A "Thousand'Mile Walk 



so neatly and becomingly dressed. The proud 

 best-family Cubans may fairly be called beau- 

 tiful, are under- rather than over-sized, with 

 features exquisitely moulded, and set off with 

 silks and broadcloth in excellent taste. Strange 

 that their amusements should be so coarse. 

 Bull-fighting, brain-splitting bell-ringing, and 

 the most piercing artificial music appeal to 

 their taste. 



The rank and wealth of Havana nobility, 

 when out driving, seems to be indicated by the 

 distance of their horses from the body of the 

 carriage. The higher the rank, the longer the 

 shafts of the carriage, and the clumsier and 

 more ponderous are the wheels, which are 

 not unlike those of a cannon-cart. A few of 

 these carriages have shafts twenty-five feet in 

 length, and the brilliant-liveried negro driver 

 on the lead horse, twenty or thirty feet in 

 advance of the horse in the shafts, is beyond 

 calling distance of his master. 



Havana abounds in public squares, which in 

 all my random strolls throughout the big town 

 [ 154] 



