The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-03-03
HOME LIFE A LA GUIANA.


Especial Correspondence of the Journal
and Courier)
Matanzas, Jan. 29-In order to give
you an inside look at domestic arrange
ments a la Guiana, invite you to spend
day with me in the typical casa in
which I am myself a guest. Be it under
misuse the hospitality of our kind en-
tertainers by unseemly prying or invidi-
Gus comparisons. We will note only
those things which lie so near the sur
face that he who runs may read them,
remembering that every country under
the sun has some peculiar customs of its
own. While the ways of our Cuban
ne1ghbors appear strange to us, from
the angle of vision to which we were ed
ucated, our ways may seem equally
queer from their point of view, and
perhaps a judcious mingling Of both
might be Of mutual benefit.
One frequently hears in Cuba Span
ish proverb which runs:
Musica, mlel, la Ventana
No es buena por la manana,"
meaning, In effect, that music, honey
and gazing out of the window are
pleasures which should not be INDUCED
in the early part Of the day. Disregard
Ing the old saw. let us take look from
my easement this sunny mid winter
morning, while the thermometer is al
ready climbing high in the eighties. The
window itself, forever guiltless of glass
is no small curiosity. Deep as the house
walls (about four feet), and wide as the
double doors Of a New England barn,
iron-barred outside and shattered within
it affords the cosest kind of a work
'den." with plenty of room for my easy
chair, table, typewriter, camera and big
bowl of roses. The inner view is of the
typical Cuban sleeping Experimentation
of square marble tiles cold as tomb
stones to the undressed feet, spindle
legged wash stand and claw-footed cor
ner tables; and brass bebstead, with a
folded quilt on its bare springs in lieu of
mattress; yellow satin hangings,
crimson damask counterpart, and long,
lean pillows hard as paving stones. Its
enormous double door. extending from
floor to ceiling and faced with a second
door, breast high, of lattice work opens
upon the marble-paved, vine-wreathed
corridor which surrounds the patio.
The outlook from the window into a
quaint old garden is a neverending de-
light. There are rows upon rows of ba-
mana trees, arching their green umbrel-
las above flowers and shrubs of count
less variety; a labyrinth of pansy-bor
dered walks, outlined by rose-vines on
trellises of Japanese cane; occasional
clumps of cabbages or other homely
vegetables, flourish here and there
among strange cact and rarest blooms;
tobacco plants scattered thickly every
where; and over all the royal palms
faunt their magnificent plumes against
the azure sky. Set in lettuce-bed are
a towering group of these monarchs of
tropical vegetation, with smooth round
trunks like colossal columns chiselled by
art. The mistress of the casa says she
planted them there with her own hand,
when She came here on her wedding !
day, more than forty years ago Then
they were knee-higf baby palms, and
now they tower fully eighty feet above
the house-top. Madame tells me that |
during the darkest days of war, when |
the once wealthy residents were threat |
ened with starvation, she eked out |
living, not only for herself and several |
servants-who could not be dis |
charged because they had nowhere else
to go-but also for several reconcentra-
do families whom she sheltered from |
the proceeds Of the tobacco plants scat
tered about the flower garden. Though
the tax on tobacco was so high under
the Spanish regime that it ruined the
there was never any tax on
the little that could be grown in gar
dens. So her surreptitious plants were
clear Gain and brought in from eight
hundred to a thousand dollars year.
1t happened that among her reconcen-
trados was an expert cigarette maker,
and he dried the tobacco leaves, made
them up on shares, and disposed Of
hem as madame could not have done.
An artificial river, rushing with con-
.inual murmur through the garden, not
,nly furnishes necessary irrigation, but
'uns the great fountain in the patio and
supplies the bath in the middle of the
garden. This bath is quaint enough
Ind Enthusiastically Cuban, to de-
nand a paragraph Built in fanciful, ,
circular shape like Moorish temple,
With latticed windows on all sides,
opped with stained glass and extending
rom floor to ceiling, it is screened from
public view by rose-trellises and clumps
# tall bananas A flight of marble
teps leads up to the elevated marble
loor. At one side of the round space is
deep tank Of clear, cold water, into ,
which the bather descends by another
light of marble stairs. There is a !
hover bath and all modern accessories i
hot water which in Cuba is I
ever used for the BATH and the water
an be changed at will, the refuse being ,
distributed over the garden
have not yet been able to make up
ny mind which is the most beautiful {
art of this ideal Cuban home--the gar &
en- the patio or the house itself. The
litter IS an enormous four-storied af-
air, its superb facing of pillared and
paved pcrtico set flush with the 4
treet and its wilderness Of marble i
oored rooms, which somehow remind A
OH of the Alhambra, ranged around a =
antral courtyard. The multitudinous {
'indows, opening from floor to ceiling, I
re iron barred and wooden-s shattered,
ut without glass, except beautifully c
,lored strip at the top of each of min c
- l1l,oe rroaDc rode and x-oJIovfe ~, "