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Let a man reflect upon all this, added to the inevitable three dollars and fifty cents per diem, with the frequent refreshment of volantes and ices at the Dominica, and then say whether it pays to take a partner not of a frugal mind to Havana for the season. I had intended to give some account of the servants at Mrs.
I send you none of those 'pieces volantes' in my letters, because they are all printed in one or other of the newspapers, particularly in the "Chronicles"; and I suppose that you and others have all those papers among you at Hamburg; in which case it would be only putting you to the unnecessary expense of double postage.
Charges exorbitant, the same as in Havana, where rents are an ounce a week, and upwards; volantes difficult, Mrs. L. having made an agreement with the one livery-stable that they shall always be furnished at most unreasonable prices, of which she, supposably, pockets half.
cowardice, irresolution, ambition, spite, and envy agitate him as much as another: "Non enim gazae, neque consularis Submovet lictor miseros tumultus Mentis, et curas laqueata circum Tecta volantes."
The procession, which defiles up and down the Paseo during the fray, begins at four in the hot, broiling afternoon, and ladies, decked out as Diana, Minerva, or other celebrities, powdered a l'outrance, smiling and proud of their success, recline in their volantes. Their own servants, with false noses or otherwise disguised, have their fun, too.
We passed many villas and well-kept gardens, and arrived at the bottom of the hill, where we were obliged to get out and walk, for the roads became impassable. It was a stiff climb; but when we reached the summit we were rewarded by a most magnificent view. We descended and reached the volantes, the drivers whipped up their horses, and away we went over rocks and ruts, but feeling nothing of them.
A smaller wheel would soon have been "hub-deep" and hopelessly stuck. So, too, with the carriages of the nabobs. The poorer people, when they travelled at all, went on foot or on horseback, as our ancestors did. The nabobs had their volantes, still occasionally, but with increasing rarity, seen in some parts of the island.
The sidewalks are so narrow that the pedestrian naturally seeks the middle of the street as a pathway, and the half a dozen victorias and four volantes which form the means of transportation in Santiago, and which are constantly wandering about in search of a job, manage to meet or to overtake one perpetually; causing first a right oblique, then a left oblique, movement, with such regularity as to amount to an endless zig-zag.
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.
And, facing this line, another of the most exquisitely charming aspect. All the volantes in Havana drawn up in battle array! The said volantes, peculiar to the place, are gigs without hoods or aprons, perched on two huge wheels, and each drawn by one horse in silver-mounted trappings, ridden by a calassero or negro postilion in flaming livery, laced on every seam.
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