To Cuba and Back

do without, we must dispense with. This is odd, and strange, but not uninteresting, and affords scope for contrivance and the exercise of influence and other administrative powers. The Grand Seigneur does not mean to be troubled with anything; so there are no bells, and no office, and no clerks. He is the only source, and if he is approached, he shrugs his shoulders and gives you to understand that you have your chambers for your money and must look to the servants. Antonio starts off on an expedition for a pitcher of water and a towel, with a faint hope of two towels; for each demand involves an expedition to remote parts of the house. Then Antonio has so many rooms dependent on him, that every door is a Scylla, and every window a Charybdis, as he passes. A shrill, female voice, from the next room but one, calls “Antonio! Antonio!” and that starts the parrot in the court yard, who cries “Antonio! Antonio!” for several minutes. A deep, bass voice mutters “Antonio!” in a more confidential tone; and last of all, an unmistakably Northern voice attempts it, but ends in something between Antonio and Anthony. He is gone a good while, and has evidently had several episodes to his journey. But he is a good-natured fellow, speaks a little French, very little English, and seems anxious to do his best.

I see the faces of my New York fellow passengers from the west gallery, and we come together and throw our acquisitions of information into a common stock, and help one another. Mr. Miller’s servant, who has been here before, says there are baths and other conveniences round the corner of the street; and, sending our bundles of thin clothes there, we take advantage of the baths, with comfort. To be sure, we must go through a billiard room, where the Creoles are playing at the tables, and the cockroaches playing under them, and through a drinking room, and a bowling alley; but the baths are built in the open yard, protected by blinds, well ventilated, and well supplied with water and toilet apparatus.

With the comfort of a bath, and clothed in linen, with straw hats, we walk back to Le Grand’s, and enter the restaurant, for breakfast⁠—the breakfast of the country, at 10 o’clock. Here is a scene so pretty as quite to make up for the defects of the chambers. The restaurant with cool marble floor, walls twenty-four feet high, open rafters painted blue, great windows open to the floor and looking into the Paseo, and the floor nearly on a level with the street, a light breeze fanning the thin curtains, the little tables, for two or four, with clean white cloths, each with its pyramid of great red oranges and its fragrant bouquet⁠—the gentlemen in white pantaloons and jackets and white stockings, and the ladies in flyaway muslins, and hair in the sweet neglect of the morning toilet, taking their leisurely breakfasts of fruit and claret, and omelette and Spanish mixed dishes, (ollas) and café noir. How airy and ethereal it seems! They are birds, not substantial men and women. They eat ambrosia and drink nectar. It must be that they fly, and live in nests, in the tamarind trees. Who can eat a hot, greasy breakfast of cakes and gravied meats, and in a close room, after this?

I can truly say that I ate, this morning, my first orange; for I had never before eaten one newly gathered, which had ripened in the sun, hanging on the tree. We call for the usual breakfast, leaving the selection to the waiter; and he brings us fruits, claret, omelette, fish fresh from the sea, rice excellently cooked, fried plantains, a mixed dish of meat and vegetables (olla), and coffee. The fish, I do not remember its name, is boiled, and has the colors of the rainbow, as it lies on the plate. Havana is a good fish-market; for it is as open to the ocean as Nahant, or the beach at Newport; its streets running to the blue sea, outside the harbor, so that a man may almost throw his line from the curbstone into the Gulf Stream.

After breakfast, I take a volante and ride into the town, to deliver my letters. Three merchants whom I call upon, have palaces for their business. The entrances are wide, the staircases almost as stately as that of Stafford House, the floors of marble, the panels of porcelain tiles, the rails of iron, and the rooms over twenty feet high, with open rafters, the doors and windows colossal, the furniture rich and heavy; and there sits the merchant or banker, in white pantaloons and thin shoes and loose white coat and narrow necktie, smoking a succession of cigars, surrounded by tropical luxuries and tropical protections. In the lower story of one of these buildings is an exposition of silks, cotton and linens, in a room so large that it looked like a part of the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park. At one of these counting palaces, I met Mr. Theodore Parker and Dr. S. G. Howe, of Boston, who preceded me, in the Karnac. Mr. Parker is here for his health, which has caused anxiety to his friends lest his weakened frame should no longer support the strong intellectual machinery, as before. He finds Havana too hot, and will leave for Santa Cruz by the first opportunity. Dr. Howe likes the warm weather. It is a comfort to see him, a benefactor of his race, and one of the few heroes we have left to us, since Kane died.

The Bishop of Havana has been in delicate health, and is out of town, at Jesus del Monte; and Miss M⁠⸺ is not at home, and the Señoras F⁠⸺ I failed to see this morning; but I find a Boston young lady, whose friends were desirous I should see her, and who was glad enough to meet one so