Here, in this sumptuous home lived for half a century one of the distinguished families of Havana; here now were living the grandchildren of those who built it.
Our host then led us up to the wide flat roof, whence stretched out before us a panorama of the city, the bay and the open sea.
My friend, who had long lived in Havana, holding a prominent post in government employ, had never before enjoyed the privilege of inspecting so beautiful a Cuban home. As we parted that evening he turned to me and said, “Perhaps the white duck trousers and blue flannel coat, which were so conspicuous last night in the box of Cuba’s Governor General, are to be thanked for this opportunity now come to both of us.” _El Señor_ had been pleased to show a courtesy to the guest of the first lady of the Island.
Neither the great cathedral of Havana, nor any of her churches, nor the honored chapel where Columbus’ bones are supposed to have lain, nor any of her public buildings, not even the “Palace” of the Spanish Captain Generals, are of so striking and splendid architecture as one sees generally in Mexico. The allurement and dazzling fame of the Empire of Montezuma attracted thither all that was daring and forceful and brilliant in old Spain. Even the wonders of Cuba and the Antilles paled before the tales of fabulous wealth and treasure of the conquest of Cortez. The noble churches and architecture of Mexico have no rivals among the Cuban cities. Nor is there among the Cubans that picturesqueness in garb, that striking brilliancy of coloring, which one sees upon the streets of the Mexican cities. In Cuba you see no scarlet and green and blue _zerapes_; no purple and blue and pink _rebozos_; no _rancherros_ and _caballeros_ in velvet jackets and tight-fitting trousers, laced and spangled and buttoned with threads of silver and gold; none of the splendor in coloring and dress of the sixteenth century, which still clings to the street scene in Mexico. Cuba in its outward aspects is distinctly, unromantically modern. The black coat is _de rigueur_; the black hat or the _panama_ is the only covering for the head, and even conventional millinery has begun to drive away the graceful _mantilla_ from the brows of _las señoras_. There is no poetry, no artistic coloring in the life scheme of the Cuban. His face and movements lack the vivacity and alertness inspired by the keen, quickening air of the Mexican Highlands. Even the clothes he wears and the way he wears them bespeak the heavy, sea level atmosphere he breathes. Nor has the language of the Cuban preserved the ancient grace and forcefulness which distinguish the almost classic Spanish of the Mexican. The Spanish spoken in Cuba has added to its vocabulary a multitude of words from the French and English of its neighbors, and from the provincial _patois_ of the formerly numerous Spanish soldiery.