To Cuba and back. :: :: University of Virginia Library

Thursday, February 17.—Again a beautiful,
warm day. I wake, and the first glance
out of my state-room window shows the sea
and sky flushed with the red of a bright sunrise.
Awnings are spread; straw-hats and
linen coats are worn; sewing, reading, and
chess-playing is going on among the elders,
and the children are romping about the decks,
beginning to feel entirely at home. There are
boys from the Northern States, with fair skins
and light hair, strong, loud-voiced, plainly
dressed, in stout shoes, honest and awkward;
and there are Cuban boys, with a mixed air
of the passionate and the timorous, sallow,
slender, small-voiced, graceful, but with the
grace rather of girls than of boys, wearing
slippers, ornamented waistcoats and jackets,
and hats with broad bands of cord. What

preternaturally black eyes those little Creole
girls have! Are they really eyes, so out of
proportion in size and effect to their small
thin faces? Their mother is hale and full-fleshed,
and probably they will come to the
same favour at last.

Throughout the day, sailing down the outer
edge of the Gulf Stream, we see vessels of all
forms and sizes, coming in sight and passing
away, as in a dioramic show. There is a
heavy cotton droger from the Gulf, of 1200
tons burden, under a cloud of sail, pressing on
to the northern seas of New England or Old
England. Here comes a saucy little Baltimore
brig, close-hauled and leaning over to it; and
there, half down in the horizon, is a pile of
white canvas, which the experienced eyes
of my two friends, the passenger shipmasters,
pronounce to be a bark, outward bound.
Every passenger says to every other, how
beautiful! how exquisite! That pale thin
girl who is going to Cuba for her health,
her brother travelling with her, sits on the
settee, propped by a pillow, and tries to
smile and to think she feels stronger in this

air. She says she shall stay in Cuba until
she gets well!

After dinner, Capt. Bullock tells us that
we shall soon see the high lands of Cuba,
off Matanzas; the first and highest being the
Pan of Matanzas. It is clear over head, but
a mist lies along the southern horizon, in the
latter part of the day. The sharpest eyes
detect the land, about 4 p.m., and soon it is
visible to all. It is an undulating country
on the coast, with high hills and mountains
in the interior, and has a rich and fertile look.
That height is the Pan, though we see no
special resemblance, in its outline, to a loaf
of bread. We are still sixty miles from Havana.
We cannot reach it before dark, and
no vessels are allowed to pass the Morro
after the signals are dropped at sunset.

We coast the northern shore of Cuba, from
Matanzas westward. There is no waste of
sand and low flats, as in most of our southern
states; but the fertile, undulating land comes
to the sea, and rises into high hills as it
recedes. "There is the Morro! and right
ahead!" "Why, there is the city too! Is

the city on the sea? We thought it was
on a harbor or bay." There, indeed, is the
Morro, a stately hill of tawny rock, rising
perpendicularly from the sea, and jutting into
it, with walls and parapets and towers on
its top, and flags and signals flying, and the
tall lighthouse just in front of its outer wall.
It is not very high, yet commands the sea
about it. And there is the city, on the seacoast,
indeed—the houses running down to
the coral edge of the ocean. Where is the
harbor, and where the shipping? Ah, there
they are! We open an entrance, narrow and
deep, between the beetling Morro and the
Punta; and through the entrance, we see the
spreading harbor and the innumerable masts.
But the darkness is gathering, the sunset
gun has been fired, we can just catch the
dying notes of trumpets from the fortifications,
and the Morro Lighthouse throws its gleam
over the still sea. The little lights emerge
and twinkle from the city. We are too late
to enter the port, and slowly and reluctantly
the ship turns her head off to seaward. The
engine breathes heavily, and throws its one

arm leisurely up and down; we rise and fall
on the moonlit sea; the stars are near to us,
or we are raised nearer to them; the Southern
Cross is just above the horizon; and all
night long, two streams of light lie upon the
water, one of gold from the Morro, and one
of silver from the moon. It is enchantment.
Who can regret our delay, or wish to exchange
this scene for the common, close anchorage
of a harbor?