e time specified, and the monopoly has ever since been rigorously
enforced.

Marti, now possessed of immense wealth, looked about him, to see in what
way he could most profitably invest it to insure a handsome and sure
return. The idea struck him if he could obtain the monopoly of
theatricals in Havana on some such conditions as he had done that of the
right to fish off its shores, he could still further increase his
ill-gotten wealth. He obtained the monopoly, on condition that he should
erect one of the largest and finest theatres in the world, which he did,
as herein described, locating the same just outside the city walls. With
the conditions of the monopoly, the writer is not conversant.

Many romantic stories are told of Marti; but the one we have here
related is the only one that is authenticated, and which has any bearing
upon the present work.

FOOTNOTES:

[27] Tacon governed Cuba four years, from 1834 to 1838.

CHAPTER IX.

The lottery at Havana--Hospitality of the Spaniards--Flattery--Cuban
ladies--Castilian, Parisian and American politeness--The bonnet in
Cuba--Ladies' dresses--The fan--Jewelry and its wear--Culture of
flowers--Reflections--A most peculiar narcotic--Cost of living on
the island--Guines--The cock-pit--Training of the birds--The garden
of the world--Birds of the tropics--Condition of
agriculture--Night-time--The Southern Cross--Natural resources of
Cuba--Her wrongs and oppressions.

There is a monthly lottery in Havana, with prizes amounting to one
hundred and ten thousand dollars, and sometimes as high as one hundred
and eighty thousand dollars, under the immediate direction and control
of the authorities, and which is freely patronized by the first
mercantile houses, who have their names registered for a certain number
of tickets each month. The poorer classes, too, by clubbing together,
become purchasers of tickets, including slaves and free negroes; and it
is but a few years since, that some slaves, who had thus united and
purchased a ticket, drew the first prize of sixty thousand dollars;
which was honestly paid to them, and themselves liberated by the
purchase of their freedom from their masters. Honestly and strictly
conducted as these lotteries are, yet their very stability, and the
just payment of all prizes, but makes them the more baneful and
dangerous in their influence upon the populace. Though now and then a
poor man becomes rich t