Any one wishing to verify these remarks, has only to go on the Paseo a little before sunset upon a Sunday evening, when he will be sure to meet nine-tenths of the population and the Volantes all in gayest attire.

The weather on my arrival was very wet, and I was therefore unable to go into the country for some days; but having cleared up, I got my passport and took a trip into the interior.
[Illustration: "EL CASERO," THE PARISH HAWKER IN CUBA.] The railway cars are built on the American models, i.e., long cars, capable of containing about forty or fifty people; but they have had the good sense to establish first, second, and third-class carriages; and, at the end of each first-class carriage, there is a partition, shutting off eight seats, so that any party wishing to be private can easily be so.

They travel at a very fair pace, but waste much time at the stopping-places, and whole hours at junctions.

By one of these conveyances I went to Matanzas, which is very prettily situated in a lovely bay.

There is a ridge, about three miles from the town, which is called the Cumbre, from the summit whereof you obtain a beautiful view of the valley of the Yumuri, so called from a river of that name, and concerning which there is a legend that it is famous for the slaughter of the Indians by the Spaniards; a legend which, too probably, rests on the foundation of truth, if we are to judge by the barbarities which dimmed the brilliancy of all their western conquests.