194 SUNSHINE At<D SPORT IN 



coffee, and it is surprisiiig how much can be done 

 in so short a time to keep the wolf from the door. 

 These restaurants along the tract are run by a 

 Chinaman, with the racial genius for catering, and 

 he happens to be on this train, a merry fellow, 

 sleek, sociable and eloquent in pidgin-English. 



Repletion, added to the heat, made me some- 

 what oblivious of the scenery during the afternoon, 

 but I recall a general impression of sugar-canes 

 and bananas, with the feathery palm waving over 

 the meaner luxuriance of fern and palmetto, but 

 for the distance of the unimposing mountains, 

 strangely reminiscent of another railroad jaunt 

 eleven years earlier to Buitenzoorg, the gem of 

 Java. 



The landscape is, for the most part, of unbroken 

 flatness, contrasting in this respect with what I was 

 to see a week later in the neighbouring island. 

 Such unpretentious hills as rise above the horizon 

 are far away to the south. Of running water there 

 is therefore little evidence, and the eye rests more 

 often on muddy lagoons, dark haunts of the black 

 maja^ nurseries of the mosquito and concert halls 

 of frogs innumerable. Bird-life is far more varied 

 and abundant than I saw it in the Southern States. 

 The turkey-buzzard, a useful little vulture that kept 

 pace with my wanderings as far as Barbados, the 

 last port of call before Britain, is still conspicuous, 

 wheeling in the air or strutting beside the track, 

 finding no difficulty about earning its modest wage 

 in the country districts, though it is fallen on hard 

 times in Havana city, thanks to the cleansing 

 reforms carried out in its streets and squares by 

 Colonel Gorgas and Dr Finlay. There are also 



