To Cuba and Back

To the Gentlemen of the Saturday Club, this narrative of a short absence from home and from their society, is dedicated.

Saturday, the twelfth day of February, 1859, is a dull, dark day in New York, with visitations of snow squalls, as the United States Mail Steamer Cahawba swings at her pier, at the foot of Robinson Street—a pier crowded with drays and drivers, and a street of mud, snow and ice, and poor habitations. The steamer is to sail at one p.m.; and, by half-past twelve, her decks are full, and the mud and snow of the pier are well trodden by men and horses. Coaches drive down furiously, and nervous passengers put their heads out to see if the steamer is off before her time; and on the decks, and in the gangways, inexperienced passengers run against everybody, and mistake the engineer for the steward, and come up the same stairs they go down, without knowing it. In the dreary snow, the newspaper vendors cry the papers, and the book vendors thrust yellow covers into your face—“Reading for the voyage, sir—five hundred pages, close print!” And that being rejected, they reverse the process of the Sibyl—with “Here’s another, sir, one thousand pages, double columns.” The great beam of the engine moves slowly up and down, and the black hull sways at its fasts. A motley group are the passengers. Shivering Cubans, exotics that have taken slight root in the hothouses of the Fifth Avenue, are to brave a few days of sleet and cold at sea, for the palm trees and mangoes, the cocoas and orange trees, they will be sitting under in six days, at farthest. There are Yankee shipmasters going out to join their “cotton wagons” at New Orleans and Mobile, merchants pursuing a commerce that knows no rest and no locality: confirmed invalids advised to go to Cuba to die under mosquito nets and be buried in a Potter’s Field; and other invalids wisely enough avoiding our March winds; and here and there a mere vacation-maker, like myself.

Captain Bullock is sure to sail at the hour; and at the hour he is on the paddle box, the fasts are loosed, the warp run out, the crew pull in on the warp on the port quarter, and the head swings off. No word is spoken, but all is done by signs; or, if a word is necessary, a low clear tone carries it to the listener. There is no tearing and rending escape of steam, deafening and distracting all, and giving a kind of terror to a peaceful scene; but our ship swings off, gathers way, and enters upon her voyage, in a quiet like that of a bank or counting room, almost under a spell of silence.

The housetops and piers and hilltops are lined with snow, the masts and decks are white with it, a dreary cold haze lies over the water, and we work down the bay, where few sails venture out, and but few are coming in; and only a strong monster of a Cunard screw-steamer, the Kangaroo, comes down by our side.

We leave city and suburbs Brooklyn Heights, and the foggy outline of Staten Island, far behind us, and hurry through the Narrows, for the open sea. The Kangaroo crossed our hawse in a strange way. Is she steering wild, or what is it? Seeing two old unmistakable Yankee shipmasters, sitting confidentially together on two chairs, in affectionate proximity to the binnacle, I address myself to them, and my question, being put in proper nautical phrase, secures a respectful attention. I find they agree with me that the Kangaroo is a little wilful, and crosses our hawse on purpose, in some manoeuvre to discharge her pilot before we do ours; and so thinks the quartermaster, who comes aft to right the colors. This manoeuvering of the steamer and pilot vessel makes an incident for a few minutes’ talk, and an opening for several acquaintances which will be voyage-long. The pilots are dropped into their little cockboats, and their boats drop astern, and go bobbing over the seas, to the pilot schooner that lies to for them. The Kangaroo, with her mysterious submarine art of swimming without fins, stands due east for Liverpool, and we stand down the coast, southerly, for the regions of the Sun.

The Heights of Neversink are passed. The night closes in upon the sea, dreary, cold, and snowing; our signal lanterns, the red, the white, and the green, gleam out into the mist; the furnace fires throw a lurid light from the doors below, cheerful or fearful as may be the temper of mind of the looker-on; the long swell lifts and drops the bow and stern, and rolls the ship from side to side; the sea-bells begin to strike their strange reckoning of the half-hours; the wet and the darkness drive all below but the experts and the desperate, and our first night at sea has begun.

At six bells, tea is announced; and the bright lights of the long cabin table, shining on plates and cups and gleaming knives and hurrying waiters, make a cheerful and lively contrast with the dark, cold, deserted deck.

By night, I walk deck for a couple of hours with the young captain. After due inquiries about his family in Georgia, and due remembrance of those of his mother’s line whom we loved, and the public honored, before the grave or the sea closed over them, the fascinating topic of the navy, the frigates and the line-of-battle ships and little sloops, the storms, the wrecks, and the sea fights, fill up the time. He loves the navy still, and has left it with regret; but the navy does not love her sons as they love her. On the quarterdeck at fifteen, the first in rank of his year, favored by his commanders, with service in the best vessels, making the great fleet cruise under Morris, taking part in the actions of the Naval Brigade on shore in California, serving on the Coast Survey, a man of science as well as a sailor—yet what is there before him, or those like him, in our navy? The best must continue a subaltern, a lieutenant, until he is gray. At fifty, he may be entitled to his first command, and that of a class below a frigate; and if he survives the African fevers and the Isthmus fevers, and the perils of the sea, he may totter on the quarterdeck of a line-of-battle ship when his skill is out of date and his capacity for further command problematical. And whatever may be the gallantry or the merit of his service, though he may cut off his right hand or pluck out his eye for the country’s honor, the navy can give him no promotion, not even a barren title of brevet, nor a badge of recognition of merit, though it be but a star, or a half yard of blue ribbon. The most meritorious officers receive large offers from civil life; and then, it is home, family, society, education of children, and pecuniary competency on the one side, and on the other, only the navy, less and less attractive as middle life draws on.

The staterooms of the Cahawba, like those of most American seagoing steamers, are built so high above the water that the windows may be open in all but the worst of weather, and good ventilation be ensured. I have a very nice fellow for my roommate, in the berth under me; but, in a stateroom, no roommate is better than the best; so I change my quarters to a stateroom further forward, nearer “the eyes of her,” which the passengers generally shun, and get one to myself, free from the rattle of the steering gear, while the delightful rise and fall of the bows, and leisurely weather roll and lee roll, cradle and nurse one to sleep.

Sunday, February 13.—It is cold and rough, though not at all stormy, and those who are on deck wear thick coats and caps. There is no clergyman on board, and we have no religious service. Capt. Bullock used to read the Liturgy himself, but in these West India and New Orleans voyages there are many Roman Catholics, and those who are not Romanists are of so many denominations, that he received little encouragement in maintaining an official worship; and it is no longer held, unless there is a clergyman on board and a request is made by the passengers.

All day there has been no sail in sight, except the steamer Columbia, for Charleston, SC; and she soon disappeared below the horizon.

We are near Cape Hatteras. It is night, and soon the Light of Hatteras throws its bright, cheerful beam for thirty miles over a huge burial ground of sailors. How many struggles with death, how many last efforts of the last resources of skill and courage, what floating wrecks of ships, what waste of life, has that light shone over! Under that reef, perished Bache, flying for harbor before the gale, in his little surveying brig. Every league has been and will be a field where lives and treasures are sown thick from the hand of Destruction—one of those points on the earth’s surface where, in the universal and endless struggle between life and death, preservation and destruction, the destroyers have the advantage.

Soon after 9 p.m. we stand out direct, to cross the Gulf Stream. A bucket is thrown over the side, and water drawn. Its temperature is at 42°. In fifteen minutes more, it is thrown again, and the water is at 72° 30′. We are in the Gulf Stream.

Monday, February 14.—Sea rather rough, and a good deal of seasickness. Several passengers have not been seen since we left the dock, and only about half appear at table. We are to the eastward of the Gulf Stream. The weather is clear, and no longer cold. At noon, we are in about the latitude of Charleston, SC. No vessels in sight, all day. It is strange, and always excites the surprise and comment of seafaring men, that in the great highway of nations, with the immense commerce that is perpetually running East and West, North and South, a steamer may make her three hundred miles a day, for day after day, and see no sails.

This is a truly glorious moonlight night. The seas and floods “in wavering morrice move”; the air is pure and not cold, the sky a deep blue, the sea a deep blue, the stars glisten, and the moon bathes all in a serene glory. It is hard to leave the deck and such a scene, for the small stateroom and its sleeping-shelf. But there must be sleep for infirm human nature—a nature that has even less self-sustaining power than a locomotive engine, and must not only be supplied with fuel and water at every stopping place, but must lie by, in a dark corner, in absolute repose and mere oblivion, for one quarter of its time, or it will wear out in a few days.

Tuesday, February 15.—A bright, sunny cheerful day. Passengers have laid aside their thick coats and fur caps, the snow and ice are gone from the rigging and spars, the decks are dry, the sea is calm, and the steady going engine alone, with easy exercise of power, drives the great hull, with its freight of cargo and provisions and human beings, over the placid sea, as fast as a furious gale could drive it, and leaves her long wake of foam on the sea, and her long wake of dark smoke in the sky.

The passengers are recovering from seasickness. The women sit on deck and sew and read, and the children play. That family of Creole children—how sallow, how frail, what delicate limbs, yet not without life, and with no little grace! But they are petted, and the girls complain, and the boys are disposed to tyrannize over the other boys and the dogs. It is interesting to see, or to fancy we see the effect not only of climate, but of slavery and of despotic institutions, on the characters of children. What career is there for Cuban youth of ambition or merit? and what must be their life without one?

I am feeling very much at home in the Cahawba. She is an excellent sea boat, and under the best of discipline. I hardly believed that her commander could—that any commander could—fully come up to all the praise that had been bestowed on him; but I think he weathers it all. The rule of quietness prevails, almost to the point of an English dinner party. No order is given unless it be necessary, and none louder than is necessary for it to be heard. The reports are made in low voices, and the passengers are to see and hear as little as possible of the discipline of the ship. They do not know the quiet but certain means for ensuring the performance of every duty. They do not know that reports are made of the state of every part of the ship, and that, through the night, the cabins and passageways and every place where fire can take, are watched, and that the watch reports every half hour. They have not learned the merits of sturdy, faithful Miller, the chief mate, or quick, plucky Porter, the second mate, who can hardly keep down his “Liner” training to the tone of the Mail Steamer, nor the thorough excellence of the Engineer. But they do know the capital qualities of Mr. Rodgers, the purser, a grandson of the old Commodore, a nephew of Perry, and connected by blood or marriage with half the navy—for his station and duties are among the passengers, and all become his personal friends.

The routine of the ship, as regards passengers, is this: a cup of coffee, if you desire it, when you turn out; breakfast at eight, lunch at twelve, dinner at three, tea at seven, and lights put out at ten.

Wednesday, February 16.—Beautiful, serene, summer sea! The thermometer is at 70°, awnings are spread, the ladies have their books and sewing on deck, the men read and play chess and smoke, and the children play. We have crossed the Gulf Stream again, and are skirting along the Coast of Florida, as near to shore as safety permits; and here the deep sea runs close to the land. All objects on shore are plainly discernible by the naked eye, from the deck. We are below St. Augustine, about halfway between that and Key West. The coast is an interminable reach of sand beach, with coral reefs before it and the Everglades behind it. There are three small white tents, on the green sward, close upon the beach, backed by a grove of trees, with signals flying. That is the station of the United States Coast Survey. Towards evening, we pass a rough camp which was one of the camps of “Billy Bowlegs,” the famous Seminole warrior. There is the wreck of a bark, her lower masts still standing, while the beach is strewn with casks and boxes. It is an old wreck, and they make no signal for aid.

After dark, a light is made on our starboard bow. It is Cape Florida Light. At 11 p.m. we make the light on Carysfort Reef, the outermost and southernmost of the Florida lights; and, having given a good berth to the reef, stand out to sea again, to cross the Gulf Stream the third time.

What can exceed the beauty of these nights at sea—these moonlight nights, the still sea, those bright stars, the light, soft trade wind clouds floating under them, the gentle air, and a feeling of tropical romance stealing over the exile from the snow and ice of New England! There is something in the clear blue warm sea of the tropics, which gives to the stranger a feeling of unreality. Where do those vessels come from, that rise out of the sea, in the horizon? Where do they go to, as they sink in the sea again? Are those blue spots really fast anchored islands, with men and children, and horses, and machinery, and schools, politics and newspapers on them, or are they afloat, and visited by beings of the air?

Thursday, February 17.—Again a beautiful, warm day. I wake, and the first glance out of my stateroom 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 sea coast, 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?

Friday, February 18.—We are to go in at sunrise, and few, if any, are the passengers that are not on deck at the first glow of dawn. Before us lie the novel and exciting objects of the night before. The steep Morro, with its tall sentinel lighthouse, and its towers and signal staffs and teeth of guns, is coming out into clear daylight; the red and yellow striped flag of Spain—blood and gold—floats over it. Point after point in the city becomes visible; the blue and white and yellow houses, with their roofs of dull red tiles, the quaint old Cathedral towers, and the almost endless lines of fortifications. The masts of the immense shipping rise over the headland, the signal for leave to enter is run up, and we steer in under full head, the morning gun thundering from the Morro, the trumpets braying and drums beating from all the fortifications, the Morro, the Punta, the long Cabaña, the Casa Blanca and the city walls, while the broad sun is fast rising over this magnificent spectacle.

What a world of shipping! The masts make a belt of dense forest along the edge of the city, all the ships lying head in to the street, like horses at their mangers; while the vessels at anchor nearly choke up the passageways to the deeper bays beyond. There are the red and yellow stripes of decayed Spain; the blue, white and red—blood to the fingers’ end—of La Grande Nation; the Union crosses of the Royal Commonwealth; the stars and stripes of the Great Republic, and a few flags of Holland and Portugal, of the states of Northern Italy, of Brazil, and of the republics of the Spanish Main. We thread our slow and careful way among these, pass under the broadside of a ship-of-the-line, and under the stern of a screw frigate, both bearing the Spanish flag, and cast our anchor in the Regla Bay, by the side of the steamer Karnac, which sailed from New York a few days before us. Instantly we are besieged by boats, some loaded with oranges and bananas, and others coming for passengers and their luggage, all with awnings spread over their sterns, rowed by sallow, attenuated men, in blue and white checks and straw hats, with here and there the familiar lips and teeth, and vacant, easily pleased face of the Negro. Among these boats comes one, from the stern of which floats the red and yellow flag with the crown in its field, and under whose awning reclines a man in a full suit of white linen, with straw hat and red cockade and a cigar. This is the Health Officer. Until he is satisfied, no one can come on board, or leave the vessel. Capt. Bullock salutes, steps down the ladder to the boat, hands his papers, reports all well—and we are pronounced safe. Then comes another boat of similar style, another man reclining under the awning with a cigar, who comes on board, is closeted with the purser, compares the passenger list with the passports, and we are declared fully passed, and general leave is given to land with our luggage at the customhouse wharf.

Now comes the war of cries and gestures and grimaces among the boatmen, in their struggle for passengers, increased manifold by the fact that there is but little language in common between the parties to the bargains, and by the boatmen being required to remain in their boats. How thin these boatmen look. You cannot get it out of your mind that they must all have had the yellow fever last summer, and are not yet fully recovered. Not only their faces, but their hands and arms and legs are thin, and their low-quartered slippers only half cover their thin yellow feet.

In the hurry, I have to hunt after the passengers I am to take leave of who go on to New Orleans:—Mr. and Mrs. Benchley, on their way to their intended new home in Western Texas, my two sea captains, and the little son of my friend, who is the guest, on this voyage, of our common friend the captain, and after all, I miss the hearty handshake of Bullock and Rodgers. Seated under an awning, in the stern of a boat, with my trunk and carpetbag and an unseasonable bundle of Arctic overcoat and fur cap in the bow, I am pulled by a man with an oar in each hand and a cigar in mouth, to the customhouse pier. Here is a busy scene of trunks, carpet bags, and bundles; and up and down the pier, marches a military grandee of about the rank of a sergeant or sublieutenant, with a preposterous strut, so out of keeping with the depressed military character of his country, and not possible to be appreciated without seeing it. If he would give that strut on the boards, in New York, he would draw full houses nightly.

Our passports are kept, and we receive a license to remain and travel in the island, good for three months only, for which a large fee is paid. These officers of the customs are civil and reasonably rapid; and in a short time my luggage is on a dray driven by a Negro, and I am in a volante, managed by a Negro postilion, and am driving through the narrow streets of this surprising city.

The streets are so narrow and the houses built so close upon them, that they seem to be rather spaces between the walls of houses than highways for travel. It appears impossible that two vehicles should pass abreast; yet they do so. There are constant blockings of the way. In some places awnings are stretched over the entire street, from house to house, and we are riding under a long tent. What strange vehicles these volantes are!—A pair of very long, limber shafts, at one end of which is a pair of huge wheels, and at the other end a horse with his tail braided and brought forward and tied to the saddle, an open chaise body resting on the shafts, about one third of the way from the axle to the horse; and on the horse is a Negro, in large postilion boots, long spurs, and a bright jacket. It is an easy vehicle to ride in; but it must be a sore burden to the beast. Here and there we pass a private volante, distinguished by rich silver mountings and postilions in livery. Some have two horses, and with the silver and the livery and the long dangling traces and a look of superfluity, have rather an air of high life. In most, a gentleman is reclining, cigar in mouth; while in others, is a great puff of blue or pink muslin or cambric, extending over the sides to the shafts, topped off by a fan, with signs of a face behind it. “Calle de los Officios,” “Calle del Obispo,” “Calle de San Ignacio,” “Calle de Mercaderes,” are on the little corner boards. Every little shop and every big shop has its title; but nowhere does the name of a keeper appear. Almost every shop advertises “por mayor y menor,” wholesale and retail. What a Gil Blas, Don Quixote feeling the names of “posada,” “tienda,” and “cantina” give you!

There are no women walking in the streets, except Negresses. Those suits of seersucker, with straw hats and red cockades, are soldiers. It is a sensible dress for the climate. Every third man, perhaps more, and not a few women, are smoking cigars or cigarritos. Here are things moving along, looking like cocks of new mown grass, underway. But presently you see the head of a horse or mule peering out from under the mass, and a tail is visible at the other end, and feet are picking their slow way over the stones. These are the carriers of green fodder, the fresh cut stalks and blades of corn; and my chance companion in the carriage, a fellow passenger by the Cahawba, a Frenchman, who has been here before, tells me that they supply all the horses and mules in the city with their daily feed, as no hay is used. There are also mules, asses, and horses with bananas, plantains, oranges and other fruits in panniers reaching almost to the ground.

Here is the Plaza de Armas, with its garden of rich, fragrant flowers in full bloom, in front of the Governor’s Palace. At the corner is the chapel erected over the spot where, under the auspices of Columbus, mass was first celebrated on the island. We are driven past a gloomy convent, past innumerable shops, past drinking places, billiard rooms, and the thick, dead walls of houses, with large windows, grated like dungeons, and large gates, showing glimpses of interior courtyards, sometimes with trees and flowers. But horses and carriages and gentlemen and ladies and slaves, all seem to use the same entrance. The windows come to the ground, and, being flush with the street, and mostly without glass, nothing but the grating prevents a passenger from walking into the rooms. And there the ladies and children sit sewing, or lounging, or playing. This is all very strange. There is evidently enough for me to see in the ten or twelve days of my stay.

But there are no costumes among the men, no Spanish hats, or Spanish cloaks, or bright jackets, or waistcoats, or open, slashed trousers, that are so picturesque in other Spanish countries. The men wear black dress coats, long pantaloons, black cravats, and many of them even submit, in this hot sun, to black French hats. The tyranny of systematic, scientific, capable, unpicturesque, unimaginativa France, evidently rules over the realm of man’s dress. The houses, the vehicles, the vegetation, the animals, are picturesque; to the eye of taste

“Every prospect pleases, and only man is vile.”

We drove through the Puerta de Monserrate, a heavy gateway of the prevailing yellow or tawny color, where soldiers are on guard, across the moat, out upon the “Paseo de Isabel Segunda,” and are now “estramuros,” without the walls. The Paseo is a grand avenue running across the city from sea to bay, with two carriage-drives abreast, and two malls for foot passengers, and all lined with trees in full foliage. Here you catch a glimpse of the Morro, and there of the Presidio. This is the Teatro de Tacon; and, in front of this line of tall houses, in contrast with the almost uniform one-story buildings of the city, the volante stops. This is Le Grand’s hotel.