THE CUBA REVIEW. i7 



pina bianco (white pine). Cubans don't care for any other. They are sour to them. 

 You will also get grape-fruit if you want it and the Cuban variety is really dehcious. 



Cubans up the country around Camagiiey call the grape-fruit the foolish orange, 

 because I suppose it looks like a big orange and it is something else, so you may be sure 

 they don't like it. You will also get coffee and milk. Take a very little coffee and a 

 great deal of milk, for there is no deception about Cuban coffee. When you get out in 

 the suburbs and even in the cafes in Havana, the coffee will have a pronounced salty 

 taste, very disagreeable at first, but }fOU get to like it or at least you put up with it as you 

 do with a lot of strange foods and customs in this strange land. You can also get a 

 roll for your breakfast and Havana rolls are fine, though those at Cienfuegos are the 

 best. You might get eggs if you try hard, but you will have to pay extra for them. If 

 you want an elaborate meal, you must wait for the real thing, which begins at ii o'clock. 

 This is the breakfast. The dinner is from 6 to 8. 



As you roam through the streets, you will come across distinctively Irish names 

 like O'Reilly, O'Donnel, O'Farrel and 6'Lawlor. These are the names of descendents 

 of Irishmen who entered the Spanish service after the Battle of the Boyne. On another 

 page you will find a fuller description of many of the quaint thoroughfares of the city. 



Havana was originally called Carenas, that is the place where the city now stands. 

 Sebastian Ocampo put in here a few years ago, to be exact, it was 1508, and found the 

 place everyway suitable for "careening" his boats for necessary repairs. Havana in 1519 

 was known as "San Cristobal de la Habana" and was situated at what is now known as 

 Batabano. But mosquitoes and fevers caused the town's removal to Chorrera on the 

 other side of the island, near its present site. When you take the Vedado cars, you will 

 pass an old building jutting out into the Gulf, which dates back to these times. The pur- 

 poses of the occupants were to give notice of the coming of pirates and filibusters who 

 periodically called in on the city -with disastrous results to the inhabitants. History 

 seriously records that in 1665 one English predatory expedition, which landed on a dark 

 night near the Punta, was frightened away by the noise made by the huge land crabs, 

 and they do make an uncanny noise as they scuttle through the bushes, and by the 

 cucuyos, the Cuban firefly. The latter has two lights on his head that look like auto- 

 mobile lamps and they almost scare people who know what they are. 



When Diego Velasques removed the city to its present place, he gave it the modest 

 name of "Key of the New World." It was burned by pirates in 1528 and that decided 

 Hernando de Soto to begin the construction of La Fuerza. This old fort is at the foot 

 of O'Reilly Street opposite the President's palace and a melancholy interest attaches to 

 it, that when De Soto sailed to Florida on an expedition from which he never returned, 

 his wife waited in La Fuerza for his return and died there of grief. The other notable 

 defenses, the Morro Castle, the Punta and the Cabanas fortress were ordered begun 

 about 1589 by Philip II. These buildings still stand in Havana and the visitor but a few days 

 from the prosaic modern up-to-date United States can feast his eyes on real undeniable 

 objects of antiquity centuries old. These three defences are recorded on the coat of arms 

 of Havana on exhibition everywhere, given the city by the same monarch. It is a shield 

 bearing on a blue field three castles argent in allusion to the three forts of La Fuerza, 

 Morro and the Punta. Under the castles is a golden key to signify that Havana was 

 the key to the Indies, the whole surmounted with a crown. Cabanas was begun because Morro 

 was built. The engineer, Don Juan Bautista Antoneli, pointed out that unless Cabanas 

 was fortified the defences of Morro were of no use as the latter commanded their posi- 

 tion and so Cabanas was constructed. 



You will see bits of old walls here and there in Havana. They were started in 

 1663 and the old city proper was between them and the harbor front. Fifty years ago 

 travelers in describing Havana spoke of going in and out of the gates of these huge 

 walls, so they must have been standing then. 



You will visit the Cathedral, of course. There is a tower at each angle, the floor is 

 of variegated marble, rich frescoed walls and delicate masonry of various colored stone, 

 the prevailing tint being yellow, and a high altar of porphyrj^ There is a look of the 

 great days of Old Spain about it and one can imagine knights and ladies worshipping 

 here in the old days. 



We might go on indefinitely and take the patient reader all over the beautiful 

 island, for there is much of like things to be seen everywhere. We have aimed only to 

 suggest the delights in store, confident that the visitor will, if at all observing, see for 

 himself much more that is beautiful and interesting than here described. 



