Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/102

Rh seen in a charming clair-obscur. They pass by and vanish into shade. On all sides you see new vistas open, new pictures in dusky arcades, and beneath porticoes, ornamented with fresco-painting of fruits and flowers; but all is seen in a half light. Publicity has here a mystery, a shadowy depth; and in front of the open windows of the houses is iron grating. There is in the building of the city a great mixture of regularity and irregularity, of old and new, of the splendid and the dilapidated. Close beside the elegant arched arcade, with its gaily painted walls, stands a half ruinous wall, the fresco-paintings of which are half obliterated or have pealed off with the mortar. And this old wall is not repaired, nor the old painting restored. All this; the countenances and life of the coloured population; the silent, wedge-like way in which the volantes insinuate themselves between the rows of houses, give to Havanna a peculiar character, and a romantic life which is unlike that of any other city which I have seen, and especially unlike those of England and North America.

We have now moonlight, and I cannot but admire its brightness and transparency. Our moonlight in Sweden is tolerably bright, but has a colder, more blue tinge; here it is light yellow, and seems to me almost rose tinted. Moonlight here is considered dangerous, and people do not venture into it with uncovered heads.

I have been two evenings to La Plaza de Armas, to hear the music, with my good friends Mr. and Mrs. F. Elegant signoras with light mantillas over their heads, which are adorned with flowers, walk about with polite caballeros under the magnificent king-palms, or sit on marble benches talking, while the music plays Cuban dances, or marches, and pieces from favourite operas. A more beautiful festal hall than this place, with its palms and palaces, seen beneath the moonlight, and the beaming heaven of Cuba, cannot be conceived. I have also seen