The Nashville globe. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1906-193?, 1913-02-14
ON THE WAY TO CUBA.
BY B. ]. Davis.

We left Key West Tuesday morn
ing about 10 o'clock on steamship
Halifax, for Cuba. 1t is about one
hundrtd miles across the Florida
straits to Cuba. 1t take a steam
ship crossing these rivers about
v CD hours to make the
trip. However, we did not land in
the city of Havana until about 500
o'clock, there being so much red
tape" and details in handling passen'
gers from the foreign port. We stood
the voyage all right, neither OF u
party getting sick. The first indica-
ton of the treatment we were to re-
ceive in Cuba was given us when the
bell was rung for dinner on board the
steamship Halifax. We had first-class
fare. and were given first-class quar-
tiers, but the Purser had instructed
the steward not to allow colored pas
sengers to eat until the white passen-
gers were sufficiently reduced in
number in the dining-room for the
colored passengers to have a table to
themselves. We claimed we had paid
frst-class fare, and therefore were
entitled to it, and If we could not
have it we should not have been sold
the tickets. He assured us that we
would receive every courtesy and ar
commodation that the others received,
but he could not permit us to eat at
the table with the whites. Colonel
NJ. B. Morton, whom the foreigners
could not tell to what race he beA
longed, demonstrated, but the Pur-
suer informed him that he was in
the wrong place to get obstreperous,
and the colonel, looking out over the
deck at the restless sea and the wide
lexpanse of water on every side, calm
ed down, lighted a cigar and went
upon the upper deck and waited I'M
till the Purser sent a caller for the
colored guests. Arriving in Cuba we
could not land at the dock On board
the steamship, the docks being owned
by other steamship companies, so the
travellers are unloaded in lighters and
taken ashore. When we reached the
lighters we heard all kinds Of noise.
Hotel porters calling out their hotels
in Spanish and a few calling out
their hotels in English, but We OBJ
served that not many of the porters
solicited our patronage, none Of them
seemed anxious to carry US to their
hotels. The crowd was getting small,
we were being left alone when a
Spanish hotel porter came up and
presented his card and offered to act
as Interpreter for us and find us a
hotel. We accepted his services, told
him we wanted to go where we could
get first-class fare. He, acting as
spokesman, carried us to the Grand
Continental Hotel. At the Office Of
tbs hotel we were met by the pro-
p%rietor, a Spanish merchant, whose
principal commodity for sale is strong
drink, fish and black coffee. He took
US upstairs and showed us rooms for
.$1.50 per day. At this Colonel Nor
ton blazed out at once, ri can not
stop in this nasty hole" Downstairs
we went and the interpreter took us
out to see If we could find some other
accommodation. It did not matter to
the hotel runner where we stopped,
as he would be entitled to a certain
per cent Of our bill. From then IN
til IL o'clock that night we were 60
ing all over town, from hotel to hotel,
where we were invariably turned
down as soon as they observed that
our faces we're black. Invariably
they claimed that they had but one
bed. and could give that to Colonel
Morton, as they did not know whether
he was white, Spanish, Dutch or what,
but the writer and poor Pharrow
were invariably told "there is nc
room here" or I'VE do not take mig
GERS"
SO, at 70 o'clock our runner ar
rived back at the Continental, the
place that Col. Morton had so alb
ruptly turned down. The proprietor
took us on the other side Of the hotel
and explained to us that he had three
fares-frst-class, s~econd-class and at
tic fare. These rooms were nicely
furnished and clean and he assigned
us to a suite Of rooms at nine (S9)
dollars per day.
ITO be continued.)