t and shut out air. As some
barrier is necessary to keep passers, even Americans, from intrusive
entrance by the windows whose bottoms are at floor level, the system of
iron bars or elaborate grille work is adopted. Few Americans see much, if
anything, of Cuban home life except as they see it through these barriers
as they pass. It is not the custom of the country to invite promiscuous or
casual acquaintances to call. It is even less the custom there than it is
with us. A book about Cuba, published a few years ago, gives a somewhat
extended account of what is called "home life," but it is the home life of
workmen and people who do laundry work to eke out a meagre living. It is
not even the life of fairly paid artisans, or of people of modest but
comfortable income. It is no more a proper description of the domestic life
of the island than would be a presentation of the life in the palaces of
the wealthy. Such attempts at description are almost invariably a mistake,
conveying, whether from purpose or from indifference to truth, a false
impression. Domestic economy and household management vary in Cuba as
they vary in the United States, in France, England, Japan, or Mexico. The
selection of an individual home, or of several, as a basis for description,
in Cuba or anywhere else, can only result in a picture badly out of drawing
and quite misleading.

There are Cuban homes, as there are American homes, that are slatternly and
badly managed, and there are Cuban homes that are as spick and span and as
orderly in their administration as any home in this country. Their customs,
as are ours, are the result of environment and tradition. To some of us, a
rectangle of six or eight rocking-chairs, placed in the centre of a room,
in which family and visitors sit and rock while they talk, may seem
curious, but it is a custom that we may not criticize either with fairness
or common decency. The same may be said of the not uncommon custom of using
a part of the street floor of the house as a stable. It is an old custom,
brought from Spain. But I have wandered from description to incident. I
have no intention to attempt a description of Cuban home life, beyond
saying that I have been a guest in costly homes in the city and in the
little palm-leaf "shacks" of peasants, and have invariably found in both,
and in the homes of intermediate classes, only cordial hospitality and
gracious courtesy. Those who have found anything different have carr