At Other Times A Breeze Is
Always Stirring, In The Day-Time Bringing In The Air From The Ocean, And
At Night Drawing It Out Again To The Sea.
In walking through the streets of the towns in Cuba, I have been
entertained by the glimpses I had through the ample windows, of what was
going on in the parlors.
Sometimes a curtain hanging before them allowed
me only a sight of the small hands which clasped the bars of the grate,
and the dusky faces and dark eyes peeping into the street and scanning the
passers by. At other times, the whole room was seen, with its furniture,
and its female forms sitting in languid postures, courting the breeze as
it entered from without. In the evening, as I passed along the narrow
sidewalk of the narrow streets, I have been startled at finding myself
almost in the midst of a merry party gathered about the window of a
brilliantly lighted room, and chattering the soft Spanish of the island in
voices that sounded strangely near to me. I have spoken of their languid
postures: they love to recline on sofas; their houses are filled with
rocking-chairs imported from the United States; they are fond of sitting
in chairs tilted against the wall, as we sometimes do at home. Indeed they
go beyond us in this respect; for in Cuba they have invented a kind of
chair which, by lowering the back and raising the knees, places the sitter
precisely in the posture he would take if he sat in a chair leaning
backward against a wall. It is a luxurious attitude, I must own, and I do
not wonder that it is a favorite with lazy people, for it relieves one of
all the trouble of keeping the body upright.
It is the women who form the large majority of the worshipers in the
churches. I landed here in Passion Week, and the next day was Holy
Thursday, when not a vehicle on wheels of any sort is allowed to be seen
in the streets; and the ladies, contrary to their custom during the rest
of the year, are obliged to resort to the churches on foot. Negro servants
of both sexes were seen passing to and fro, carrying mats on which their
mistresses were to kneel in the morning service. All the white female
population, young and old, were dressed in black, with black lace veils.
In the afternoon, three wooden or waxen images of the size of life,
representing Christ in the different stages of his passion, were placed in
the spacious Church of St. Catharine, which was so thronged that I found
it difficult to enter. Near the door was a figure of the Saviour sinking
under the weight of his cross, and the worshipers were kneeling to kiss
his feet. Aged negro men and women, half-naked negro children, ladies
richly attired, little girls in Parisian dresses, with lustrous black eyes
and a profusion of ringlets, cast themselves down before the image, and
pressed their lips to its feet in a passion of devotion.
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