To Cuba and Back quotes

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.

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:

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?

It is plain there is a good deal to be learned here. Antonio is communicative, on a suggestion of several days’ stay and good pay.

Things which we cannot do without, we must go out of the house to find, and those which we can 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.

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;

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?

Early morning in the city—The chain gang—Soldiers—Baños de Mar—The Cathedral—Mass—Tomb of Columbus.

If mosquito nets were invented for the purpose of shutting mosquitoes in with you, they answer their purpose very well.

The beds have no mattresses, and you lie on the hard sacking. This favors coolness and neatness. I should fear a mattress, in the economy of our hotel, at least.

If a lady, on entering go to the side of a gentleman, when the other row is open to her, it indicates either familiar acquaintance or boldness.

There is no people so observant of outguards, as the Spanish race.

I notice, and my observation is supported by what I am told by the residents here, that there is no streetwalking, in the technical sense, in Havana.

and, at length, blazes out into a glory of missionary triumphs and martyrdoms in China, in India, in Africa, and in North America; and now, in these later days, we see it advancing everywhere to a new epoch of labor and influence.

Thorough in education, perfect in discipline, absolute in obedience⁠—as yielding, as indestructible, as all-pervading as water or as air!

The Jesuits make strong friends and strong enemies. Many, who are neither the one nor the other, say of them that their ethics are artificial, and their system unnatural; that they do not reform nature, but destroy it;

Charged with being the head of that concerted movement of the slaves for their freedom which struck such terror into Cuba, in 1844, he was convicted and ordered to be shot. At the first volley, as the story is told, he was only wounded.

“Aim here!” said he, pointing to his head.

Another volley, and it was all over.

The name and story of Gabriel de la Conception Valdez are preserved by the historians and tourists of Cuba. He is best known however, by the name of Placido, that under which he wrote and published, than by his proper name.

He was a man of genius and a man of valor, but⁠—he was a mulatto!

And it has no beauty to atone for those wants. Yet it has more than beauty—a strange fascination over the eye and the fancy, that will never allow it to be overlooked or forgotten.

The palm tree seems a kind of lusus naturae to the northern eye⁠—an exotic wherever you meet it.

It seems to be conscious of its want of usefulness for food or shade, yet has a dignity of its own, a pride of unmixed blood and royal descent—the hidalgo of the soil.

Yet it has more than beauty—a strange fascination over the eye and the fancy, that will never allow it to be overlooked or forgotten. The palm tree seems a kind of lusus naturae to the northern eye—an exotic wherever you meet it.

It seems to be conscious of its want of usefulness for food or shade, yet has a dignity of its own, a pride of unmixed blood and royal descent⁠—the hidalgo of the soil.

What are those groves and clusters of small growth, looking like Indian corn in a state of transmigration into trees, the stalk turning into a trunk, a thin soft coating half changed to bark, and the ears of corn turning into melons?

and on the other side, is the crushed, mangled, juiceless mass, drifting out at the draught, and fit only to be cast into the oven and burned.

This is the way of the world, as it is the course of art. The cane is made to destroy itself.

The ruined and corrupted furnish the fuel and fan the flame that lures on and draws in and crushes the fresh and wholesome; and the operation seems about as mechanical and unceasing in the one case as in the other.

This is the way of the world, as it is the course of art. The cane is made to destroy itself.

The ruined and corrupted furnish the fuel and fan the flame that lures on and draws in and crushes the fresh and wholesome

; and the operation seems about as mechanical and unceasing in the one case as in the other.

They had been at work a half hour. He stopped his horse where they were when we came to them, and the next half hour, without a word from him, they had made double the distance of the first.

It seems to me that the work of a plantation is what a clock would be that always required a man’s hand pressing on the main spring.

With the slave, the ultimate sanction is force. The motives of pride, shame, interest, ambition, and affection may be appealed to, and the minor punishments of degradation in duties, deprivation of food and sleep, and solitary confinement, may be resorted to;

Science, arts, letters, arms, manufactures, and the learning and discussions of politics, of theology, and of the great problems and opinions that move the minds of the thinking world—in these, the people of Cuba have no part.

These move by them, as the great Gulf Stream drifts by their shores.

Nor is there, nor has there been in Cuba, in the memory of the young and middle-aged, debate, or vote, or juries, or one of the least and most rudimental processes of self-government.

and though he may be a lawyer, and read, sitting a written argument to a Court of Judges, he cannot expect to be himself a Judge.

He may publish a book, but the government must be the responsible author. He may edit a journal, but the government must be the editor in-chief.

At the chief stations on the road, there are fruit-sellers in abundance, with fruit fresh from the trees: oranges, bananas, sapotes, and cocoas.

and having acclimation to go through, with exposure to yellow fever and cholera, many of those that come here die in the first or second summer.

And yet they still come, in simple, religious fidelity, under the shadow of death.

The Casa de Beneficencia must be pronounced by all, even by those accustomed to the system and order of the best charitable institutions in the world, a credit to the island of Cuba.

I am told that the medical and surgical professions are in a very satisfactory state of advancement in the island, and that a degree in medicine, and a license to practise, carry with them proofs of considerable proficiency.

It is always observable that the physical and the exact sciences are the last to suffer under despotisms.

The Presidio and Grand Cárcel of Havana is a large building, of yellow stone, standing near the fort of the Punta, and is one of the striking objects as you enter the harbor.

The whole prison, with the exception of the few cells for the “incomunicados,” was a series of these great cages, in which human beings were shut up.

Incarceration is the beginning, middle and end of the whole system.

Reformation, improvement, benefit to soul or body, are not thought of.

Those who can pay six reals (seventy-five cents) a day, have better places still, called the “Salas de distincion,” and some privileges of walking in the galleries.

The amount of money, and not the degree of criminality, determines the character of the punishment.

There seems to be no limit to the right of the prisoners to talk with any whom they can get to hear them, at whatever distance, and to converse with visitors, and to receive money from them. In fact, the whole scene was a Babel.

The open air, the chainless ocean, and the ships freely coming and going, were a pleasant change to the eye, even of one who had never suffered bonds for conscience’ sake.

It seemed strange to see that all persons outside were doing as they pleased.

… to the death, and applaud opera singers into patriotic songs, and leave them to imprisonment and fines—and you yourselves, cannot lift a finger, or join hand to hand, or bring to the hazard life, fortune, or honor, for your liberty and your dignity as men.

Work your slaves, torture your bulls, fight your gamecocks, crown your dancers and singers⁠—and leave the weightier matters of judgment and justice, of fame by sea and land, of letters and arts and sciences, of private right and public honor, the present and future of your race and of your native land, to the care of others

—of a people of no better blood than your own, strangers and sojourners among you!

“By,” … a long pause—How will he end it?—“Jingoes!” That is a failure. It is plain he fell short, and did not end as he intended. The sentiment of the four has not yet got uttered. The fat, flaxen-haired man makes his attempt.

“If there is a new-milch cow in Vermont that wouldn’t show more fight, under such usage, than them bulls, I’d buy her and make a present of her to Governor Cunchy⁠—or whatever they call him.”

—This is practical and direct, and opens the way to a more free interchange. The northern ice is thawed. The meanness and cruelty of the exhibition is commented upon. The moral view is not overlooked, nor underrated.—None but cowards would be so cruel.

They make it clear and penetrating; yet it seems a poor, effeminate sibilation, and no generous, open-mouthed call. It is the mode of stopping a volante, calling a waiter, attracting the attention of a friend, or calling the notice of a stranger.

I have no doubt, if a fire were to break out at the next door, a Cuban would call “P⁠—s⁠—t!”

They beckon a person to come to them by the reverse of our motion. They raise the open hand, with the palm outwards, bending the fingers toward the person they are calling. We should interpret it to be a sign to go away.

Smoking is universal, and all but constant. I have amused myself, in the street, by seeing what proportion of those I meet have cigars or cigarettos in their mouths. Sometimes it has been one half, sometimes one in three.

The cigar is a great leveller.

Any man may stop another for a light. I have seen the poor porters, on the wharf, bow to gentlemen, strangers to them, and hold out a cigar, and the gentlemen stop, give a light, and go on—all as of course.

…”

So that, since 1825, Cuba has been not only under martial law, but in a state of siege.

As to the more or less of justice or injustice, of honesty or peculation, of fidelity or corruption, of liberality or severity, with which these powers may have been exercised, a residence of a few days, the reading of a few books, and conversations with …

and it has made life safer in Havana than it is in New York; yet it cannot be denied that it created a serious disability.

In fine, what is the Spanish government in Cuba, but an armed monarchy, encamped in the midst of a disarmed and disfranchised people?

The taxes paid by the Cubans on their property, and the duties levied on their commerce, are enormous, making a net income of not less than $16,000,000 a year.

Of the moral habits of the clergy, as of the people, at the present time, I am entirely unable to judge. I saw very little that indicated the existence of any vices whatever among the people.

Five minutes of a street view of London by night, exhibits more vice, to the casual observer, than all Havana for a year.

I do not mean to say that the social morals of the Cubans are good, or are bad; I only mean to say that I am not a judge of the question.

They are deprived of all the sympathetic and humanizing influences and protections of home, family, common language, and common religion. They are idolaters; but no one seems enough interested in them to undertake their conversion.

They are taught to labor, and taught nothing else.

Their presence in Cuba adds another distressing element to the difficulties of the labor question, which hangs, like a black cloud, over all the islands of the West Indies.

Its weak point is the want of variety. There are no manufactures of any consequence; the mineral exports are not great; and, in fact, sugar is the one staple.

All Cuba has but one neck⁠—the worst wish of the tyrant.

As to education, I have no doubt that a good education in medicine, and a respectable course of instruction in the Roman and Spanish law, and in the natural sciences, can be obtained at the University of Havana;

… slaves and quarter million or less of free blacks, with their Coolies, and their divided and hostile races of whites—their Spanish blood, and their utter want of experience in the discharge of any public duties, the Cubans will work out successfully the problem of self-government.

You cannot reason from Massachusetts to Cuba.

When Massachusetts entered into the Revolution, she had had one hundred and fifty years of experience in popular self-government;

and if the Admiral with the rest of the fleet made chase and gave battle, it was sailor to sailor and ship to ship. But Cuba has neither officers trained to the quarterdeck, nor sailors trained to the helm, the yard, or the gun.

Nay, the ship is not built, nor the keel laid, nor is the timber grown, from which the keel is to be cut.

The natural process for Cuba is an amelioration of her institutions under Spanish auspices.

Beside her internal danger and difficulties, Cuba is implicated externally with every cause of jealousy and conflict. She has been called the key to the Gulf of Mexico. But the Gulf of Mexico cannot be locked.

Whoever takes her is more likely to find in her a key to Pandora’s box.

Close upon her is the great island of Jamaica, where the experiment of free Negro labor, in the same products, is on trial. Near to her is Haiti, where the experiment of Negro self-government is on trial.

The western sky is gorgeous with the setting sun, and the evening drums and trumpets sound from the encircling fortifications, as we pass the Casa Blanca, the Cabaña, the Punta, and the Morro.

The sky fades, the ship rises and falls in the heave of the sea, the lantern of the Morro gleams over the water, and the dim shores of Cuba are hidden from our sight.

After tea, all are on deck. It is a clear night, and no night or day has been else thar clear at sea or on shore, since we first crossed the Gulf Stream, on our passage out.