"
So spoke a banker, who, though not _our_ banker, is our friend, and
whose kind attentions we shall ever recall, when we remember Cuba. So
he spoke, and so it befell. The pretty American lady, Cubanized into
paleness, but not into sallowness, called at the appointed hour, and,
in her company, we visited the principal streets, and the favorite
drive of the Matanzasts. The Paseo is shorter than that of Havana, but
much prettier. We found it gay with _volantes_, whose fair occupants
kept up an incessant bowing and smiling to their friends in carriages
and on horseback. The Cubans are generally good riders, and their
saddle-horses have the easiest and pleasantest gait imaginable. The
heat of the climate does not allow the severe exercise of trot and
gallop, and so these creatures go along as smoothly and easily as the
waves of the sea, and are much better broken to obedience. The ladies
of Matanzas seem to possess a great deal of beauty, but they abuse the
privilege of powder, and whiten themselves with _cascarilla_ to a
degree that is positively ghastly. This _cascarilla_ is formed by the
trituration of eggshells; and the oval faces whitened with it resemble
a larger egg, with features drawn on it in black and red.
Pages:
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238