to go, for a peseta, or a quarter, if within certain officially prescribed bounds.  If you desire to go beyond those bounds, make a bargain with your driver or be prepared for trouble.  Down in the old city are to be found several restaurants that are well worth visiting, for those who want good food.  I shall not advertise the particular places, but they are well known.  As the early morning is the best time to see the old city, the forenoon is the best time for shopping.  Such an expedition may well be followed by the almuerzo, the midday breakfast or lunch, whichever one sees fit to call it, at one of these restaurants.  After that, it is well to enjoy a midday siesta, in preparation for the afternoon function on the Prado and the Malecon.

V

THE NEW HAVANA

The new Havana, the city outside the old wall, is about as old as Chicago but not nearly as tall.  There is no reason why it should be.  Here are wide streets and broad avenues, and real sidewalks, some of them about as wide as the entire street in the old city.  About 1830, the region beyond the wall was held largely by Spaniards to whom grants of land had been made for one reason or another.  These tracts were plantations, pastures, or unimproved lands, according to the fancy of the proprietor who usually lived in the city and enjoyed himself after the manner of his kind.  Here and there, a straggling village of palm-leaf huts sprang up.  The roads were rough tracks.  To Governor-General Tacon seems due much of the credit for the improvement beyond the walls.  During his somewhat iron-handed rule several notable buildings were erected, some of them by his authority.  The most notable feature of the district is the renowned Prado, a broad boulevard with a park between two drive-ways, running from the water-front, at the entrance to the harbor, southward for about a mile.  A few years ago, rows of trees shaded the central parkway, but they were almost entirely wrecked by the hurricanes in 1906 and 1910.

A half mile or so from its northern end, the Prado runs along the west side of the Parque Central, the most notable of the numerous little squares of walks and trees and flowers.  A block or two further on is a little park with an excellent statue, known as La India.  Opposite that is another really beautiful park, from the western side of which runs a broad street that leads to the Paseo de Carlos Tercero, formerly the Paseo de Tacon, one of the monuments left to his own memory by one of Cuba’s most noted Spanish rulers.  The Paseo runs westward to El Castillo del Principe, originally a fortress but now a penitentiary.  The Prado stops just beyond the companion parks, La India and Colon.  These originally formed the Campo de Marte, laid out by General Tacon and, in his time, used as a military parade ground.  In a way, the Parque Central is the centre of the city.  It is almost that, geographically,