University of Virginia Library

14. CHAPTER XIV.

Havana, at the period of the events which we record, was a
growing hamlet of little more than a hundred dwellings. But
a brief space before the arrival of Don Hernan de Soto in the
island, there had been an invasion of the French, by whom the
little city had been laid in ashes. It had been one of his duties,
on his arrival, which had not been neglected in consequence of
his preparations for Florida, to rebuild the town, which he had
been doing with all his energy, and with a free exercise of his
powers as Adelantado. To him the Habanese owe the erection
of the first fort which the place ever possessed. It will be for
the Cuban antiquarians of the present time to fix its location. As a
matter of course, we are not to look to the works of De Soto, in
rebuilding the city, for the evidences of his architectural tastes,
or for any enduring proofs of the labor of his hands. The place
then afforded but an imperfect idea of the noble and imposing
city that we find it now. She then possessed none of those old
gray towers and massive structures, which now assail the vision,
and command the admiration of the spectator. Her heights and
harbors were not then, as now, covered with the mighty and
frowning fortresses that stretch themselves around her, with a
hundred thousand guardian hands grasping bolts of iron terror
for her protection. But, if less threatening and powerful, she was
not less lovely and attractive. Her beautiful bay, then as now,

lacked but little of the helps of art to render it as wooing and
persuasive as that famous one of the Italian; and, in the luxuriance
of her verdure, which covered, with a various and delicious beauty,
all her heights; in the intense brilliancy and clearness of her moonlight,
which seemed rather to hallow and to soften, than to impair
the individuality and distinctness of objects, as beheld by day; in
the exquisite fragrance from her groves, and the soothing sweetness
of the sea-breeze—which, in that tropical climate, one regards
as the most blessing of all the angels who take part in the
destinies of earth—playing like a thoughtless and innocent child
among forests of vines and flowers—the fancy became sensible of
a condition, in which life can offer nothing more grateful, or more
fresh; and, to be sure of which always, ambition might well be
satisfied to lay aside his spear and shield forever. Her cottages,
each as it were enshrined amidst an empire of fruits and fragrance,
already wore that aspect which, in oriental regions, assures
us of the dolce far niente in possession of their inmates, justifying
vagabondage, and so irresistibly persuasive, that one who feels,
ceases to wonder that a people, having such possessions, should be
content to seek nothing farther—should demand nothing more
from nature—should even, in process of time, become indifferent
to the wants and appliances of art—should forget the civilization
which they have won—shake off the convention which has fettered
them, and lapse away into the stagnation, if not the savageism, of the
aboriginals; knowing life only in a delicious reverie, in which existence
is an abstraction rather than a condition; a dream, rather
than a performance; where living implies no anxiety, acquisition
no toil, enjoyment no cessation; in which nothing is apprehended
so much as change, even though such change may bring with it the
promise of a new pleasure. Such is the power of climate; such
the charm of that of Cuba; but we must not be understood as assuming
that such, at that period, was its effect upon the European
inhabitants. The luxuries of society in that day had not so much
accumulated, nor was the popular taste so much relaxed by the
process of social refinement, as to enfeeble the energies and exertions
of her people. They were still the hardy race which had
been trained to endurance, strife, and all sorts of adventure, by
the unceasing struggles of three hundred years. The benign climate
had not yet done the work of emasculation—perhaps never
would have done this work, if the surrounding savages had been
left partially unconquered. Had the Spaniards, with the profound
policy which is said to have marked the history of Aztec supremacy,
suffered rival and hostile races still to exist, upon whom periodically
their young warriors could exercise their weapons, the
vigorous energies of their people might have been trained to resist
all the blandishments of climate. As yet, they remained
unimpaired by its insidious sweetness. The savage still harbored
in the mountains; the Caribbee still fed upon his captive along the
margin of the gulf; the Apalachian, a fearless warrior, still roved
unconquered in his mighty shades; and the Spaniard, still needy
with all his treasures, looked out, on every hand, for empires
which he must yet possess. He was sensible of the delicious luxury
of his Cuban climate, but did not yield to it his strength. That
fierce, vigorous life which distinguished the Castilian character, at
the period of the conquests of Spain in the new world,—to which
was due such a wonderful constellation of great captains—Cortez,
the Pizarros, Ojeda, Balboa, and a host besides—declared the
energies of a people in their prime, with a startling mission of performance
before them, demanding the equal exercise of the best
genius and courage. The compound passion of avarice and ambition
left them in no humor for repose. Without pause, yet not
blindly, they pursued their mission; and the impatient and fevered
restlessness which it demanded and excited, rendered them superior
to every persuasion that threatened conflict with their
strength. These could only prevail finally with the race which,
with ample luxuries in possession, find no longer in their thirst
the provocation to performance. For the present, no Spaniard
can enjoy the sweets of Cuban airs with comparative safety. They
have still a great work to do, are still goaded by fiery passions
which will not suffer them to sleep, and they seize their luxuries
with the mood of the hurrying traveller, in a strange land, who
plucks the flower along the wayside as he passes, and hastens on
his way. The Spaniards of that day gathered all their luxuries
en route, and threw one acquisition away as soon as they made
another. The fresh desires of achievements kept them from all
loitering. Acknowledging the sweets and beauties of the scene, as
proffered them by Nature—acknowledging with due appreciation
the bounty in her gifts—they tasted only, and pressed forward.
They were, then, far from yielding to that base faith (for humanity),
which finds present possessions ample for their wants. It
needed yet the riper experience of a hundred coming years, and
enjoyments not yet within their grasp, to reconcile them to another
moral—to the surrender of all such as might be rising to
their hope! They are now driven by those fierce wants of Old
Spain, such as naturally rage in a condition of society, which toilsome
necessities still goad, and where the door to pride and power
is open always to the staff of gold. Mere ease is not the object.
This, in Cuba, is already in the possession of its people. They
have only to live in the sunshine, and let themselves alone, and
they live! But in the days of De Soto they did not hold such
life to be living. They had then fiercer impulses to appease, and
more exacting and earnest appetites to satisfy. They obeyed a
destiny! They were still chiefly sensible of passions taught in
the market-place; by the multitude; during the struggle; in
which to hope is to contend;—strife, blood, conquest, glory and
personal prominence, in all situations constituting the great argument
to heart and mind. Hence the individuality of the Spaniard;
his reference of all things to self; his swelling pride; his
stern magnificence; his audacious courage; the unfailing hardihood
of his adventure. How should a character such as this be sensible
to the unobtrusive beauties of the natural world—to the insinuating
sweetness of breeze and zephyr—to the charm of flower
and landscape? How slow will he be to value that soft repose
from all excitements, in which we are required to share, which
belongs naturally to such a life as that of the Cuban, where the
earth is always a bloom, where the air is always fragrance, where
the skies give out forever an atmosphere of love! Flowers and
fruits, the sweets of sky and air, and forests and oceans, all beautiful
in turn, all linked together by assimilative beauties, and all
blessing, singly and together,—all nevertheless fail—perhaps,
fortunately then,—to supersede, in the minds of our Spaniards,
the habitual desires of their hearts. Still, the heroic pageant is
in the ascendant; the human passion. The crowded spectacle,
the strife of violent forces, the eager scene of human struggle and
conquest, make them heedless of all that is simply sweet and
lovely in their possession. Even women share the tastes with
the passions of the sterner sex, and turn from their groves and
gardens to the gory terrors of the bull-fight.

But why chide? These people are simply the pioneers for
other races, who shall more securely enjoy what they neglect
and despise. They work in obedience to laws of nature, which
regard rather the uses of men than their pleasures. One race
but paves the way for another. We blaze the pathways for future
generations, happy if they should be the children of our
loins, for whom we win empire and clear the way. The Spaniards
of the time of De Soto, in consequence of a fatal defect in
their morals, did not always conquer the inheritance for their own
children. But of this they did not dream! How should they?
Let us now return from our wanderings, and make generalization
give place to detail.

Following out his plan, for increasing the enthusiasm at once of
his own followers, and of the people at large of the island of Cuba,
Hernan de Soto was now busied with his preparations for the public
sports which he had appointed, and with which he was to delight
the fancies of the Cubans. It was good policy that he should do
these things; for it must be remembered that he was not merely
Adelantado of Florida, and of its imaginary treasures and
empires, but governor also of all Cuba; which beautiful and
prolific island was to be left in charge of the Lady Isabella while
he pursued his toils of conquests in the wild recesses of the
Apalachian. He had designed his preparation on no ordinary
scale of magnificence. Though reputed to be a close and avaricious
general—proverbially so—he was yet fully aware that there
are periods when it is necessary to be lavish and even profligate

of expenditure. The objects which he now proposed to attain,
strongly urged and fully justified a large departure from his
usual habits of economy. His wife, the noble Lady Isabella,
was, however, in some degree the prompter of this liberality.
She was no common woman, but one born with a princely eye
to whatever is noble in the regards of man, whether in the externals
or the substances of society and State. A generous impulse,
at all times, made her anxious to satisfy the popular desires—that
is, wherever their cravings led them to the appreciation
of great deeds and graceful performance. Her knowledge
of the present objects to be attained by her lord from the common
sympathies, increased, in considerable degree, the naturally
gracious and free affluence of her disposition. She bent her
mind to the object, and consulted with all round her the various
schemes by which to render the projected display one of a
magnificence never before paralleled in Cuba; and though the
Adelantado groaned in secret over the excess of expenditure
which naturally followed from her plans, he was yet fully conscious
of the good policy by which they were dictated; and his
tastes readily acknowledged the beauty, skill and splendor which
promised to be the results of her exertions.

The day was at hand, set aside for the commencement of the
public sports, which had become official, and were to last three
days. We are not to suppose that, because the higher forms of
chivalry were dying out in Europe—because, in fact, the institution
no longer cherished there any of the nobler objects of
the order, and had sunk, from a social and political, into a mere
military machine,—that its displays had become less ostentatious
or less attractive when attempted. On the contrary, it is
usually the case that, with the decay of an institution, its efforts
at external splendor, are apt to be even greater than in the hour
of its most unquestioned ascendency; even as the fashionable
merchant is said to give his most magnificent parties when he
has made all his preparations for a business failure! In the new
world, in particular, where we might reasonably suppose that
the imitations were necessarily rude and inferior, of all these

pageants, which seem, over all, to require the highest finish in
art and the utmost polish in society—which seem, in fact, to
belong only to an old civilization, such as that of Christian
Europe,—it was ordinarily found that the ambition for display
was more than commonly ostentatious and expensive. Certain
it is, that nothing of the sort in Spain, for a long time before, surpassed
the promise, whether as regards the taste or the splendor,
of the great preparations which had been made by De Soto for
his three days of tourney and feats of arms, in the infant city of
Havana. The lists, as our fair gossip, Donna Leonora de
Tobar, has already told us, were erected in the beautiful amphitheatre
just without the suburbs of the town. Here scaffoldings
had been raised for the spectators, running half way round the
barriers, inclosing a portion of the area. These were to be
draped with showy stuffs. On some slight elevations, along the
opposite space, a ruder sort of scaffoldings were reared for the
common people. These, in those days, did not assume that what
was given them in charity should be of a quality to compare
with the best. There was yet a third distinction made in behalf
of the persons in power, and their friends—the persons of noble
birth and high position. Their place was something higher than
the others, built of better materials, and in more careful manner.
In the centre was a gorgeous canopy, which might have served for
a prince of the blood. It covered a raised seat, richly cushioned.
This was designed for the Adelantado and his noble lady. His
immediate friends and chiefs, and the ladies of his court, were
honored with private places on either hand. Before this seat
were painted the arms of Spain, on a rich shield or escutcheon;
its great golden towers, significant equally of its pride and
strength, fronting the lists and the oi polloi, and forming a beautiful
exhortation to the indulgence of the amor patriœ. Directly
over the canopy, and streaming proudly from a staff that
rose from behind it, flaunted, in mighty folds of silk heavily
wrought with gold tissue, the armorial banner of Castile. A
long series of escutcheons of a smaller size, but similar in shape
to that in the centre, and not inferior in workmanship, formed a
tier of very superb panels along the scaffoldings. These denoted
the seats which were assigned to the noble families, whose arms
they bore; each placed according to the rank of the owner, or
the degree of power, or influence, which he possessed in the
colony. Banners and bannerets, pennons and pennonceles, waved
from spears whose broad and massive darts were fashioned sometimes
of solid silver. The seats were cushioned with rich draperies;
with shawls of brilliant colors, and cotton fabrics dyed in
various unrivalled hues, such as the people of Peru and Mexico
had learned to fashion in a style superior to anything beheld in
Europe. Bright armor of various kinds, employed for ornament,
glittered and gleamed at proper intervals, along the splendid
scaffoldings; from which, at an early hour of the morning assigned
for the sports, choice instruments poured forth peals of
the most gay and inspiring music. The plan of the festivities required
that the cool hours of the day only should be employed
for the more active exercises of the combatants. The heat of the
noonday sun in that ardent clime was, even at this early period
of the year—the close of April—too intense to render agreeable
any violent displays of agility, under heavy armor, for mere
amusement. The first day was assigned to the young knights
and squires, who were to run at the ring, joust with blunt spears,
and smite the Turk's head—the English Quintain. There were
to be sports also for the arquebusiers, and the crossbowmen,—
the latter instrument of war not yet having been superseded by
firearms. To these a certain time was to be allotted, and bull-fights
were to follow, and to close the day. The amusements of
the evening, though all arranged, were yet of a private character,
and did not fall within the plan of the Adelantado. They were
also on a scale highly attractive and magnificent.

With the first glimpses of the dawn the spectators were to be
seen assembling. The citizens were turning out in all directions.
The people were crowding in from the country. The whole
island sent a delegation of eyes to see, and hands to clap, and
hearts to drink in and remember, long afterwards, the wondrous
sights presented in that memorable spectacle—a spectacle which

was to be not unworthy of the future conquests, in the country
of the Apalachian. Very curious was the motley crowd that
showed itself on all the streets and avenues leading to the great
area of attraction. There were muleteers from the mountain;
wandering tribes akin to the gipsies; retired soldiers; and half-savage
groups, in which it was difficult to discern which race predominated
most, the white man, the red man, or the negro. They
constituted a curious amalgam; each exhibiting some trait or
characteristic, picturesque, wild, individual, such as Murillo
would delight to paint—such as would have risen into dignity
under the brush of Rembrandt. Girls came bounding along
with the castanets, by the side of mules on which sat tottering
grandmothers; boys loitered with the crossbow, eager to pick
up a real by shooting it down at twenty paces. Contrabandists
showed open faces, as, on pack mules, they brought the Aguardiente
for sale, in stone jugs, one on each side; its mouth opening
from the bosom of a panier. The stately owner of a rich
hacienda, where he marked his hundred calves each spring, rode
on a brave barb by the side of his family, occupying a vehicle
still in use, cumbrous but delightful of motion beyond all others,
—the volanté. We must not stop to describe it. As at the
present day in Old Spain, in the rural districts, nothing was more
curious than the various costumes and characters exhibited by the
appearance of the people from the country. Every department
in the old country had its fitting representative, tenacious, in the
new world, of all that distinguished his province in the old. The
gay and vivacious Andalusian, ribanded at wrist and shoulder,
breast and shoe;—the confident and swaggering Biscayan; the
dull native of Valencia; the haughty Catalan;—you might
mark them all at a glance. Groups wandered on together, the
highways to the city being for hours never without its strollers.
Old songs were to be heard, as they went, from natural musicians;
sad touches, oddly mingled with lively redondillas, and sometimes,
from some rude crowder, half soldier and half priest, or
poet, you might hear extempore ballads devoted to the deeds of
arms of Cortez and Pizarro. Mules in strings came down with
fruit to the great market; lines of vehicles of all sorts, all adding
to the clamor. Sometimes, but rarely, the beggar held out
his cap for charity, and was laughed at as a cheat; for beggary
in the new world must needs be so always. There was room
and fruit for all. Sometimes the beggar, however, was a manola
of the lowest class, who never asked for alms, but got her fee
for the doleful ditties, which no one stopped to hear. There was
better music forward; and the crowds hurried on their march.
But, to enumerate is impossible. Fancy the most picturesque
region of the world, filled with the most picturesque of all people,
and the most contradictory; too proud for restraint, yet
with a curious conventional arrangement, which, making every
thing grave, admirably allowed of the mingling of the grand and
the ridiculous;—all at once thrown into disorder, under conditions
the most exciting;—all in highest state of emotion, yet all in
the most amiable temper;—happy in the moment, and prepared
to gather happiness from all possible sources.

Already, at early dawn, the trumpets began to pour forth their
most lively fanfares. Already, a thousand cries of hope and
expectation arose from the gathering and rapidly increasing
groups. Some of the young champions were already on the
ground, prepared for coursing, for shooting, for running with
spears at the ring, and with swords upon the Quintain. Others
were busy raising butts and preparing their shafts for the sports
of archery. Some had chosen their rivals, in passages with blunt
lance and muffled rapier. Jugglers and buffoons were on the
ground—tumblers began their antics, and, ever and anon, a loud
burst of clamor from the crowd announced some clever performance,
or the appearance of some favorite champion. Murmurs,
occasionally rising into shouts, declared the emotions which
wrought restlessly in the bosoms of the multitude, like the billows
of the troubled sea heaving up in the glorious sunshine. But we
have to describe for the present, not anticipate.

The lists were made sufficiently ample for the conflict of horse
as well as foot, and for the passages-at-arms of several as of single
combatants. But these did not confine the various exercises of

many who aimed at sports of their own, and who found favorite
spots upon the sides of the surrounding hills. Rules had been
published, prescribing the various forms of combat which were
to be allowed within the lists, and the manner in which they were
to be conducted. These were all to be pacific in character, however
deadly might be the weapons which the parties thought
proper to employ. In the hands of the good knight or squire, it
was understood that the sharp spear, the sword, and the battle-axe,
might be used with the noblest shows of skill and power, yet
without hurt to life or limb. There were tilts appointed with the
lance, and duels with the sword; contests of strength were to be
tried with the mace and battle-axe, and of dexterity with the
dagger and the knife. But, in each case, the contest was invariably
to be decided, when one of the combatants should be put at
such disadvantage as would place him at the mercy of his opponent,
or render necessary for his relief a battle à l'outrance.
To compel respect to this regulation was not always easy when
the pride of the champion was mortified, and his passions roused;
but De Soto had reserved to himself, as of right, to be the judge
of the field, and his warder was Don Balthazar de Alvaro, a
person no longer young, of grave aspect, of high authority, and
quite learned, as well as experienced in the business of the tournament.
It was reasonable to suppose, therefore, that a due regard
to the regulations which had been published would be observed
among the combatants. Of these hereafter; we must pause
for the present.