The horses are generally very neat and compact, and about the size of a very small English hack.  For riding there are two kinds—­the Spanish, which goes at the “rack” or amble pace, and the American, which goes the regular pace; the broad foreheads, short heads, and open nostrils show plenty of good breeding.  The charges both for horses and Volante, if you wish to go out of the town, are, like everything else in Cuba, ridiculously exorbitant.  An American here is doing a tolerably good business in letting horses and carriages.  For a short evening drive, we had the pleasure of paying him thirty-five shillings.  He says his best customers are a gang of healthy young priests, whom he takes out nearly daily to a retired country village famous for the youth and beauty of its fair sex, and who appear to be very dutiful daughters of the Church, as they are said to appreciate and profit by the kind visits of these excellent young men and their zealous labours of love.

There is a very good view of the town from the top of the hotel[X].  Most of the houses have both flat and sloping roofs, the latter covered with concave red tiles, cemented together with white, thus giving them a strange freckled appearance; while in many cases the dust and dew have produced a little soil, upon which a spontaneous growth of shrubbery has sprung up; the flat roofs have usually a collection of little urn-shaped turrets round the battlement, between which are stretched clothes-lines.  Here the ebony daughters of Eve, with their bullet-heads and polished faces and necks, may be seen at all hours hanging up washed clothes, their capacious mouths ornamented with long cigars, at which they puff away like steam-engines.

One of the first sights I witnessed was a funeral, but not the solemn, imposing ceremony which that word conveys to English ears.  The sides of the hearse and the upper part of the coffin were made of glass; inside lay a little girl, six or seven years old, dressed as if going to a wedding, and decorated with gay flowers.  Volantes followed, bearing the mourners—­or the rejoicers; I know not which is the more correct term.  One or two were attired in black, but generally the colours were gay; some were quietly smoking cigars, which it is to be hoped they did that the ashes at the end thereof might afford them food for profitable reflection.  Custom is said to be second nature, and I suppose, therefore, one could get habituated to this system if brought up under it; but, seen for the first time, it is more calculated to excite feelings of curiosity than solemnity.  Doubtless, some fond parent’s heart was bleeding deeply, and tears such as a mother only can shed were flowing freely, despite the gay bridal appearance of the whole ceremony.