HAVANA: Worship, Etiquette and Humanitarianism

At break of day, I am in the delightful sea-baths again, not ill-named Recreo and Eliseo. But the forlorn chain-gang are mustered before the Presidio. It is Sunday, but there is no day of rest for them.

At eight o’clock I present myself at the Belen. A lady, who was passing through the cloister, with head and face covered by the usual black veil, turned and came to me. It was Mrs.  , whom I had seen last evening. She kindly took me to the sacristy, and asked some one to tell Father  that I was there, and then went to her place in church. While waiting in the sacristy, I saw the robing and unrobing of the officiating priests, the preparation of altar cérémonials by boys and men, and could hear the voices and music in the church, on the other side of the great altar. The manner of the Jesuits is in striking contrast with that at the Cathedral. All is slow, orderly and reverential, whether on the part of men or boys. Instead of the hurried walk, the nod and duck, there is a slow march, a kneeling, or a reverential bow. At a small side altar, in the sacristy, communion is administered by a single priest. Among the recipients are several men of mature years and respectable position; and side by side with them, the poor and the Negroes. In the Church, there is no distinction of race or color.

Father  appears, is unrobed, and takes me to the gallery of the church, near the organ. From this, I looked down upon a sea of rich costumes of women, veiled heads, and kneeling figures, literally covering the floor of the church. On the marble pavement, the little carpets are spread, and on these, as close as they can sit or kneel, are the ladies of rank and wealth of Havana. A new-comer glides in among them seeking room for her carpet, or room of charity or friendship on a carpet already spread; and the kneelers or sitters move and gather in their wide skirts to let her pass. Here and there a servant in livery winds his way behind his mistress, bearing her carpet, and returns to the porch when it has been spread. The whole floor is left to women. The men gather about the walls and doorways, or sit in the gallery, which is reserved for them. But among the women, though chiefly of rank and wealth, are some who are Negroes, usually distinguished by the plain shawl, instead of the veil over the head. The Countess Villanueva, immensely rich, of high rank, and of a name great in the annals of Cuba, but childless, and blind, and a widow, is lead in by the hand by her Negro servant. The service of the altar is performed with dignity and reverence, and the singing, which is by the Jesuit Brothers themselves, is admirable. In the choir I recognized my new friends, the Rector and young Father Cabre, the professor of physics. The “Tantum ergo Sacramentum,” which was sung kneeling, brought tears into my eyes, and kept them there.

After service, Mr.  came to me, and made an engagement to show me the benevolent institutions on the Bishop’s list, accepting my invitation to breakfast at Le Grand’s, at eleven o’clock. At eleven he came, and after a quiet breakfast in a side room, we went to the house of Senor  , whom he well knows, in the hope that he would go with us. The Senor was engaged to meet one of the Fathers at noon, and could not go, but introduced to me a relative of his, a young student of medicine in the University, who offered to take me to the Presidio and other places, the next day.

It occurred to us to call upon a young American lady, who was residing at the house of a Spanish lady of wealth and rank, and invite her to go with us to see the Beneficencia, which we thought she might do, as it is an institution under the charge of nuns, and she was to go with a Padre in full dress. But the customs of the country are rigid. Miss  was very desirous to go, but had doubts. She consulted the lady of the house, who would know, if any one could, the etiquette of Havana. The Senora’s reply was, “You are an American, and may do anything.” This settled the matter in the negative, and we went alone. Now we drive to Don Juan  ’s. The gate is closed. The driver, who is a white, gets off and makes a feeble and timid rap at the door. “Knock louder!” says my friend, in Spanish. “What cowards they are!” he adds to me. The man makes a knock, a little louder. “There, see that! Peeking into the keyhole! Mean! An Englishman would beat the door down before he would do that.” Don Juan is in the country, so we fail of all our expected companions.

The Casa de Beneficencia is a large institution, for orphan and destitute children, for infirm old persons, and for the insane. It is admirably situated, bordering on the open sea, with fresh air and very good attention to ventilation in the rooms. It is a government institution, but is placed under charge of the Sisters of Charity, one of whom accompanied us about the building. Though called a government institution, it must not be supposed that it is a charity from the crown. On the contrary, it is supported by a specific appropriation of certain of the taxes and revenues of the island. In the building is a church not yet finished, large enough for all the inmates, and a quiet little private chapel for the Sisters’ devotions, where a burning lamp indicated the presence of the Sacrament on the small altar. I am sorry to have forgotten the number of children. It was large, and included both sexes, with a separate department for each. In a third department are the insane. They are kindly treated and not confined, except when violent; but the Sister told us they had no medical treatment unless in case of sickness. (Dr. Howe told me that he was also so informed.) The last department is for aged and indigent women.

One of the little orphans clung to the Sister who accompanied us, holding her hand, and nestling in her coarse but clean blue gown; and when we took our leave, and I put a small coin into her little soft hand, her eyes brightened up into a pretty smile.

The number of the Sisters is not full. As none have joined the order from Cuba, (I am told literally none,) they are all from abroad, chiefly from France and Spain; and having acclimation to go through, with exposure to yellow fever and cholera, many of those that come here die in the first or second summer. And yet they still come, in simple, religious fidelity, under the shadow of death.

The Casa de Beneficencia must be pronounced by all, even by those accustomed to the system and order of the best charitable institutions in the world, a credit to the island of Cuba. The charity is large and liberal, and the order and neatness of its administration are beyond praise.

From the Beneficencia we drove to the Military Hospital. This is a huge establishment, designed to accommodate all the sick of the army. The walls are high, the floors are of brick and scrupulously clean, as are all things under the charge of the Sisters of Charity; and the ventilation is tolerable. The building suffered from the explosion of the magazine last year, and some quarters have not yet been restored for occupation. The number of sick soldiers now in hospital actually exceeds one thousand! Most of them are young, some mere lads, victims of the conscription of Old Spain, which takes them from their rustic homes in Andalusia and Catalonia and the Pyrénées, to expose them to the tropical heats of Cuba, and to the other dangers of its climate. Most had fevers. We saw a few cases of vomito. Notwithstanding all that is said about the healthfulness of a winter in Cuba, the experienced Sister Servant (which, I believe, is the title of the Superior of a body of Sisters of Charity) told us that a few sporadic cases of yellow fever occur in Havana, in all seasons of the year; but that we need not fear to go through the wards. One patient was covered with the blotches of recent smallpox. It was affecting to see the wistful eyes of these poor, fevered soldier-boys, gazing on the serene, kind countenances of the nuns, and thinking of their mothers and sisters in the dear home in Old Spain, and feeling, no doubt, that this womanly, religious care was the nearest and best substitute.

The present number of Sisters, charged with the entire care of this great hospital, except the duty of cooks and the mere manual and mechanic labor necessarily done by men, is not above twenty-five. The Sister Servant told us that the proper complement was forty. The last summer, eleven of these devoted women died of yellow fever. Every summer, when yellow fever or cholera prevails, some of them die. They know it. Yet the vacancies are filled up; and their serene and ever happy countenances give the stranger no indication that they have bound themselves to the bedside of contagious and loathsome diseases every year, and to scenes of sickness and death every day.

As we walked through the passage-ways, we came upon the little private chapel of the Sisters. Here was a scene I can never forget. It was an hour assigned for prayer. All who could leave the sick wards not more than twelve or fourteen were kneeling in that perfectly still, secluded, darkened room, in a double row, all facing to the altar, on which burned one taper, showing the presence of the Sacrament, and all in silent prayer. That double row of silent, kneeling women, unconscious of the presence of any one, in their snow-white, close caps and long capes, and coarse, clean, blue gowns heroines, if the world ever had heroines, their angels beholding the face of their Father in heaven, as they knelt on earth!

It was affecting and yet almost amusing it would have been amusing anywhere else that these simple creatures, not knowing the ways of the world, and desirous to have soft music fill their room, as they knelt at silent prayer, and not having (for their duties preclude it) any skill in the practice of music, had a large music-box wound and placed on a stand, in the rear, giving out its liquid tones, just loud enough to pervade the air, without forcing attention. The effect was beautiful; and yet the tunes were not all, nor chiefly, religious. They were such as any music-box would give. But what do these poor creatures know of what the world marches to, or dances to, or makes love by? To them it was all music, and pure and holy!

Minute after minute we stood, waiting for, but not desiring, an end of these delightful sounds, and a dissolving of this spell of silent adoration. One of the Sisters began prayers aloud, a series of short prayers and adorations and thanksgivings, to each of which, at its close, the others made response in full, sweet voices. The tone of prayer of this Sister was just what it should be. No skill of art could reach it. How much truer than the cathedral, or the great ceremonial! It was low, yet audible, composed, reverent: neither the familiar, which offends so often, nor the rhetorical, which always offends, but that unconscious sustained intonation, not of speech, but of music, which frequent devotions in company with others naturally call out; showing us that poetry and music, and not prose and speech, are the natural expressions of the deepest and highest emotions.

They rose, with the prayer of benediction, and we withdrew. They separated, to station themselves, one in each ward of the hospital, there, aloud and standing, to repeat their prayers the sick men raising themselves on their elbows, or sitting in bed, or, if more feeble, raising their eyes and clasping their hands, and all who can or choose, joining in the responses.