"Far from my thoughts, vain world, begone!"
However enchanting Havana may prove, when seen through the moonlight of memory, it seems as good a place to go away from as any other, after a stifling night in a net, the wooden shutters left open in the remote hope of air, and admitting the music of a whole opera-troupe of dogs, including bass, tenor, soprano, and chorus. Instead of bouquets, you throw stones, if you are so fortunate as to have them,--if not, boot-jacks, oranges, your only umbrella. You are last seen thrusting frantic hands and feet through the iron bars, your wife holding you back by the flannel night-gown which you will persist in wearing in this doubtful climate. At last it is over,--the fifth act ends with a howl which makes you hope that some one of the performers has come to grief. But, alas! it is only a stage _dénouement_, whose hero will die again every night while the season lasts. You fall asleep, but the welcome cordial has scarcely been tasted when you are aroused by a knock at the door. It is the night-porter, who wakes you at five by appointment, that you may enjoy your early coffee, tumble into a hired _volante_, and reach, half dead with sleep, the station in time for the train that goes to San Antonio.
Now, whether you are a partisan of early rising or not, you must allow that sunrise and the hour after is the golden time of the day in Cuba. So this hour of starting,--six o'clock,--so distasteful in our latitudes, is a matter of course in tropical climates. Arriving at the station, you encounter new tribulations in the registering and payment of luggage, the transportation of which is not included in the charge for your ticket. Your trunks are recorded in a book, and, having paid a _real_ apiece for them, you receive a paper which entitles you to demand them again at your journey's end. The Cuban railways are good, but dear,--the charge being ten cents a mile; whereas in our more favored land one goes for three cents, and has the chance of a collision and surgeon's services without any extra payment. The cars have windows which are always open, and blinds which are always closed, or nearly so. The seats and backs of seats are of cane, for coolness,--hardness being secured at the same time. One reaches San Antonio in an hour and a half, and finds a pleasant village, with a river running through it, several streets of good houses, several more of bad ones, a cathedral, a cockpit, a _volante_, four soldiers on horseback, two on foot, a market, dogs, a bad smell, and, lastly, the American Hotel,--a house built in a hollow square, as usual,--kept by a strong-minded woman from the States, whose Yankee thrift is unmistakable, though she has been long absent from the great centres of domestic economy.