level.
Many cheerful circles are gathered here and there, some dancing to the
notes of a guitar, some singing, and others engaged in quiet games.
Merry peals of laughter come from one direction and another, telling
of light and thoughtless hearts among the family groups. Occasionally
there is borne along the range of roofs the swelling but distant
strains of the military band playing in the Plaza de Isabella, while
the moon looks calmly down from a sky whose intensely blue vault is
only broken by stars.

The cemetery, or Campo Santo, of Havana is situated about three miles
outside of the city. A high wall incloses the grounds, in which
oven-like niches are prepared for the reception of the coffins
containing the bodies of the wealthy residents, while the poor are
thrown into shallow graves, often several bodies together in a long
trench, negroes and whites, without a coffin of any sort. Upon them is
thrown quicklime to promote rapid decomposition. The cremation which
forms the mode of disposing of the bodies of the deceased as practiced
in India is far less objectionable.

The funeral cortege is unique in Havana. The hearse, drawn by four
black horses, is gilded and decked like a car of Juggernaut, and
driven by a flunkey in a cocked hat covered with gold braid, a scarlet
coat alive with brass buttons and gilt ornaments, and top boots which,
as he sits, reach half-way to his chin. This individual flourishes a
whip like a fishing-pole, and is evidently very proud of his position.
Beside the hearse walk six hired mourners on either side, dressed in
black, with cocked hats and swallow-tail coats. Fifteen or twenty
victorias follow, containing only male mourners. The driver in
scarlet, the twelve swallow-tails in black, and the occupants of the
victorias each and all are smoking cigars as though their lives
depended upon the successful operation. And so the cortege files into
the Campo Santo.

Not far from La Punta there is a structure, protected from the public
gaze by a high wall, where the slaves of either sex belonging to the
citizens of Havana are brought for punishment. Within are a series of
whipping-posts, to which these poor creatures are bound before
applying the lash to their bare bodies. The sight of this fiendish
procedure is cut off from the public, but more than one person has
told us of having heard the agonizing cries of the victims. And yet
there are people who will tell us these poor creatures are far