t, but the Cuban keeps his in his house. We should
say that the horse-owning Cuban sleeps over a stable, but no doubt to
his mind his stable is merely under his room. A rich gentleman in town
has encased his horses in a beautiful drawing-room of cedar and
satin-wood, and it is rather pleasant than otherwise to pass through it
on the way to the other apartments.

The houses of Havana are low; the streets are narrow; the sidewalks
ditto: there is an occasional plaza of broad, white glare, which must be
intolerable in summer-time. The Prado has trees which are rather Dutch
than tropical; and the Paseo, where the driving is, is quite a fine
avenue. This afternoon, though it is Lent, the Carnival will rage there.
Some people go in masks, but not many; and there are no confetti. It is
mainly a parade--rich people turning out in their best, poor people
making light of their poverty: the rich gorgeous in apparel, and
splendid in equipage, the poor arrayed in some gay, inexpensive motley,
and crowded into miserable vehicles. The particolored costumes give an
aspect of brightness to the street; but it is a solemn sight to see four
Cuban women, of the middle age, drawn by a four-in-hand, arrayed in full
ball-dress, powdered and bejeweled, and passing in review of admiring
mankind.

The ugliness of the women amounts to a vice, and is unredeemed by any
quality such as sometimes palliates plainness of features. I have cried
aloud for the beautiful Cuban, but in vain. I am assured that she
exists, am told, "My dear fellow, you never made a greater mistake in
your life," am poohpoohed in various ways; but I cannot find her. I hear
it said that owing to the political chaos here she has retired from
public view, but it is not denied that she will go to the Carnival and
the opera. I was warned not to expect her at the ball in Alfonso's honor
at the Spanish Club, and certainly it was a timely warning. Fancy a long
hall of colored marble, pillars running the length of it forming
arcades; balconies on both sides hanging over the streets, and full of
young men smoking cigarettes; men parading up and down the hall and
quizzing the women, who were all seated--two rows of them, hundreds all
together--seriously contemplating the male procession: enameled,
powdered, attired in the wealth of the Indies, saying nothing, doing
nothing, not smiling, not blinking, just sitting there, an awful array
of hideousness. After the band struck up and the danc