University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER XXIV.

All day there have been earnest looks to
the northwest, for the smoke of the Cahawba.
We are willing and desirous to depart.
Our sights are seen, our business done, and
our trunks packed. While we are sitting
round our table after dinner, George, Mr.
Miller's servant, comes in, with a bright countenance,
and says "There is a steamer off."
We go to the roof, and there, far in the N. W.,
is a small but unmistakable cloud of steamer's
smoke, just in the course the Cahawba would
take. "Let us walk down to the Punta, and
see her come in." It is between four and five
o'clock, and a pleasant afternoon, (there has
been no rain or sign of rain in Cuba since
we first saw it—twelve days ago,) and we
saunter along, keeping in the shade, and sit
down on the boards at the wharf, in front of

the Presidio, near to where politicians are garroted,
and watch the progress of the steamer,
amusing ourselves at the same time, with seeing
the negroes swimming and washing horses
in the shallow water off the bank. A Yankee
flag flies from the signal-post of the Morro,
but the Punta keeps the steamer from our
sight. It draws towards six o'clock, and no
vessel can enter after dark. We begin to fear
she will not reach the point in season. Her
cloud of smoke rises over the Punta, the city
clocks strike six, the Morro strikes six, the
trumpets bray out, the sun is down, the signals
on the Morro are lowering—" She'll miss
it!"—"No—there she is!"—and, round the
Punta comes her sharp black head, and then
her full body, her toiling engine and smoking
chimney and peopled decks, and flying stars
and stripes—Good luck to her! and, though
the signal is down, she pushes on and passes
the forts without objection, and is lost among
the shipping.

My companions are so enthusiastic that they
go on board; but I return to my hotel and
take a volante, and make my last calls, and

take my last looks, and am ready to leave in
the morning.

In half an hour, the arrival of the Cahawba
is known over all Havana, and the news of
the loss of her consort, the Black Warrior,
in a fog off New York—passengers and crew,
and specie safe. My companions come back.
They met Capt. Bullock on the pier, and
took tea with him in La Dominica. He
sails at two o'clock to-morrow.

Wednesday, March 2, 1859.—I shall not see
them again, but there they will be, day after
day, day after day,—how long?—aye, how
long?—the squalid, degraded chain-gang! The
horrible prison!—profaning one of the grandest
of sites, where city, sea and shore unite as
almost nowhere else on earth! These were
my thoughts as, in the pink and gray dawn,
I walked down the Paseo, to enjoy my last
refreshing in the rock-hewn sea-baths.

This leave-taking is a strange process, and
has strange effects. How suddenly a little of
unnoticed good in what you leave behind
comes out, and touches you, in a moment of

tenderness! And how much of the evil and
disagreeable seems to have disappeared! Le
Grand, after all, is no more inattentive and intractable
than many others would become in
his place; and he does keep a good table, and
those breakfasts are very pretty. Antonio is
no hydropathist, to be sure, and his ear distinguishes
the voices that pay best; yet one
pities him in his routine, and in the fear he
is under, being a native of Old Spain, that his
name will turn up in the conscription, when he
will have to shoulder his musket for five years
in the Cabaña and Punta. Nor can he get off
the island, for the permit will be refused him,
poor fellow!

One or two of our friends are to remain
here, for they have pulmonary difficulties, and
prefer to avoid the North in March. They
look a little sad at being left alone, and
talk of going into the country to escape the
increasing heat. A New York gentleman has
taken a great fancy to the volantes, and thinks
that a costly one, with two horses, and silvered
postilion in boots and spurs and bright jacket,
would eclipse any equipage in the Fifth Avenue.

When you come to leave, you find that
the strange and picturesque character of the
city has interested you more than you think;
and you stare out of your carriage to read
the familiar signs, the names of streets, the
Obra Pia, Lamparilla, Mercaderes, San Ignacio,
Obispo, O'Reilly, and Officios, and the
pretty and fantastic names of the shops. You
think even the narrow streets have their advantages,
as they are better shaded, and the
awnings can stretch across them, though, to be
sure, they keep out the air. No city has finer
avenues than the Ysabel and the Tacon; and
the palm-trees, at least, we shall not see at the
North. Here is La Dominica. It is a pleasant
place, in the evening, after the Retreta, to
take your tea or coffee under the trees by the
fountain in the court-yard, and meet the Americans
and English;—the only public place,
except the theatre, where ladies are to be
seen out of their volantes. Still, we are
quite ready to go; for we have seen all we
have been told to see in Havana, and it is
excessively hot, and growing hotter.

But no one can leave Cuba without a permit.

When you arrive, the visé of your passport
is not enough, but you must pay a fee for
a permit to land and remain in the island; and
when you wish to return, you must pay four
dollars to get back your passport, with a permit
to leave. The custom-house officials were
not troublesome in respect to our luggage,
hardly examining it at all, and, I must admit,
showed no signs of expecting private fees.
Along the range of piers, where the bows of
the vessels run in, and on which the labor of
this great commerce is performed, there runs a
high, wide roof, covering all from the intense
rays of the sun. Before this was put up, they
say that workmen used to fall dead with sunstrokes,
on the wharves.

On board the Cahawba, I find my barrel
of oranges from Yglesia, and box of sweetmeats
from La Dominica, and boxes of cigars
from Cabaña's, punctually delivered. There,
once more, is Bullock, cheerful, and efficient;
Rodgers, full of kindness and good-humor;
and sturdy, trustworthy Miller, and Porter,
the kindly and spirited; and the pleased face
of Henry, the captain's steward; and the

familiar faces of the other stewards; and my
friend's son, who is well and very glad to see
me, and full of New Orleans, and of last night,
which he spent on shore in Havana. All are
in good spirits, for a short sea voyage with old
friends is before us; and then—home!

The decks are loaded and piled up with
oranges:—oranges in barrels and oranges in
crates, filling all the wings and gangways, the
barrels cut to let in air, and the crates with
bars just close enough to keep in the oranges.
The delays from want of lighters, and the great
amount of freight, keep us through the day;
and it is nearly sundown before we get under
way. All day the fruit boats are alongside,
and passengers and crew lay in stocks of oranges
and bananas and sapotes, and little
boxes of sweetmeats. At length, the last barrel
is on board, the permits and passenger-lists
are examined, the revenue officers leave
us, and we begin to heave up our anchor.

The harbor is very full of vessels, and the
room for swinging is small. A British mail-steamer,
and a Spanish man-of-war, and several
merchantmen, are close upon us. Captain

Bullock takes his second mate aft, and they
have a conference, as quietly as if they were
arranging a funeral. He is explaining to him
his plan for running the warps and swinging
the ship, and telling him beforehand what he
is to do in this case, and what in that, and
how to understand his signs, so that no orders,
or as few as possible, need be given at the time
of action. The engine moves, the warp is
hauled upon, the anchor tripped, and dropped
again, and tripped again, the ship takes the
right sheer, clear of everything, and goes handsomely
out of the harbor, the star and stripes at
her peak, with a waving of hats from friends
on the Punta wharf. The western sky is gorgeous
with the setting sun, and the evening
drums and trumpets sound from the encircling
fortifications, as we pass the Casa Blanca, the
Cabaña, the Punta, and the Morro. The sky
fades, the ship rises and falls in the heave of
the sea, the lantern of the Morro gleams over
the water, and the dim shores of Cuba are
hidden from our sight.

After tea, all are on deck. It is a clear
night, and no night or day has been else than

clear at sea or on shore, since we first crossed
the Gulf Stream, on our passage out. The
Southern Cross is visible in the south, and
the North Star is above the horizon in the
north. No winter climate of Cuba, in mountain
or on plain,—the climate of no land, can
be compared with the ocean,—the clear, bracing,
saline air of ocean! How one drinks it
in! And, then, again, the rocking cradle that
nurses one in sleep! Nothing but the necessity
of sleep, the ultimate necessity of self-preservation,
can close one's eyes upon such a
night as this, in the equinoctial seas.