Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 September 1898 — THE SAFFRON CITY. [ARTICLE]

THE SAFFRON CITY.

Havana as It Has Been Recently Described by a Tourist Havana is bounded by beauty on one side, by ignorance on the other, Remarks Edgar Saltus in Collier’s Weekly. The approach to it, particularly in the early morning, is exceeded in loveliness by perhaps but two or three other ports. There are many exquisite things in the world, and among them, near the head of the list, stands dawn in the tropics. It is sudden as love and just as fair. Dawn in. the Havaneje harbor is a foretaste of what Paradise may be. The tourist who has sailed that way passes a night beneath stars that are larger and more neighborly than our own. The water, too, is different. At Key West it looks like a lawn in May. It has the same asparagus green. Then it changes. It liecomes seamed with phosphorus. As the stars disappear it changes again, and very suddenly, into a sirup of opals. At the horizonis a tender pink. Overhead is a fusion of salmon and blue. Just beyond, within rifle range, is an amphitheater of houses partly colored as rainbows, tiaraed with the pearl points of a cathedral, girded with the yellow walls of a crumbling fort. ' Every city has an aspect and an odor of its own. Paris, for instance, has a white sky, and smells like a pretty woman. The aspect of Havana is saffron. It smells of rancid oil.' In addition it suggests Seville. Though the Moors have never been thtere, it looks as though they had. There is a saying which runs “Que no ha vista Sevilla on ha vista maravilla”—not to have seen Seville is not to have seena marvel. In view of recent events it is proper and pertinent to give the saying a twist.—“ Que no ha vista. Habana, ha vista nada.” It does not rhyme as well, but as nada means nothing it ought to pass in a crowd.