ly, the
oldest, quaintest town on the island,--in fact, it may be said to be a
finished town, as the world has gone on so fast that the place seems a
million years old, and from its style of dress, a visitor might think he
was put back almost to the days of Columbus." There have been changes
since that time, but the old charm is still there, the narrow and crooked
streets, forming almost a labyrinth, the old buildings, and much else that
I earnestly hope may never be changed. There is now an up-to-date hotel,
connected with the railway company, but if I were to go there again and the
old hotel was habitable, I know I should go where I first stayed, and where
we occupied a huge barrack-like room charged on our bill as "_habitaciones
preferentes_," the state chamber. It had a dirty tiled floor, and was the
home of many fleas, but there was something about it that I liked. I do not
mean to say that all of Camaguey, "the city of the plain," is lovely, or
picturesque or even interesting. No more is all of Paris, or Budapest,
or Amsterdam, or Washington. They are only so in some of their component
parts, but it is those parts that remain in the memory. The country around
the city is a vast plain, for many years, and still, a grazing country, a
land of horses and cattle. The charm is in the city itself. If I could see
only one place outside of Havana, I would see Camaguey. A little less than
fifty miles to the north is Nuevitas, reached by one of the first railways
built in Cuba, now if ever little more than the port city for its larger
neighbor. Columbus became somewhat ecstatic over the region. Perhaps it was
then more charming, or the season more favorable, than when I saw it. I
do not recall any feeling of special enthusiasm about its scenic charms.
Perhaps I should have discovered them had I stayed longer. Perhaps I should
have been more impressed had it not been for the impressions of Camaguey. I
saw Nuevitas only briefly on my way eastward on that memorable excursion by
construction train and saddle. The only route then available was by boat
along the north shore, and it was there that we caught the steamer for
Santiago.

That sail along the coast would have afforded greater pleasure had it
lacked the noisy presence of an itinerant opera company whose members
persisted, day and night, in exercising their lungs to the accompaniment of
an alleged piano in the cabin. I have a far more pleasant recollection, or
rather a memo