but there is much worth seeing inside its walls, the flying buttresses of the super-structure, some old and interesting frescoes, and a system of dome construction that is quite remarkable.  To the latter, my attention was first called by General Ludlow, a distinguished engineer officer of the United States Army, then acting as governor of the city.  To him belongs, although it is very rarely given, the credit for the cleansing of Havana during the First Intervention.  He frequently visited the old convent just to see and study that interior dome construction.  Immediately behind the Palace is the old convent of the Dominicans, less imposing but of about the same period as the Franciscan structure.  It is now used as a high-school building.  The Cathedral, a block to the northward of the Dominican convent building, is of a much later date, having been begun as recently as 1742.  It was originally the convent of the Jesuits, but became the Cathedral in 1789.  Many have believed, on what seems to be acceptable evidence, that here for more than a hundred years rested the bones of Christopher Columbus.  He died in Valladolid in 1506, and was buried there.  His remains were removed to the Carthusian Monastery, in Seville, in 1513.  From there they are said to have been taken, in 1536, to the city of Santo Domingo, where they remained until 1796, when they were brought to Havana and placed in a niche in the walls of the old Cathedral, there to remain until they were taken back to Spain in 1898.  There is still an active dispute as to whether the bones removed from Santo Domingo to Havana were or were not those of Columbus.  At all events, the urn supposed to contain them was in this building for a hundred years, below a marble slab showing a carving of the voyager holding a globe, with a finger pointing to the Caribbean.  Beneath this was a legend that has been thus translated: 

  OH!  REST THOU, IMAGE OF THE GREAT COLON,
  THOUSAND CENTURIES REMAIN, GUARDED IN THE URN,
  AND IN THE REMEMBRANCE OF OUR NATION.

In this neighborhood, to the east of the Plaza de Armas, on which the Palace fronts, is a structure known as El Templete.  It has the appearance of the portico of an unfinished building, but it is a finished memorial, erected in 1828.  The tradition is that on this spot there stood, in 1519, an old ceiba tree under which the newly arrived settlers celebrated their first mass.  The yellow Palace, for many years the official headquarters and the residence of successive Governors-General, stands opposite, and speaks for itself.  In this building, somewhat devoid of architectural merit, much of Cuba’s history, for the last three-quarters of a century, has been written.  The best time to see all this and much more that is to be seen, is the early morning, before the wheels begin to go around.  The lights and shadows are then the best, and the streets are quieter and less crowded.  The different points of interest are easily located by the various guide