he road. The safety from overturn was in the long shafts
which allowed free play. In the older days, say sixty or seventy years
ago, the _volante_ or the _quitrin_ was an outward and visible sign of a
well-lined pocket-book. It indicated the possessor as a man of wealth,
probably a rich planter who needed such a vehicle to carry him and his
family from their mansion in the city to their perhaps quite as costly home
on the plantation. The _calisero_, or driver, was dressed in a costume
truly gorgeous, the horses were of the best, and the vehicle itself
may have cost two thousand dollars or more. The operation of such a
contrivance, extending, from the rear of the wheels to the horse's nose,
for twenty feet or more, in the narrow streets of the old city, was a
scientific problem, particularly in turning corners.

Cuba was early in the field with a railway. In 1830, the United States
had only thirty-two miles of line, the beginning of its present enormous
system. Cuba's first railway was opened to traffic in November, 1837. It
was a forty-five mile line connecting Havana with the town of Guines,
southeast of the city. While official permission was, of course, necessary
before the work could be undertaken, it was in fact a Cuban enterprise, due
to the activity of the _Junta de Fomento_, or Society for Improvement. It
was built with capital obtained in London, the construction being in charge
of Mr. Alfred Cruger, an American engineer. Ten years later there were
nearly three hundred miles of line. At the beginning of the American
occupation, in 1899, there were about nine-hundred and fifty miles. There
are now more than 2,000 miles of public service line in operation, and in
addition there are many hundreds of miles of private lines on the sugar
estates. Several cities have trolley lines. For some years after the
American occupation, as before that experience, there was only a
water-and-rail connection, or an all-water route, between the eastern and
western sections of the island. The usual route from Havana to Santiago
was by rail to Batabano or to Cienfuegos, and thence by steamer. The
alternative was an all-water route, consuming several days, by steamer
along the north coast, with halts at different ports, and around the
eastern end of the island to the destination. It is now an all-rail run of
twenty-four hours. The project for a "spinal railway" from one end of
the island to the other had been under consideration for man