terranean
formations. They were discovered accidentally, a few years since, by
some stone quarriers, who, on opening into them, imagined they had
broken the crust of the earth. In driving to the caves the Bay Street
road, through the city, should be taken, which forms one of the finest
thoroughfares of any Cuban town. The architecture of the dwellings is
that of combined Italian, Grecian, and Moorish, ornamented with
colonnades and verandas of stone and iron. Fine as the facades of
these houses are,--none above one story in height,--they present a
faded and forlorn aspect, a sort of dead-and-alive appearance, yet in
accordance with life and business, not only in Matanzas, but all over
the island. This one boulevard of Matanzas ends by the shore of the
bay, where the fine marine view will cause you to forget all other
impressions for the moment, but you will not tarry here. Turning
eastward you soon strike the road to the caves, and _such_ a road--it
is like the bed of a dry mountain torrent.

Persons visiting Matanzas must make up their minds to be content with
indifferent hotel accommodations. In fact there are no really good
hotels in Cuba; those which exist are poor and expensive. On the
inland routes away from the cities there are none, and the humble
hostelries, or posadas, as they are called, are so indifferent in
point of comforts as not to deserve the name of inns. As a rule,
invalids rarely go beyond the cities to remain over night. Brief and
pleasant sojourns may be made at Havana, Cienfuegos, Matanzas, and
Sagua la Grande, from whence excursions can be made by rail or
otherwise and return on the same day. Let us qualify these remarks, as
applied to the Hotel Louvre at Matanzas. There was a degree of
picturesqueness about this establishment which was not without its
attraction, and it was certainly the most cleanly public house in
which we found a temporary home while on the island. Its rooms
surrounded a bright clean court, or patio, planted with creeping
vines, palmettos, bananas, and some fragrant flowering shrubs. The
dining-room is virtually out of doors, being open on all sides, and
opposite the hotel is a small plaza with tropical trees, backed by an
old, musty church, whose bell had the true Spanish trick of giving
tongue at most inopportune moments. The rooms of the Louvre are quite
circumscribed as to space, and the partitions separating the
apartments do not reach to the ceiling, so that privacy, n