Most of these niches were already occupied, but in the earth below, by far the greater part of those who die at Havana, are buried without a monument or a grave which they are allowed to hold a longer time than is necessary for their bodies to be consumed in the quicklime which is thrown upon them.  Every day fresh trenches are dug in which their bodies are thrown, generally without coffins.  Two of these, one near each wall of the cemetery, were waiting for the funerals.  I saw where the spade had divided the bones of those who were buried there last, and thrown up the broken fragments, mingled with masses of lime, locks of hair, and bits of clothing.  Without the walls was a receptacle in which the skulls and other larger bones, dark with the mould of the grave, were heaped.

Two or three persons were walking about the cemetery when we first entered, but it was now at length the cool of the day, and the funerals began to arrive.  They brought in first a rude black coffin, broadest at the extremity which contained the head, and placing it at the end of one of the trenches, hurriedly produced a hammer and nails to fasten the lid before letting it down, when it was found that the box was too shallow at the narrower extremity.  The lid was removed for a moment and showed the figure of an old man in a threadbare black coat, white pantaloons, and boots.  The negroes who bore it beat out the bottom with the hammer, so as to allow the lid to be fastened over the feet.  It was then nailed down firmly with coarse nails, the coffin was swung into the trench, and the earth shoveled upon it.  A middle-aged man, wrho seemed to be some relative of the dead, led up a little boy close to the grave and watched the process of filling it.  They spoke to each other and smiled, stood till the pit was filled to the surface, and the bearers had departed, and then retired in their turn.  This was one of the more respectable class of funerals.  Commonly the dead are piled without coffins, one above the other, in the trenches.

The funerals now multiplied.  The corpse of a little child was brought in, uncoffined; and another, a young man who, I was told, had cut his throat for love, was borne towards one of the niches in the wall.  I heard loud voices, which seemed to proceed from the eastern side of the cemetery, and which, I thought at first, might be the recitation of a funeral service; but no funeral service is said at these graves; and, after a time, I perceived that they came from the windows of a long building which overlooked one side of the burial ground.  It was a mad-house.  The inmates, exasperated at the spectacle before them, were gesticulating from the windows—­the women screaming and the men shouting, but no attention was paid to their uproar.  A lady, however, a stranger to the island, who visited the Campo Santo that afternoon, was so affected by the sights and sounds of the place, that she was borne out weeping and almost in convulsions.  As we left the place, we found a crowd of volantes about the gate; a pompous bier, with rich black hangings, drew up; a little beyond, we met one of another kind—­a long box, with glass sides and ends, in which lay the corpse of a woman, dressed in white, with a black veil thrown over the face.