y. Because real road-making in Cuba is quite a modern
institution, an enterprise to which, in their phrase, the Spanish
Government did not "dedicate" itself, the Cuban wagons and carts of today
are chiefly those of the older time. They are heavy, cumbrous affairs with
large wheels, a diameter necessitated by the deep ruts through which a
passage was made. A smaller wheel would soon have been "hub-deep" and
hopelessly stuck. So, too, with the carriages of the nabobs. The poorer
people, when they travelled at all, went on foot or on horseback, as our
ancestors did. The nabobs had their _volantes_, still occasionally, but
with increasing rarity, seen in some parts of the island. Forty years ago,
such vehicles, only a little changed from the original type, were common
enough in Havana itself. About that time, or a few years earlier, the
four-wheeler began to supplant them for city use.

There is a technical difference between the original type of _volante_ and
its successor which, though still called a _volante_ was properly called a
_quitrin_. The only real difference was that the top of the _quitrin_ was
collapsible, and could be lowered when desirable, while the top of
the _volante_ was not. I have ridden in these affairs, I cannot say
comfortably, over roads that would have been quite impossible for any other
wheeled vehicle. At the back, and somewhat behind the body were two wheels,
six feet in diameter. From, the axle, two shafts projected for a distance,
if memory serves me, of some twelve or fifteen feet. A little forward of
the axle, the body, not unlike the old-fashioned American chaise, was
suspended on stout leather straps serving as springs. Away off in front, at
the end of the shafts, was a horse on which the driver rode in a heavy and
clumsy saddle. For long-distance travel, or for particularly rough roads,
a second horse was added, alongside the shaft horse, and sometimes a third
animal. The motion was pleasant enough over the occasional smooth places,
but the usual motion was much like that of a cork in a whirlpool, or of a
small boat in a choppy sea. Little attention was paid to rocks or ruts; it
was almost impossible to capsize the thing. One wheel might be two feet or
more higher than the other, whereupon the rider on the upper side would be
piled on top of the rider or riders on the lower side, but there was always
a fair distribution of this favor. The rocks and ruts were not always on
the same side of t