n, and chanted in
very loud and often harsh and blatant tones, which reverberate from the
marble walls, with a tiresome monotony of cadence. There is a degree of
ceremony in the placing, replacing, and carrying to and fro of candles
and crucifixes, and swinging of censers, which the Roman service as
practised in the United States does not give. The priests seem duly
attentive and reverent in their manner, but I cannot say as much for the
boys, of whom there were three or four, gentlemen-like looking lads,
from the college, doing service as altar boys. One of these, who seemed
to have the lead, was strikingly careless and irreverent in his manner;
and when he went about the chancel, to incense all who were there, and
to give to each the small golden vessel to kiss, (containing, I suppose
a relic), he seemed as if he were counting his playmates out for a game,
and flinging the censer at them and snubbing their noses with the golden
vessel.

There were only about half a dozen persons at mass, beside those in the
chancel; and all but one of these were women, and of the women two were
Negroes. The women walk in, veiled, drop down on the bare pavement,
kneeling or sitting, as the service requires or permits. A Negro woman,
with devout and even distressed countenance, knelt at the altar rail,
and one pale-eyed priest, in cassock, who looked like an American or
Englishman, knelt close by a pillar. A file of visitors, American or
English women, with an escort of gentlemen, came in and sat on the only
benches, next the columns; and when the Host was elevated, and a priest
said to them, very civilly, in English, "Please to kneel down," they
neither knelt nor stood, nor went away, but kept their seats.

After service, the old sacristan, in blue woollen dress, showed all the
visitors the little chapel and the cloisters, and took us beyond the
altar to the mural tomb of Columbus, and though he was liberally paid,
haggled for two reals more.

In the rear of the Cathedral is the Seminario, or college for boys,
where also men are trained for the priesthood. There are cloisters and a
pleasant garden within them.

V.

HAVANA: Olla Podrida

Breakfast, and again the cool marble floor, white-robed tables, the
fruits and flowers, and curtains gently swaying, and women in morning
toilets. Besides the openness to view, these rooms are strangely open to
ingress. Lottery-ticket vendors go the rounds of the tables at every
meal, an