i88 SUNSHINE AND SPORT IN 



advocate. I want to forget that commercial 

 traveller in petticoats, yet I like to remember her 

 as the justification of Havana's bad opinion of her 

 countrymen, which would otherwise savour of base 

 ingratitude. 



On the Sunday afternoon, having breakfasted 

 in my favourite window-seat, which the handsome 

 waiter at the Miramar — a cross between Mr Lewis 

 Waller and Mr C. B. Fry, and the most athletic 

 looking Cuban of my acquaintance — regularly kept 

 for me, and having then read some European 

 papers at the German Club, of which Herr Upmann 

 was so good as to make me free during my stay, I 

 drove out to the great hall of the Fronton to see a 

 tournament of Jai Alai, otherwise my old friend 

 Pelota under a provincial name. It was the old 

 game that I used to watch at Biarritz. There were 

 redoubted Spanish players in the programme, and 

 the play was, as it always is, bewilderingly fast. 

 First, two blues opposed two whites in a partido, 

 thirty points up ; then there was a quinielo, an all- 

 against-all melee in couples, six points to win. As 

 in tennis, fives and other games, scoring is only by 

 the opponent's miss. 



This is undoubtedly one of the finest specta- 

 cular games ever devised. To enjoy watching 

 cricket or golf, some understanding of the game is 

 essential, but pelota, in which the ball is sometimes 

 on the move for five minutes before a point is 

 scored, is most exciting even to those who know 

 nothing of the rules. Equally, it is a game only 

 for professionals, who are entered to it in their boy- 

 hood and who, if they come to the front rank, earn 

 several hundred dollars a month. A few ambitious 



