Home › English Failure in the West Indies › English Failure in the West Indies: Spanish

English Failure in the West Indies: Spanish

The coffee and oranges and bread and butter are not your breakfast. The breakfast hour is 11 o'clock, and that meal begins with olives and radishes and sardines and several other delicacies; then comes a broiled fish, a wall-eyed perch, with a dash of Spanish colors in his skin, and after chops, or steaks, eggs, or one of many omelets. Then come cucumbers, slender but long, and cut in thick slices, with oil and vinegar, pepper and salt. With cuts of cucumber, surrounded by slices of tomatoes, both vegetables juicy, the general effect is that described by the pious colored man when he undertook to tell about cold fat possum and sweet potatoes, and failed, but mentioned in despair, it was just "too good." Perhaps the Cuban 11 o'clock breakfast does not conduce to energy, but rather to meditation, especially if it is mingled with Spanish claret.

There is exactness in the hotel service throughout. When the 11 o'clock breakfast and 7 o'clock dinner come off, the same people appear at the same round tables, and dishes are served in an order and according to a system that must have its traditions, history, laws and mathematics. One may trust that whatever shall happen in the fields of battle in Cuba, or the Parliament of Spain, there will be nothing done that can disturb the peaceful and perfect order of the bedrooms and dining-rooms of Havana, the attractions, manners and customs of which must have grown, for they could not have been invented.

The very northern or southern cities, as a rule, have narrow streets. Only in the temperate zone do you find ample thoroughfares. One notes this peculiarity of close building in the most northern and southern of my personal observation, Reyjkavik and Havana--the capitals of Iceland, that barely touches the Arctic region, and of Cuba, just within the tropical belt. The outer as well as the inner walls of the buildings are expected to shelter the people from excessive cold or heat.

In Havana the important business streets are remarkably narrow, one containing many fine shops being but twenty-five feet from house to house, and, in consequence, the sidewalks on some of the squares cannot be traversed by two persons side by side; and as the walks are a foot above the pavements, when one meets a pedestrian he has to put one leg over the curbstone and give room--that is unless both are slender and accommodating. There is so much of stepping off into the street done that it is important to do it gracefully, though the act itself is regarded as a matter of course. I have found it advantageous to glide behind a stout lady and follow her closely, the great majority of those she meets yielding her the wall and waiting with one leg off the sidewalk, until we have marched by in procession, as it were. When one comes to a square, with the sidewalk broad enough for two single files of the populace to proceed in opposite directions, there is a cheerful sense of relief. The roadways are so restricted in these streets that three carriages cannot move abreast. If one has stopped, so that the hubs protrude over the sidewalk, which is fashionable, carriages cannot pass on the space unoccupied. Care has to be taken that two carriages waiting, one on either side of the street, shall not be located exactly opposite each other, for if they did there would be a blockade; and so on the great shopping streets carriages can move but one way. In many places awnings are spread from house to house two stories high, covering the whole street, and useful in resisting sunshine or rain.

The cafes are especially large and handsome. It is curious to see in February the marble floors sprinkled with sawdust and dampened with a view to coolness, like beer halls in our own land in the thirsty days of July; and it is still more conducive to geographical reflection to eat in a hotel dining and breakfasting room on a level with the street, and find the favorite tables those nearest wide-open doors.

There are three money standards in this country--American gold, Spanish gold, and silver, and there is a great time in close calculations. I noticed a newly-arrived American citizen in a cafe, treating three friends to beverages of their several selections, and partaking of his own hospitality, and you will observe this means four drinks. Payment was made with an American five-dollar gold piece, and, settling the account, he received in change a five-dollar Spanish gold piece and forty cents, He was so well pleased that he "treated" again, this time paying with the Spanish gold piece, and his change was five silver dollars and forty cents. "Now," said he, "I'm going to study out this thing and get up a scheme. It seems there is money to be made by taking to drink. The more liquor I buy, the more money I've got. This must be the double standard." There was twenty per cent. premium on American gold compared with Spanish, and twenty per cent. on Spanish gold as compared with silver, so my friend's computation was correct. He had out of $5.00 spent $1.20 in drink, and still had $5.80 in silver.

The money reformers and patriots here, I am informed, want "more money," in the sense of more kinds of money, and the financiers contemplate an extraordinary issue of paper. When that happens, my friend can pay for the drinks with a silver dollar and get back a paper dollar and a lot of change. Talking of the "double standard," why, the Cubans have the triple standard--two gold standards and one silver one, and, owing to our preservation of the "parity," our silver paper stands at a premium over Spanish gold, and American silver beats the Spanish two to one. The average American barkeeper, no doubt, holds the Cuban brother in contempt, but he should not. They manufacture cocktails in Havana with great energy and rapidity. From the moment the compounder seizes two glasses and fills one with ice and swipes into the other the liquors and the bitters, and the sweets, and then, with a swinging motion, dashes the ice and fluids from glass to glass, clinking the crystal in a way that would delight a German's sense of sound, not a moment is lost, until after it is all in one glass and flung through a strainer into another that must be just brimming full, and then the assurance of the American appetite is expected to grasp the decoction with the same furious avidity with which it is compounded and well shaken before taken. It should not be forgotten that there is a large and very heavy glass and a small one. It is the latter from which you imbibe. The big one is planted, when its share of the work is accomplished, in the centre of the counter with a bang, and the final thwack is given with an air of triumph and jocose gesture. The Cuban water jug is a delight, for, as a basis of joys, Havana has an abundance of pure water and a monument to the engineer who laid out the works. The jug is a round, brown one, with two holes in it near the handle, which is on top. One hole is, perhaps, an inch in diameter, to pour the water in, and the other small, the size of the hollow of a large quill, and this is in a nob that marks the place. It is the old story of the bung and the spigot. Filled with water, the jug is hung on a long iron rod, swinging from the top of the workroom, and located in a spot that is draughty. The currents of air make the thick, porous jug "perspire," and the water is not ice water, but cool and wholesome. The Cuban way of drinking is not to touch the vessel with the lips, but to open the mouth and, holding up the jug, tip it until the water streams into the throat, making a curve and falling five or six inches, striking the root of the tongue.

A series of parks bisect the city. There are fine shade trees, and they rise from deserts of sharp sand. Once in place of sand there was turf, but it was thought the grass was objectionable, and the sod was cut away. One of the old planter princes lives in a white marble mansion that is magnificently appointed, and in magnitude and sumptuous taste would take high rank if located on one of the best streets in New York city, and yet the New Yorker would call the dingy street before his doors and windows, all fortified with iron rods that are very handsome, disgusting names. This gentleman has a large family, and insists that his sons with their wives, and daughters with their husbands, shall all live under his ample roof; and he rejoices in many grandchildren. It is said the average of births in the house is one a month. The cafe capacity of this city is enormous. There are hundreds that would be attractive in any city, all constructed to be airy, and they cook chicken almost as well as in Paris, and beat the Parisian salads. The lettuce is a dream, and as they dress it along with tomatoes, it allures one to excess. The claret is good, but the French have a patent on that which is pure as water ought to be, and adds the color of the rose to the fragrance of the vineyard. I have had here as tender beefsteaks as Delmonico ever served, and shall carry from this Island lasting regrets that the Spanish do not know how to cook fish. Fancy stewing a lovely silverside, and serving it with tomato sauce! Let me say, before possibly forgetting, a word about olives. They are small and juicy and delicate and refreshing, and take the sting of a cigarette out of one's mouth as nothing else can. The taste for little olives is one very easily acquired, and the trouble is the tendency to make a meal of them only. The Spanish have cultivated the omelet, and ought to make some compensation for spelling "eggs" "egss"! The "grumbled e-g-s-s with onions" is a dish that stands trial, and prepares the stomach for serious employment. And, oh dear, the pineapples! Honey in the comb that melts, honey and all, in the mouth, and is so satisfying one wants to drop gently into slumber and have visions of the gardens of the gods! I do not dare more than hint at the mangoes and mames, and a brown pod of sweet cream that grows bigger than the average orange on bushes, and has a flavor that beats apple blossoms and clover fields. The dusky pod has a skin so thin that it is peeled with a spoon, and then one bulb is divided between three tall glasses--was the first time we tried it--crushed and watered until it looks like ice-cream soda at Huylers. Ice was added--the Cubans have delicious ice--home-made. A silver spoon with a long handle was inserted, and, though the month was February, the atmosphere was August, and we had valuable thirsts quenched by quaffing the milky flood--no alcohol, thanks! This fruity apotheosis is fresh from the "divine sky" of Cuba, that, Dana says, yields pure gold. I did not think he told the truth that time, but he did. And this same vegetable is convertible, at night especially, into a cup of blooming snow, that is as vanilla ice-cream might be if it were translated and frozen in heaven.