SUBURBS OF HAVANA. 
121 
from the profusion of wild tulips; and where the road crosses the old 
Zanja (ditch) or aqueduct which formerly brought the Almendares water 
to Havana; Le Cienaga, with its ancient cemetery, Puentes Grandes, past 
the site of the Columbia Camp, the Cuban Army barracks at Quemados, 
overlooking the sea, beyond which is the Marianao station, where carriages 
are taken for the town and the attractions in the vicinity. 
La Playa de Marianao, the beach of Marianao, two miles distant 
and connected by rail, is the fashionable shore bathing resort of 
Havana. The Havana Yacht Club has its house here. 
At Regla, on the eastern side of the harbor opposite the city, con¬ 
nection is made by ferry from Luz wharf with the trains of the United 
Railways for Matanzas and other points. I he place was visited by 
thousands when it had a bull ring, but there is nothing there now to attract 
visitors. It is an important railroad terminal and shipping point, and has 
immense sugar and tobacco warehouses (almacenes), with a statue to 
their builder, Juan Eduardo Fesser. The church is named in honor of 
Our Lady of Regia, who is special patroness of sailors and boatmen. There 
are displayed in the church many offerings of miniature arms, legs, hearts 
and other silver tokens, such as are sold in the religious shops and are 
given to a special Virgin or Saint who has answered prayers for cure of 
disease or other service. Regia was at one time notorious as the resort 
of a gang of pirates who operated on the north coast about Matanzas and 
Cardenas, and retired to Regia to dissipate their easily gotten wealth in 
high living and debauchery. It is recorded that when one of the leading 
pirates built a magnificent palace, from the exterior walls of which the red 
stucco constantly peeled off, his Regia neighbors explained the phenomenon 
by saying “so much blood is mixed with it that it cannot stick.” The 
atrocities of the pirates on the coast of Cuba finally became so flagrant 
that the United States and Great Britain united to exterminate them. 
The last act of piracy occurred in the year 1839, when the brig Halcione, 
bound from Jamaica to Nova Scotia, was taken off Cape San Antonio and 
all of the crew were murdered except one man, who eluded discovery, 
swam ashore and gava information which led to the capture of the pirates, 
and all of them were garroted in Havana. It was a nineteenth century 
illustration of that darker side of the profession of piracy, which was 
hinted at by old John Esquemeling in his “History of the Bucaniers of 
America,” when, after drawing an alluring picture of the joys and rich 
rewards of the sea-rover’s calling, he added by way of caution, “But that 
