fell on the blue and gray and green of the
buildings of the city, and on the red-tiled roofs, with the hills for a
background in one-half of the picture, and the gleaming water of the gulf
in the background of the other half. I had seen the long stretch of the
southern coast of the island, from Cape Antonio to Cape Maisi, while on an
excursion with a part of the army of occupation sent to Porto Rico in the
summer of 1898, and had set foot on Cuban soil at Daiquiri, but Havana in
the morning light, on January 2, 1899, was my first real Cuban experience.
It remains an ineffaceable memory. Of my surroundings and experiences aside
from that, I have no distinct recollection. All was submerged by that one
picture, and quickly buried by the activities into which I was immediately
plunged. I do not recall the length of time we were held on board for
medical inspection, nor whether the customs inspection was on board or
ashore. I recall the trip from the ship to the wharf, in one of the little
sailboats then used for the purpose, rather because of later experiences
than because of the first one. I have no purpose here to write a history
of those busy days, filled as they were with absorbing interest, with much
that was pathetic and not a little that was amusing. I have seen that
morning picture many times since, but never less beautiful, never less
impressive. Nowadays, it is lost to most travellers because the crossing
from Key West is made in the daytime, the boat reaching Havana in the
late-afternoon. Sometimes there is a partial compensation in the sunset
picture, but I have never seen that when it really rivalled the picture at
the beginning of the day.

The visitor to Cuba, unfamiliar with the island, should take it leisurely.
It is not a place through which the tourist may rush, guide book in hand,
making snapshots with a camera, and checking off places of interest as they
are visited. Picturesqueness and quaintness are not at all lacking, but
there are no noble cathedrals, no vast museums of art and antiquity, no
snow-clad mountains. There is a charm of light and shade and color that
is to be absorbed slowly rather than swallowed at a single gulp. It is
emphatically a place in which to dawdle. Let those who are obliged to do
so, work and hurry; the visitor and the traveller should take it without
haste. It is far better to see Havana and its vicinity slowly and
enjoyably, and look at pictures of the rest of the country, th