Great Cities Through Travelers' Eyes Read online

  During my residence in Spanish America few of the cities presented a more disgusting appearance than did Havana, from the want of a good police. One walked through the mud to the knees, and the many carriages, or volantes, which are the characteristic carriages of this city, and the drays laden with boxes of sugar, their drivers rudely elbowing the passer-by, made walking in the streets both vexatious and humiliating. The offensive odour of the salted meat, or tasajo, infected many of the houses, and even some of the ill-ventilated streets. It is said the police have remedied these evils, and that lately there has been a marked improvement in the cleanliness of the streets. The houses are well ventilated, and the street de los Mercaderes presents a beautiful view. There, as in many of our older cities in Europe, the adoption of a bad plan when laying out the city can only be slowly remedied.

  1839 FRANCES CALDERÓN DE LA BARCA

  Frances Calderón de la Barca (1804–1882), also known as Frances ‘Fanny’ Erskine Inglis, was a Scottish writer who married Calderón de la Barca, the Spanish minister to the United States in 1838. The following year he was posted to Mexico, where she wrote a highly acclaimed account of her stay (see page 192) based on the letters she wrote to her family. She stopped briefly in Havana on the way.

  Last evening, as we entered the beautiful bay, everything struck us as strange and picturesque. The soldiers of the garrison, the prison built by General Tacon, the irregular houses with their fronts painted red or pale blue, and with the cool but uninhabited look produced by the absence of glass windows; the merchant ships and large men-of-war; vessels from every port in the commercial world, the little boats gliding among them with their snow-white sails, the negroes on the wharf – nothing European. The heat was great, that of a July day, without any freshness in the air.…

  Finally, we were hoisted over the ship’s side in a chair, into the government boat, and rowed to the shore. As it was rather dark when we arrived, and we were driven to our destination in a volante, we did not see much of the city. We could but observe that the streets were narrow, the houses irregular, most people black, and the volante, an amusing-looking vehicle, looking behind like a black insect with high shoulders, and with a little black postilion on a horse or mule, with an enormous pair of boots and a fancy uniform.

  The house in which, by the hospitality of the H—a family we are installed, has from its windows, which front the bay, the most varied and interesting view imaginable. As it is the first house, Spanish fashion, which I have entered, I must describe it to you before I sleep. The house forms a great square, and you enter the court, round which are the offices, the rooms for the negroes, coalhouse, bathroom, etc., and in the middle of which stand the volantes. Proceed upstairs and enter a large gallery which runs all round the house. Pass into the Sala, a large cool apartment, with marble floor and tables, and chaise-longues with elastic cushions, chairs and armchairs of cane. A drapery of white muslin and blue silk divides this from a second and smaller drawing room, now serving as my dressing room, and beautifully fitted up, with Gothic toilet table, inlaid mahogany bureau, marble centre and side tables, fine mirrors, cane sofas and chairs, green and gold paper. A drapery of white muslin and rose-coloured silk divides this from a bedroom, also fitted up with all manner of elegances. French beds with blue silk coverlids and clear mosquito curtains, and fine lace. A drapery divides this on one side from the gallery; and this room opens into others which run all round the house. The floors are marble or stucco – the roofs beams of pale blue wood placed transversely, and the whole has an air of agreeable coolness. Everything is handsome without being gaudy, and admirably adapted for the climate. The sleeping apartments have no windows, and are dark and cool while the drawing rooms have large windows down to the door, with green shutters kept closed till the evening.

  The mosquitoes have now commenced their evening song, a signal that it is time to put out the lights. The moon is shining on the bay, and a faint sound of military music is heard in the distance, while the sea moans with a sad but not unpleasing monotony. To all these sounds I retire to rest.

  1957 GRAHAM GREENE

  British novelist Graham Greene (1904–1991) described the fleshpots of pre-revolutionary Havana in his autobiography Ways of Escape (1980).

  I had visited Havana several times in the early fifties. I enjoyed the louche atmosphere of Batista’s city and I never stayed long enough to be aware of the sad political background of arbitrary imprisonment and torture, I came there…for the sake of the Floridita restaurant (famous of daiquiris and Morro crabs), for the brothel life, the roulette in every hotel, the fruit-machines spilling out jackpots of silver dollars, the Shanghai Theatre where for one dollar twenty-five cents one could see a nude cabaret of extreme obscenity with the bluest of blue films in the intervals. (There was a pornographic bookshop in the foyer for young Cubans who were bored by the cabaret.)…

  Destiny had produced [a] driver in a typically Cuban manner. I had employed him some two or three years before for a few days in Havana. I was with a friend and on our last afternoon we thought of trying a novelty – we had been to the Shanghai. We had watched without much interest Superman’s performance with a mulatto girl (as uninspiring as a dutiful husband’s). We had lost a little at roulette, we had fed at the Floridita, smoked marijuana, and seen a lesbian performance at the Blue Moon. So now we asked our driver if he could provide a little cocaine. Nothing apparently was easier. He stopped at a newsagent’s and came back with a screw of paper containing some white powder – the price was the equivalent of five shillings which struck me as suspiciously cheap.

  We lay on our bed and sniffed. Once or twice we sneezed.

  ‘Do you feel anything?’

  ‘Nothing at all.’…

  I was soon convinced that we had been sold – at what now appeared an exorbitant price – a little boracic powder. Next morning I told the driver so. He denied it. The years passed.

  When I came back to Havana in 1957 I looked for him in all the quarters where drivers congregated…. The man I remembered might be a swindler, but he was a good guide to the shadier parts of Havana, and I had no desire for a dull and honest man to be my daily companion on this long trip. One night, I went to the Shanghai Theatre. When I came out into the dingy street I saw a number of taxis drawn up. A driver advanced towards me. ‘I have to apologize humbly, senor. You had reason. It was boracic powder. Three years ago I was deceived too. The accursed newspaper seller. A swindler, senor. I trusted him. I give you back the five shillings.’ In the course of the tour which followed he made a better profit than he lost. Every hotel, every restaurant, every cantina paid him his commission. I never saw him again on my next two visits to the island. Perhaps he was able to retire on his gains.

  HONG KONG

  The fishing port of Hong Kong, built on an island off the southern coast of China, was ceded to Britain in 1842 (the lease was eventually extended until 1997) and swiftly turned into a major British outpost in the Far East. By the later 19th century it was a leading commercial and industrial centre, as it remained throughout the 20th century and after its return to China.

  1853 BAYARD TAYLOR

  American Bayard Taylor (see page 118) visited eleven years after Hong Kong was leased to the British, and found colonial life already in full swing.

  Seen from the water, the town, stretching for a mile along the shore, at the foot of Victoria Peak, whose granite cliff towers eighteen hundred feet above, bears considerable resemblance to Gibraltar. The Governor’s mansion, the Bishop’s Palace, the church and barracks occupy conspicuous positions, and the houses of merchants and government officials, scattered along the steep sides of the hill, give the place an opulent and flourishing air. So far from being disappointed in this respect, one is surprised to find that ten years of English occupation have sufficed to civilize so completely a barren Chinese island….

  For amusements, besides riding, boating, yacht regattas, &c., there is a club, with a library, reading and billiard rooms
, and a bowling alley, much frequented by Americans. The society is not extensive, but intelligent and agreeable, and the same lordly hospitality, with which I first became acquainted in India, prevails not only here but throughout all the foreign communes in China. This custom originated long ago, in the isolation to which the foreign merchant was condemned, and the infrequency of visitors from the distant world, which he had temporarily renounced. Then all houses were open to the guest, and the luxury which had been created to soften the gilded exile, was placed at his command….

  I doubt if there be another class of men, who live in more luxurious state than the foreign residents in China. Their households are conducted on a princely scale, and whatever can be laid in the way of furniture, upholstery or domestic appliances of any sort, to promote ease and comfort, is sure to be found in their dwellings. Their tables are supplied with the choicest which the country can afford, and a retinue of well-drilled servants, whose only business it is to study their habits, anticipate all their wants….

  These little communities, nevertheless, are subject to iron laws of etiquette, any infraction whereof, either purposely or through ignorance, makes society tremble to its foundations.… The newly arrived, unless he wishes to avoid all society, must go the rounds of the resident families and make his calls. The calls are returned, an invitation to dinner follows in due course of time and everything is in train for a footing of familiar intercourse. This custom seems to me to reverse the natural course of social ethics. It obliges the stranger to seek his welcome, instead of having it spontaneously tendered to him. The residents defend the practice, on the ground that it allows a man to choose his own society – an obvious bull, since he cannot know who are congenial to him until he has met them….

  There are private balls occasionally – public, rarely, if ever – where quadrilles, and waltzes, and polkas, are danced with as much spirit as at any outside the Tropics; but there is a considerate departure from the etiquette of the North, in allowing the gentlemen to appear, on such occasions, in a white linen jacket, and with a simple ribbon in place of a cravat. Nay, if so minded, he may even throw wide his collar, and enjoy a cool throat.

  1878 ISABELLA BIRD

  By the time the much-travelled Isabella Bird (see page 119) arrived in 1878, the city was growing fast and attracting immigrants from across the region. Her visit unluckily coincided with a major fire, which began on Boxing Day and destroyed 10 acres of housing, causing a million dollars’ worth of damage.

  Turning through another channel, we abruptly entered the inner harbour, and sailed into the summer, blue sky, blue water, a summer sun and a cool breeze, while a tender veil of blue haze softened the outlines of the flushed mountains. Victoria, which is the capital of the British colony of the island of Hong Kong, and which colloquially is called Hong Kong, looked magnificent, suggesting Gibraltar, but far, far finer, its peak eighteen hundred feet in height – a giant among lesser peaks, rising abruptly from the sea above the great granite city which clusters upon its lower declivities, looking out from dense greenery and tropical gardens, and the deep shade of palms and bananas, the lines of many of its streets traced in foliage, all contrasting with the scorched red soil and barren crags which were its universal aspect before we acquired it in 1843.

  A forest of masts above the town betoken its commercial importance, and ‘P. and O.’ and Messageries Maritimes steamers, ships of war of all nations, low-hulled, big-masted clippers, store and hospital ships, and a great fishing fleet lay at anchor in the harbour. The English and Romish cathedrals, the Episcopal Palace, with St Paul’s College, great high blocks of commercial buildings, huge sugar factories, great barracks in terraces, battery above battery, Government House and massive stone wharves came rapidly into view, and over all, its rich folds spreading out fully on the breeze, floated the English flag.

  But dense volumes of smoke rolling and eddying, and covering with their black folds the lower slopes and the town itself made a surprising spectacle, and even as we anchored came off the rapid tolling of bells, the roll of drums and the murmur of a ‘city at unrest’. No one met me.

  A few Chinese boats came off, and then a steam launch with the M. M. agent in an obvious flurry. I asked him how to get ashore, and he replied, ‘It’s no use going ashore, the town’s half burned, and burning still; there’s not a bed at any hotel for love or money, and we are going to make up beds here.’ However, through the politeness of the mail agent, I did go ashore in the launch, but we had to climb through and over at least eight tiers of boats, crammed with refugees, mainly women and children, and piled up with all sorts of household goods, whole and broken, which had been thrown into them promiscuously to save them. ‘The palace of the English bishop,’ they said, was still untouched; so, escaping from an indescribable hubbub, I got into a bamboo chair, with two long poles which rested on the shoulders of two lean coolies, who carried me to my destination at a swinging pace through streets as steep as those of Varenna [north Italy]. Streets choked up with household goods and the costly contents of shops, treasured books and nick-nacks lying on the dusty pavements, with beds, pictures, clothing, mirrors, goods of all sorts; Chinamen dragging their possessions to the hills; Chinawomen, some of them with hoofs rather than feet, carrying their children on their backs and under their arms; officers, black with smoke, working at the hose like firemen; parties of troops marching as steadily as on parade, or keeping guard in perilous places; Mr Pope Hennessy, the governor, ubiquitous in a chair with four scarlet bearers; men belonging to the insurance companies running about with drawn swords; the miscellaneous population running hither and thither; loud and frequent explosions; heavy crashes as of tottering walls, and, above all, the loud bell of the Romish cathedral tolling rapidly, calling to work or prayer, made a scene of intense excitement; while utterly unmoved, in grand Oriental calm (or apathy), with the waves of tumult breaking round their feet, stood Sikh sentries, majestic men, with swarthy faces and great, crimson turbans.

  Through the encumbered streets and up grand flights of stairs my bearers brought me to these picturesque grounds, which were covered over with furniture and goods of all descriptions brought hither for safety, and Chinese families camping out among them. Indeed, the Bishop and Mrs Burdon had not only thrown open their beautiful grounds to these poor people, but had accommodated some Chinese families in rooms in the palace under their own. The apathy or calm of the Chinese women as they sat houseless amid their possessions was very striking.… The Bishop and I at once went down to the fire, which was got under, and saw the wreck of the city and the houseless people camping out among the things they had saved. Fire was still burning or smouldering everywhere, high walls were falling, hose were playing on mountains of smouldering timber, whole streets were blocked with masses of fallen brick and stone, charred telegraph poles and fused wires were lying about, with half-burned ledgers and half-burned everything. The coloured population exceeds one hundred and fifty-two thousand souls, and only those who know the Babel which an eastern crowd is capable of making under ordinary circumstances can imagine what the deafening din of human tongues was under these very extraordinary ones. In the prison, which was threatened by the flames, were over eight hundred ruffians of all nations, and it was held by one hundred soldiers with ten rounds of ammunition each, prepared to convey the criminals to a place of safety and to shoot any who attempted to escape.…

  On returning, I was just beginning to unpack when the flames burst out again. It was luridly grand in the twilight, the tongues of flame lapping up house after house, the jets of flame loaded with blazing fragments, the explosions, each one succeeded by a burst of flame, carrying high into the air all sorts of projectiles, beams and rafters paraffin soaked, strewing them over the doomed city, the leaping flames coming nearer and nearer, the great volumes of smoke, spark-laden, rolling toward us, all mingling with a din indescribable.

  Burning fragments shortly fell on the windowsills, and as the wind was very strong and setting t
his way, there seemed so little prospect of the palace being saved that important papers were sent to the cathedral and several of the refugees fled with their things to the hills. At that moment the wind changed, and the great drift of flame and smoke was carried in a comparatively harmless direction, the fire was got well in hand the second time, the official quarter was saved, and before 10 p.m. we were able for the first time since my arrival at midday to sit down to food.

  1959 IAN FLEMING

  British novelist Ian Fleming (1908–1964) published his first 007 title, Casino Royale, in 1953. In 1959 the Sunday Times newspaper commissioned him to tour the world and write about the cities he visited. One was Hong Kong, now a burgeoning capitalist city off the coast of Communist China. The city was returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

  Apart from being the last stronghold of feudal luxury in the world, Hong Kong is the most vivid and exciting city I have ever seen, and I recommend it without reserve to anyone who possesses the fate. It seems to have everything – modern comfort in a theatrically Oriental setting; an equable climate except during the monsoons; beautiful country for walking or riding; all sports, including the finest golf course – the Royal Hong Kong – in the East, the most expensively equipped racecourse and wonderful skin-diving; exciting flora and fauna, including the celebrated butterflies of Hong Kong; and a cost of living that compares favourably with any other tourist city. Minor attractions include really good Western and Chinese restaurants, exotic night life, cigarettes at 1s. 3d. for twenty and heavy Shantung silk suits, shirts, etc., expertly tailored in forty-eight hours.…