In The Evening Was A Masked Ball In The Tacon Theatre, A Spacious
Building, One Of The Largest Of Its Kind In The World.
The pit, floored
over, with the whole depth of the stage open to the back wall of the
edifice, furnished a ball-room of immense size.
People in grotesque masks,
in hoods or fancy dresses, were mingled with a throng clad in the ordinary
costume, and Spanish dances were performed to the music of a numerous
band. A well-dressed crowd filled the first and second tier of boxes. The
Creole smokes everywhere, and seemed astonished when the soldier who stood
at the door ordered him to throw away his lighted segar before entering.
Once upon the floor, however, he lighted another segar in defiance of the
prohibition.
The Spanish dances, with their graceful movements, resembling the
undulations of the sea in its gentlest moods, are nowhere more gracefully
performed than in Cuba, by the young women born on the island. I could not
help thinking, however, as I looked on that gay crowd, on the quaint
maskers, and the dancers whose flexible limbs seemed swayed to and fro by
the breath of the music, that all this was soon to end at the Campo Santo,
and I asked myself how many of all this crowd would be huddled uncoffined,
when their sports were over, into the foul trenches of the public
cemetery.
Letter XLVII.
Scenery of Cuba. - Coffee Plantations.
Matanzas, _April 16, 1849_.
My expectations of the scenery of the island of Cuba and of the
magnificence of its vegetation, have not been quite fulfilled.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 327 of 396
Words from 88381 to 88650
of 107287
