III
The passengers—Warm weather—Coast of Cuba—Pan of Matanzas—First view of Havana, from the sea—Night off Havana.
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?
IV
Enter Havana, at sunrise—Harbor—Shipping—Landing—Drive through streets of Havana—Hotel.
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
