Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/182

Rh people inhaling the delicious air! No place has such air as Matanzas, so animating, and so charming; and nowhere does one hear so much music. The whole day through may be heard Cuban dances from four or five pianos in the neighbourhood; and in the evening a couple of gentlemen come out upon a piazza, nearly opposite to ours, and sing Spanish songs, and accompany themselves on the guitar; a skilful harp-player goes about from door to door, twanging upon his harp-strings as he carries his harp on his back, and playing at the doors “La Hauta Arragonesa,” that dance so full of quivering life, till my whole being quivers and dances as I listen to it—or la Cachuca so full of grace; and during all this the band is sounding from La Plaza de Armas, where the beau monde of Matanzas are walking about in the moonlight beneath the poplars; the ladies without bonnets and with flowers or other ornaments in their hair, in their transparent veils and white dresses,—and where I also walk during these pleasant evenings with my young hostess and the gentlemen of the house, or with my agreeable young countryman, Mr. F.; so that one hears music enough at Matanzas, that is in the evenings especially, when there is a regular charivari of it, but which is by no means disagreeable, because the time and the spirit of the music is in all cases so very much alike. In all this there is a gay, sportive, care-free life; I give myself up to the influence of it, and bathe, as it were, in the softly floating atmosphere which dances around me, like playful zephyrs, as I pace the piazza till toward midnight and see the Southern Cross gleaming as it ascends higher and higher in the heavens, above a row of dark-green, shadowy sapota-trees. Yes, this is indeed a peculiarly delicious, tranquil life; I wish that everybody could thus enjoy it. On the prairies of America, and often in America did I stretch out my arms and fly, fly over the whole earth. Here I wish merely to be quiet, to sit in the shade of the palms and listen to the rustling of their