On the hill, a little back of El Vedado, are two “points of interest” for visitors; the old fortress, el Castillo del Principe, and the cemetery.  In the latter are some notable monuments.  One is known as the Firemen’s Monument.  For many years, Havana has had, supplementary to its municipal organization, a volunteer firemen’s corps.  In various ways the latter resembles a number of military organizations in the United States.  It is at once a somewhat exclusive social club and a practical force.  Membership is a social distinction.  If you are in Havana and see men in admirably tailored, uniforms and fire helmets, rushing in a particular direction in cabs, carriages or automobiles, you may know that they are members of the Bomberos del Comercio on their way to a conflagration.  Most excellent real work they have done again and again in time of fire and flood.  On parade, they look exceedingly dapper with their helmets, uniforms, boots and equipment, somewhat too dandified even to suggest any smoke other than that of cigars or cigarettes.  But they are the “real thing in smoke-eaters” when they get to work.  They have a long list of heroic deeds on their records.  The monument in Colon Cemetery commemorates one of those deeds.  In an extensive and dangerous fire, in May, 1890, thirty of these men lost their lives.  A few years later, this beautiful and costly shaft was erected, by private subscription, as a tribute to their valor and devotion.  Another shaft, perhaps no less notable, commemorates a deplorable and unpardonable event.  A number of medical students, mere boys, in the University of Havana, were charged with defacing the tomb of a Spanish officer who had been killed by a Cuban in a political quarrel.  At its worst, it was a boyish prank, demanding rebuke or even some mild punishment.  Later evidence indicates that while there was a demonstration there was no defacement of the vault.  Forty-two students were arrested as participants, tried by court-martial, and sentenced to be shot.  Eight of them were shot at La Punta, at the foot of the Prado near the sea-front, and the remainder sentenced to imprisonment for life.  All of these, I believe, were afterward released.  The Students’ Monument expresses the feeling of the Cubans in the matter, a noble memorial.  There are numerous other shafts and memorials that are notable and interesting.  A number of Cuba’s leaders, Maximo Gomez, Calixto Garcia, and others, are buried in this cemetery.

[Illustration:  A RESIDENCE IN EL VEDADO]

Further on, to the southeast, are other sections of the new Havana, the districts of Cerro and Jesus del Monte.  El Vedado has largely supplanted these neighborhoods as the “court end” of the city.  Many of the fine old residences of forty or fifty years ago still remain, but most of them are now closely surrounded by the more modest homes of a less aristocratic group.  A few gardens remain to suggest what they were in the earlier days.