To Cuba and Back by Richard Henry Dana, Jr.

Tomorrow, I am to go, at eight o'clock either to the church of San Domingo, to hear the military mass, or to the Jesuit church of Belen; for the service of my own church is not publicly celebrated, even at the British Consulate; no service but the Roman Catholic being tolerated on the island.

Tonight there is a public máscara (mask ball) at the great hall, next door to Le Grand's. My only window is by the side of the numerous windows of the great hall, and all these are wide open; and I should be stifled if I were to close mine. The music is loud and violent, from a very large band, with kettle drums and bass drums and trumpets; and because these do not make noise and uproar enough, leather bands are snapped, at the turns in the tunes. For sleeping, I might as well have been stretched on the bass drum. This tumult of noises, and the heat are wearing and oppressive beyond endurance, as it draws on past midnight, to the small hours; and the servants in the court of the hall seem to be tending at tables of quarrelling men, and to be interminably washing and breaking dishes. After several feverish hours, I light a match and look at my watch. It is nearly five o'clock in the morning. There is an hour to daylight -- and will this noise stop before then? The city clocks struck five; the music ceased; and the bells of the convents and monasteries tolled their matins, to call the nuns and monks to their prayers and to the bedsides of the sick and dying in the hospitals, as the maskers go home from their revels at this hideous hour of Sunday morning. The servants ceased their noises, the cocks began to crow and the bells to chime, the trumpets began to bray, and the cries of the streets broke in before dawn, and I dropped asleep just as I was thinking sleep past hoping for; when I am awaked by a knocking at the door, and Antonio calling, "Usted! Usted! Un caballero quiere ver á Usted! " to find it half-past nine, the middle of the forenoon, and an ecclesiastic in black dress and shovel hat, waiting in the passageway, with a message from the bishop.