HA VAN A. 
19 
A BIT OF OBISPO. 
One of Havana’s most picturesque and interesting streets. 
numerous guadanos, passenger boats of a type peculiar to these waters; 
they are very heavy and substantial in construction, equipped with an 
awning in the stern and manned by a class of stout-armed and weather¬ 
beaten boatmen called guadaneros. 
It will be noted that most of the steamships lie at moorings in the bay. 
At Havana, as practically at all the ports of Cuba, cargoes of vessels 
are discharged by lighters. In some places this is due to lack of water; 
but here in Havana and in most ports'it is because the lighterage in¬ 
terests are powerful enough to prevent any change. At Havana, where 
80 per cent, of the imports and 60 per cent, of the exports of the island 
are handled, it costs as much to discharge a ton of cargo over the 200 
yards from ship to shore as it does to bring that ton from Liverpool or 
Barcelona. Gen. Bliss, who was at the head of the Havana customs 
service during the American occupation, estimated that the cost of light¬ 
erage in Cuba during the three and one-half years amounted to not less 
than $10,000,000, which sum represented the increased cost the consumers 
had to pay. 
Our ship does not dock, but comes to her moorings at a buoy, not far 
removed it may be, from the spot where the United States battleship 
