THE CUBA REVIEW 



23 



About four o'clock in the afternoon after the hearty Cuban breakfast and its 

 subsequent much needed siesta, the real fun begins, and you are in luck if you have friends 

 on the Malecon or Paseo del Marti who have bidden you to watch the procession from 

 their private balconies, as the balconies of the various hotels along the line of 

 march, the Miramar, Telegrafo, Inglaterra and Pasaje, as well as that of the American 

 Club are usually packed to suffocation. Those wdio have no claim upon hotel, friend 

 or club, must content themselves with renting one of the thousand iron chairs, which 

 are placed along the route of the procession for the accommodation chiefly of the 

 less wealthy — no disfiguring wooden grandstands being allowed to mar the beauty of 

 the drive. Everywhere are cheerful venders of confetti and serpentina with the droll 

 nasal cry "una peseta papeta" (twenty cents a package) and we were bombarded with 

 confetti and flowers on every side by frfend and stranger alike before we reached the 

 American Club where we stood for three solid hours watching the merry war beneath 

 as the occupants of various carriages and automobiles, pelted each other with accurate 

 and sometimes deadly aim. By five o'clock the carriages were four deep on either side 

 of Central Park and they all trailed long streamers of serpentina after them. The 

 amount of these carnival missiles you have thrown at you attests your popularity, the 

 carriages containing the prettiest girls always having more than others. One won- 

 ders at the fascination of driving around and around a circle not more than a mile in 

 circumference hour after hour for three consecutive afternoons, but the spectacle is 

 certainly amusing to onlookers. 



To begin with, the horses which ordinarily are harnessed double, on carnival days 

 are driven tandem for no seeming reason other than the gallant display it makes. 



THE 



PARADE 



ON THE 



MALECON, 



HAVANA'S 



FAMOUS 



DRIVEWAY 



A 



FLOAT 



OF CUBA'S 



WELL-KNOWN 



SOCIETY 



BEAUTIES. 



