FLORIDA AND THE WEST INDIES 181 



architecture, in green parks and well-dressed 

 women of great beauty ; once more there fell on 

 the ear the strains of seductive music ; once more 

 the palate responded to the spell of careful cookery. 

 What a sharp contrast there was between the 

 palaces and gardens and languorous beauties and 

 discriminating epicures of this beautiful seaport and 

 the shacks, backyards, slatterns and gluttons with 

 the catholic appetite of the hornbill that I re- 

 membered in Florida ! In all my travels there are 

 few lovelier pictures than that of Havana harbour 

 at sunrise, the golden rays lighting first the coloured 

 roofs and then the deserted quays, and last of all 

 the wreck of the ill-starred Maine, and gilding 

 gaily-painted little craft that dance out under the 

 oars of the guadaneros to meet the steamer as soon 

 as she has passed beneath the frowning Morro. 



She is soon boarded by the usual posse of fiscal 

 and medical inquisitors, the latter making a search- 

 ing examination of our health by walking, hat in 

 hand, through the saloon in which we muster for 

 his visit and then, after accepting a cigar from 

 the captain, returning down the gangway to his 

 launch. 



Then, as the Olivette drew to her moorings, 

 came the inevitable struggle with hotel touts. As 

 all the tourists on the boat are bound in a body, 

 personally conducted by an official of the P. & 

 O(ccidental) Company, a man of extraordinary local 

 information, for the Hotel Pasaje, I allow myself, 

 with simulated reluctance, to be carried off by the 

 emissary of the Inglaterra. We go ashore in a tug, 

 not because there is not water enough for steamers 

 of far greater draught alongside the quay, but 



