University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER VI.

If mosquito nets were invented for the purpose
of shutting mosquitoes in with you, they
answer their purpose very well. The beds
have no mattresses, and you lie on the hard
sacking. This favors coolness and neatness.
I should fear a mattress, in the economy of
our hotel, at least. Where there is nothing
but an iron frame, canvas stretched over it,
and sheets and a blanket, you may know
what you are dealing with.

The clocks of the churches and castles strike
the quarter hours, and at each stroke the
watchmen blow a kind of boatswain's whistle,
and cry the time and the state of the
weather, which, from their name (serenos),
should be always pleasant.

I have been advised to close the shutters
at night, whatever the heat, as the change of

air that often takes place before dawn is injurious;
and I notice that many of the bedrooms
in the hotel are closed, both doors and
shutters, at night. This is too much for my
endurance, and I venture to leave the air to its
course, not being in the draught. One is also
cautioned not to step with bare feet on the
floor, for fear of the nigua (or chigua), a very
small insect, that is said to enter the skin and
build tiny nests, and lay little eggs that can
only be seen by the microscope, but are tormenting
and sometimes dangerous. This may
be excessive caution, but it is so easy to observe,
that it is not worth while to test the
question.

Saturday, February 19.—There are streaks
of a clear dawn; it is nearly six o'clock, the
cocks are crowing, and the drums and trumpets
sounding. We have been told of sea-baths,
cut in the rock, near the Punta, at the
foot of our Paseo. I walk down, under the
trees, towards the Presidio. "What is this
clanking sound? Can it be cavalry, marching
on foot, their sabres rattling on the pavement?
No, it comes from that crowd of poor

looking creatures that are forming in files in
front of the Presidio. It is the chain-gang!
Poor wretches! I come nearer to them, and
wait until they are formed and numbered and
marched off. Each man has an iron band
riveted round his ankle, and another round
his waist, and the chain is fastened, one end
into each of these bands, and dangles between
them, clanking with every movement. This
leaves the wearers free to use their arms, and,
indeed, their whole body, it being only a
weight and a badge and a note for discovery,
from which they cannot rid themselves. It is
kept on them day and night, working, eating,
or sleeping. In some cases, two are chained
together. They have passed their night in the
Presidio (the great prison and garrison), and
are marshalled for their day's toil in the public
streets and on the public works, in the heat
of the sun. They look thoroughly wretched.
Can any of these be political offenders? It
is said that Carlists, from Old Spain, worked
in this gang. Sentence to the chain-gang in
summer, in the case of a foreigner, must be
nearly certain death.

Farther on, between the Presidio and the
Punta, the soldiers are drilling; and the drummers
and trumpeters are practising on the
rampart of the city walls.

A little to the left, in the Calzado de San
Lázaro, are the Baños de Mar. These are
boxes, each about twelve feet square and six
or eight feet deep, cut directly into the rock
which here forms the sea-line, with steps of
rock, and each box having a couple of portholes
through which the waves of this tideless
shore wash in and out. This arrangement
is necessary, as sharks are so abundant that
bathing in the open sea is dangerous. The
pure rock, and the flow and reflow, make
these bathing-boxes very agreeable, and the
water, which is that of the Gulf Stream, is
at a temperature of 72°. The baths are
roofed over, and partially screened on the inside,
but open for a view out, on the side towards
the sea; and as you bathe, you see the
big ships floating up the Gulf Stream, that
great highway of the Equinoctial world. The
water stands at depths of from three to five
feet in the baths; and they are large enough

for short swimming. The bottom is white
with sand and shells. These baths are
made at the public expense, and are free.
Some are marked for women, some for
men, and some "por la gente de color."
A little further down the Calzado, is another
set of baths, and further out in the
suburbs, opposite the Beneficencia, are still
others.

After bath, took two or three fresh oranges,
and a cup of coffee, without milk; for the
little milk one uses with coffee, must not be
taken with fruit here, even in winter.

To the Cathedral, at 8 o'clock, to hear mass.
The Cathedral, in its exterior, is a plain and
quaint old structure, with a tower at each angle
of the front; but within, it is sumptuous.
There is a floor of variegated marble, obstructed
by no seats or screens, tall pillars and rich
frescoed walls, and delicate masonry of various
colored stone, the prevailing tint being yellow,
and a high altar of porphyry. There is a look
of the great days of Old Spain about it;
and you think that knights and nobles worshipped
here and enriched it from their spoils

and conquests. Every new eye turns first to
the place within the choir, under that alto-relief,
behind that short inscription, where, in
the wall of the chancel, rest the remains of
Christopher Columbus. Borne from Valladolid
to Seville, from Seville to San Domingo,
and from San Domingo to Havana, they at last
rest here, by the altar side, in the emporium
of the Spanish Islands. "What is man that
thou art mindful of him!" truly and humbly
says the Psalmist; but what is man, indeed,
if his fellow men are not mindful of
such a man as this! The creator of a hemisphere!
It is not often we feel that monuments
are surely deserved, in their degree
and to the extent of their utterance. But
when, in the New World, on an island of
that group which he gave to civilized man, you
stand before this simple monumental slab, and
know that all of him that man can gather up,
lies behind it, so overpowering is the sense
of the greatness of his deeds, that you feel relieved
that no attempt has been made to
measure it by any work of man's hands. The
little there is, is so inadequate, that you make
no comparison. It is a mere finger-point, the
hic jacet, the sic itur.

The priests in the chancel are numerous,
perhaps twenty or more. The service is
chanted with no aid of instruments, except
once the accompaniment of a small and rather
disordered organ, and chanted in very loud and
often harsh and blatant tones, which reverberate
from the marble walls, with a tiresome
monotony of cadence. There is a degree of
ceremony in the placing, replacing, and carrying
to and fro of candles and crucifixes, and
swinging of censers, which the Roman service
as practised in the United States does not
give. The priests seem duly attentive and
reverent in their manner, but I cannot say
as much for the boys, of whom there were
three or four, gentlemen-like looking lads, from
the college, doing service as altar boys. One
of these, who seemed to have the lead, was
strikingly careless and irreverent in his manner;
and when he went about the chancel,
to incense all who were there, and to give
to each the small golden vessel to kiss, (containing,
I suppose, a relic,) he seemed as if he

were counting his playmates out for a game,
and flinging the censer at them and snubbing
their noses with the golden vessel.

There were only about half a dozen persons
at mass, beside those in the chancel; and all
but one of these were women, and of the
women two were negroes. The women walk
in, veiled, drop down on the bare pavement,
kneeling or sitting, as the service requires or
permits. A negro woman, with devout and
even distressed countenance, knelt at the altar
rail, and one pale-eyed priest, in cassock, who
looked like an American or Englishman, knelt
close by a pillar. A file of visitors, American
or English women, with an escort of gentlemen,
came in and sat on the only benches, next
the columns; and when the Host was elevated,
and a priest said to them, very civilly,
in English, "Please to kneel down," they
neither knelt nor stood, nor went away, but
kept their seats.

After service, the old sacristan, in blue
woollen dress, showed all the visitors the little
chapel and the cloisters, and took us beyond
the altar to the mural tomb of Columbus, and

though he was liberally paid, haggled for two
reals more.

In the rear of the Cathedral is the Seminario,
or college for boys, where also men are trained
for the priesthood. There are cloisters and a
pleasant garden within them.