has the cosmopolitan air. Clubs, cafes, and entertainments abound
and flourish. Its suburbs and nearby towns afford all the allurements
the modern city-man seeks in country life. The rural charms of Marianao
are unsurpassed in any land. Ornately simple architecture marks the
columned houses of its best street. Around it are the cosy cottages in
their luxuriant gardens, and beyond these the open country, a veritable
Eden of foliage, flowers and fruit. In one spot a famous old banyan tree
has thrown out its limbs, thrusting them deep into the soil till they
have sprouted and spread over a five-acre field.

As we traverse the garden landscape in any settled part of the island,
and in Porto Rico, we note the habits of the rustic native in his
interesting simplicity. Poor enough in all conscience, but wonderfully
contented with his crust of bread, his cigarette, the family pig,
bananas for the pickaninnies' staple fare, and the frequent sips of rum
which are to the West Indian laborer what beefsteak is to the American
toiler. He is by no means a drunkard, and if he lacks book-learning
he excels in some civic virtues of the homelier kind, and is not
extravagant in his tailor-bills. The children's costume is usually that
of Eve before the fall, and the apparel of a goodly family might be
bought for the price of a dude's red vest.

Cock-fighting is the favorite native sport. It is encountered at any
hour, anywhere. There are other sports, such as boar hunts, spearing
fish, not to mention that of killing tarantulas, sand-flies, land-crabs,
and the gentle crocodile. The thousand miles of steam railway in Cuba
are unevenly distributed. From Havana the trip through Pinar del Rio
gives an astounding revelation of the wealth of forest and soil and
mines. Devastated as so much of this country was during the long years
of dragging war, its charms of scenery and possibilities of development
will work its speedy salvation. A single acre of choice land has
produced $3,000 worth of tobacco.

Two crops of corn and two of strawberries grow each year, vegetables and
many fruits are superabundant, yet wheat and flour are imported, and
cotton, besides other important staples, can be successfully cultivated.

Journeying to the charming Isle of Pines, and then south and east
through Matanzas, Santa Clara, and Puerto Principe to Santiago, there is
the same invitation of Nature to come and enjoy all that makes earth
lovely. The island is dotted