in his shirt-sleeves, surrounded by his family, clerks, and
all white employees, sitting in full sight at breakfast, generally in
the business room itself. The midday siesta, an hour later, if not a
necessity in this climate, is a universal custom. The shopkeeper, even
as he sits on duty, drops his head upon his arm and sleeps for an
hour, more or less. The negro and his master both succumb to the same
influence, catching their forty winks, while the ladies, if not
reclining, "lose themselves" with heads resting against the backs of
the universal rocking-chairs. One interior seen by the passer-by is as
like another as two peas. A Cuban's idea of a well-furnished
sitting-room is fully met by a dozen cane-bottom rocking-chairs, and a
few poor chromos on the walls. These rocking-chairs are ranged in two
even lines, reaching from the window to the rear of the room, with a
narrow woollen mat between them on the marble floor, each chair being
conspicuously flanked by a cuspidor. This parlor arrangement is so
nearly universal as to be absolutely ludicrous.

CHAPTER VIII.

Sabbath Scenes in Havana. -- Thimble-Riggers and Mountebanks.
-- City Squares and their Ornamentation. -- The Cathedral. --
Tomb of Columbus. -- Plaza de Armas. -- Out-Door Concerts. --
Habitues of Paseo de Isabella. -- Superbly Appointed Cafes.
-- Gambling. -- Lottery Tickets. -- Fast Life. -- Masquerade
Balls. -- Carnival Days. -- The Famous Tacon Theatre. -- The
Havana Casino. -- Public Statues. -- Beauties of the
Governor's Garden. -- The Alameda. -- The Old Bell-Ringer. --
Military Mass.

On no other occasion is the difference between the manners of a
Protestant and Catholic community so strongly marked as on the
Sabbath. In the former, a sober seriousness stamps the deportment of
the people, even when they are not engaged in devotional exercises; in
the latter, worldly pleasures and religious forms are pursued, as it
were, at the same time, or follow each other in incongruous
succession. We would not have the day made tedious, and it can only be
so to triflers; to the true Christian it will ever be characterized by
thoughtfulness and repose. The Parisian flies from the church to the
railway station to join some picnic excursion, or to assist at the
race-course, or he passes with a careless levity from St. Genevieve to
the dance booths of the Champs Elysees. In New Orleans, the C