ously
painted and embellished. This image represents the patron saint,
Santiago, beneath whose feet burns night and day a small oil lamp. The
object for which this luminary is intended is ignored by me for many
days, and meanwhile I use it, when nobody is looking, for the lighting
of my cigarettes. My authority for this sacrilegious act is derived from
my companion, Nicasio, who is a liberal-minded Catholic, and as I find
he also performs the same ceremony in his own dormitory, my conscience
is relieved. Equally mysterious are a couple of dry fonts which have in
all respects the appearances of china watch-pockets. I make use of one
for the accommodation of my time-piece, until I am informed that only
holy water is allowed to repose within its sacred embraces.

In fine weather my slumbers at night are uninterrupted, but when it
rains--and in Cuba it never rains but it pours in bucketfuls--my rest is
at intervals sorely disturbed. I dream that a thousand belligerent cats
are at civil war on the Roman-tiled roof above me, and that for some
unknown reason I alone expiate their bloodthirsty crimes, by enduring a
horrible penance, which consists in the historical torture of a slow and
perpetual stream of liquid which dribbles upon my bare cranium. I awake
suddenly to find that my nightmare has not been unfounded. Something
damp, proceeding from the sloping roof, drops at regular intervals upon
my forehead. By the light of the patron saint who watches over me I
perceive that the rain has found an inlet through a gotera in the roof.
A gotera is a hole in the tiles, formed during the day by the action of
the baking sun upon the mortar, which yields to its cracking influence
and leaves an aperture. Rising hurriedly in the dead of night, I remove
my catre to a dry corner, and at the same time place a basin beneath the
spot from whence the drops of rain issue. Once more I awake under the
same moistening influence. A fresh gotera has arisen over my dry place
of repose. Again I shift my ground, and use an empty pail for the
accommodation of the intrusive element; but fresh goteras appear
wherever I pitch my catre, until, having circumnavigated all the safe
coasts of my tempestuous apartment and exhausted every receptacle for
water, I take up my bed and deposit it in an adjoining chamber, which
happening to be unoccupied and free from goteras, allows my slumbers to
remain undisturbed till morning.

Don Benigno's family take what we s