r of tradition, but often chill and
raw, and then there is no escape from it except to shut yourself in your
room; and that means hermetically sealing, for when you close a window
here you close a shutter, and thus, if you shut out the breeze, you shut
the light out also. The doors and windows are not meant to exclude the
air, and so when the breeze gets on a frolic it whirls up stairs and
down--goeth, in fact, where it listeth; and sometimes one feels it going
through him like a knife.

The houses are built in one width of rooms round a hollow square;
consequently, when you put your boots out you put them out of doors. In
the midst of the house, with the sky overhead, the umbrageous palm tree
and banana spread their broad leaves. The rooms are high and white, with
little furniture, and no curtains, with open ceiling of painted rafters,
and iron gratings, like a prison's bars, shutting out the street in the
front of the house. Behind these gratings the passer-by may see the
Cuban family arranged in two prim rows of arm-chairs _vis-a-vis_,
or gathered about the bars as if looking for some means of escape.
Occasionally now in some of the better quarters a child of either sex,
but black as night, disports itself in full view, "covered by the
darkness only." There is an infinite variety of opinion in regard to the
clothing necessary to comfort here. I have often found a light overcoat
comfortable, but there is a tribe or clan from some Spanish province
whose boast it is to wear coat nor vest by day or night. The
representatives of the various provinces maintain their individuality
here, and preserve for festive occasions the costumes which characterize
them in Spain. Some of these are very rich, and many of the men,
especially of the lower orders, being stalwart and handsome, their gala
appearance is decidedly striking. In the fete in honor of Alfonso XII.
there were some beautiful groups of men, women and children in Spanish
costumes, dancing in the procession with silk emblems and flower
wreaths, and singing provincial songs. Others were mounted on the
splendid Andalusian horses, which make one's mouth water with desire to
ride them. They are as beautiful as Fromentin and Gerome have painted
them--such eyes and nostrils, and such action! It has taken centuries to
produce him, but at last there is a saddle-horse: if only for parade
occasions, that is no matter. He is perfect in his kind. The Arab keeps
his horse in his ten