tyle, with a dash
of Moorish flavor in it, recalling Tangier and other cities of Morocco.
The governor's palace is a building of some pretension, two stories in
height, with a veranda on each, and a tall square tower at one end of
the edifice. Having visited the plaza, the alameda, with its fine array
of cocoa-palms, the municipal palace, the custom-house, the public
library, and the large church fronting the plaza, one has about
exhausted the main features of interest. This latter structure is an
imposing building, but it will in no respect compare with the cathedrals
of the other cities which we have described. There are a fair number of
public schools in the town, two well-endowed hospitals, public baths,
and a few other institutions worthy of a progressive people. A
thoroughfare, called the Street of Christ, leads out to the Campo Santo,
half a mile away. This burial-place is an area surrounded by high walls,
built very thick of rubble-stones and adobe, in which the tombs are made
to receive the bodies instead of placing them in the ground. This
neglected city of the dead has been taken in hand by Nature herself, and
wild flowers are seen amid the sombre and dreary surroundings, rivaling
in beauty and fragrance many cultivated favorites.

The city houses are built of coral limestone, stuccoed. The roofs, when
pitched, are covered with tiles of a dull red color, but they are nearly
all flat. The interior arrangements are like those elsewhere described.
Each house of the better class has its square inner court, or patio,
round which the dwelling is constructed, and this is ornamented more or
less prettily, according to the owner's taste, potted plants always
forming a prominent feature, together with an array of caged singing
birds. The long windows are guarded by significant iron bars, like the
dwelling-houses throughout this country and in Havana. Sometimes on the
better class of houses this iron work is rendered quite ornamental. The
narrow streets are kept scrupulously clean, and are paved with
cobble-stones which we were told were brought by ships from the coast of
New England, and have a gutter running down the middle. There is an
abundance of active, keen-eyed scavengers waddling about, always on the
alert to pick up and devour domestic refuse or garbage of any sort which
is found in the streets. These are the dark-plumed, funereal-looking
buzzard, or vulture, a bird which is protected by law, and depended on
t