through and
through the hedge in all manner of fam
tastic and tightening freaks, and as it
bears lovely purple blossom this
fence is always strikingly beautiful to the
eye.
One class you will miss in Cuba-not
only in shops but everywhere else-is
the women workers. The most sensible
and often the han1somest of women can
be found occupying places OF trust in
American mercantile establishments and
offices. In all Havana but one place is
noticed where white women are en-
ployed. This is modiSte's on Gale de
~
deed. Women in Cuba are ladies, wash
erwomen or demimonde. Shopping is
done by the fair senoras or senoritas in
the afternoon, and one will then certainly
see beautiful women. They are neither
1iippant nor tritling in their purchases as
in some countries. No salesman would
dare gossip with them, suggest for them,
or chattingly enter upon discussion of
their affairs. Nor do they inform shop
keepers of their own or their neighbors'
intentions. They seem to know lust
what they want and go straightway and
get it. The turnouts are very gay; thou
sands of women meet, mingle and pass
greetings; but there seems to be gen.
eral understanding that a shop is not Just
the place in which ladies should enter
tain one another. This may arise from
the fact that Spanish women are we'll
bred. And well bred women set some
store upon their own dignity and the
home.
There being neither stoves nor fire.
places in Cuba the question of cooking
1ires becomes an odd one. In The cities
all cooking is done on charcoal urns, in
the larger establishments these often be-
ing arranged in the form of massive char
coal ranges. But in remote country places
little pagoda-liile corner is built next
the. house, or detached structure, not
unlike an American farmers large
smokehouse, is seen. Here the fire is
built squarely upon the ground, or upon,
or within, rude stone bases. and the
smoke ascends at will, usually finding
vent underneath raised roofs.
In this primitive cocina, or kitchen, the
guarda caudela literally candle, or fire.
guard is always smoldering. 1t is prac-
tically the fireplace 'bacR log'' of our
olden days TO the Cuban country home.
II it should happen to go out, which is
seldom permitted, as unhappy supersti-
tions attach to the fact, on discovery it
is instantly relighted from flint and steel
sparks struck into punches of corn