The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-05-01
CITY OF IVA
How Cuba's Capital Appeared to His
tOrian FrOude Some Years Ago

Havana figures much in naval history.
Drake tried to take 1t, and failed: Penn
and Venables failed. We stormed the forts
in 1740, and held them and held the city
until the seven years war was over. ]
had read descriptions of the place, but they
had given me no clear conception of what
it would be like, certainly none at all OF
what it was like.
havana is a city of palaces. a city of
streets and plazas, of colonnades and tow
ers and churches and monasteries. The
Spaniards built as they built in CASTLE;
built with the same material, the white
limestone which they found in the new
mobiles in Havana, the residence of the gov
ernor,t the converts, the cathedral, are a re-
by some Aladdin's lamp a Castilian city had
been taken up and set down again unaltered
on the shore of the Caribbean sea.
And they carried with them their laws,
their habits, their institutions and their
creed; their religious orders, their bishops
and their inquisition. Even now, in her day
of eclipse, when her genius is clouded by
the modern spirit, against which she fought
so long and SO desperately, the sons OF
Spain still build as they used to build, and
the modern squares and market places, the
castles and fortresses which have risen in
and around the ancient city of Havana are
constructed on the old massive model and
on the same lines.
The political future is dark; the govern
ment u~nimaginably corrupt-so corrupt that
change is inevitable, though what change
looked at the island which lay so tempting
ly near them, but they were wise in their
generation. They reflected that to introduce
into an Anglo-SaXOn republic so inSoluble
an element as one million Spanish Roman
Catholics, alien in blood and creed, with
five hundred thousand blacks to swell the
dusky flood which runs too full among them
already, would be to invite an indigestion
of serious consequences. A few years since
the Cubans were on the eve OF achieving
their independence like their brothers in
Mexico and South America. Perhaps they
will yet succeed.
The magnitude of Havana and the full
ness of life which was going ON there en-
tirely surprised me. l had thought of Cuba
as a decrepit state, bankrupt, or finance
exhausted by civil wars, and on the edge OF
social dissolution. and l find Havana now
at least a grand, imposing city-a city
which might compare for beauty with any
in the world. The sanitary condition is as
bad as negligence can make it-so bad that
a Spanish gentleman told me that, were 1T
not for the natural purity of the air, they
would have been all dead like flies long ago.
The tide and harbor is foul with the ac-
emulation of three hundred years. The adj
ministration is more good for nothing than
Spain itself.
The MORO as a fertilization is, / am told,
indefensible against modern artillery, pre-
senting too much surface as a target; but
it is all the grander to look at. 1t is a fine
specimen of the Vauban period, and is prob
ably equal to any demands which will be
made upon 1t. The harbor is something ike
Port Royal, a deep Lagoon with a narrow
entrance and a long natural breakwater
between the lagoon and the ocean; but what
at Port Royal is a sand spit eight miles
long is at Havana a rocky peninsula on
which the city itself is built.
The opening from the sea is half a mile
wide. On the city side there are low, semi
circular batteries, which sweep completely
the approaches and the passage itself. The
MORO rises opposite the extreme point OF
the entrance, and next to 1t, further IN to-
ward the harbor on the same side, on the
crest and slope of a range of hills, stands
the old MORO, the original castle which
beat off Drake and divers, sea generals,
and which was captured by the English IN
the last century. The lines were probably
weaker than they are at present, and less
adequately ann A monument is erect
ed there to the officers and men who fell in
the defense.
The city, as we steamed by, looked singu-
larly beautiful, with its domes and steeples
and marble palaces, and the glimpses of
long boulevardS and trees and handsome
mansions and cool arcadeS. Inside we found
ourselves in a basin of perhaps three miles
in diameter, full of shipping of all sorts and
nationalities. The water, which outside is
as pure as sapphire, has become filthy with
the pollutionS Of a dozen generations. The
tide, which even at the spring has a rise ana
fall of but a couple of feet, is totally in
effective to clear it, and as long as they
have the Virgin Mary to pray to the pious
Spaniards will not drive the sewage into the
ocean. The hot suns rays stream down
into the thick, black liquid. Horrible smells
are set loose from it when it is set in mo-
ton by a screw or paddle, and ships bring
up at mooring buoys, lest their anchors
should disturb the compost which lies at the
bottom.
novelty and striking character of the scene.
A hundred boats were plying to and fro
among the various vessels with their white
sails and white awnings. Flags of all coun-
tries were blowing out at stern or from
masthead; among them, of course, the stars
and stripes, flying jauntily on some splendid
schooner, which stood there like a cock
upon a dunghill that might be his own If
he chose to crow for it.