1 86 SUNSHINE AND SPORT IN 



one, I hurried in the opposite direction. I should 

 have liked to be able to say that, risking the 

 certainty of ridicule and the probability of a knife in 

 the small of my back, I rushed in and rescued the 

 crab at the point of my cane ; unfortunately, 

 candour compels me to admit that I did nothing of 

 the kind, though I doubt whether any infliction, 

 moral or physical, could have hurt" me more than 

 the haunting memory of the sufferer for the next 

 few days. I afterwards learnt that even an appeal 

 to the police would in all probability have .been in- 

 operative, resulting only in my detention in the 

 island for being mixed up in a street disturbance, 

 and in the weight of the testimony of fifteen liars 

 against my own, for these youths, allowed unlimited 

 pocket-money by well-to-do parents, spend no in- 

 considerable portion of this unearned increment in 

 bribing the myrmidons of the law to wink at their 

 peccadilloes. Fiat justitia ! Cuba is great, and if 

 these students are a fair sample of the nation that 

 Uncle Sam has liberated from the yoke of Madrid 

 (probably they are not), he might perhaps have 

 used his men and ships to better purpose. It 

 might be thought that the liberators of Cuba would 

 be hailed as saviours by the freed. I cannot 

 truthfully say that this seems to be the case. Two 

 Cubanos of widely different station, the one a 

 wealthy merchant, the other an hotel dragoman, 

 described them to me as vulgar fellows who flock 

 to Havana as if it were a wild-beast show and cash 

 a five-dollar bill so as to jingle the change in their 

 pockets and impress the natives with their wealth. 

 In fairness to both parties concerned, it may be 

 pointed out that, while a number of charming and 



