There is a technical difference between the original type of volante and its successor which, though still called a volante was properly called a quitrin.  The only real difference was that the top of the quitrin was collapsible, and could be lowered when desirable, while the top of the volante was not.  I have ridden in these affairs, I cannot say comfortably, over roads that would have been quite impossible for any other wheeled vehicle.  At the back, and somewhat behind the body were two wheels, six feet in diameter.  From, the axle, two shafts projected for a distance, if memory serves me, of some twelve or fifteen feet.  A little forward of the axle, the body, not unlike the old-fashioned American chaise, was suspended on stout leather straps serving as springs.  Away off in front, at the end of the shafts, was a horse on which the driver rode in a heavy and clumsy saddle.  For long-distance travel, or for particularly rough roads, a second horse was added, alongside the shaft horse, and sometimes a third animal.  The motion was pleasant enough over the occasional smooth places, but the usual motion was much like that of a cork in a whirlpool, or of a small boat in a choppy sea.  Little attention was paid to rocks or ruts; it was almost impossible to capsize the thing.  One wheel might be two feet or more higher than the other, whereupon the rider on the upper side would be piled on top of the rider or riders on the lower side, but there was always a fair distribution of this favor.  The rocks and ruts were not always on the same side of the road.  The safety from overturn was in the long shafts which allowed free play.  In the older days, say sixty or seventy years ago, the volante or the quitrin was an outward and visible sign of a well-lined pocket-book.  It indicated the possessor as a man of wealth, probably a rich planter who needed such a vehicle to carry him and his family from their mansion in the city to their perhaps quite as costly home on the plantation.  The calisero, or driver, was dressed in a costume truly gorgeous, the horses were of the best, and the vehicle itself may have cost two thousand dollars or more.  The operation of such a contrivance, extending, from the rear of the wheels to the horse’s nose, for twenty feet or more, in the narrow streets of the old city, was a scientific problem, particularly in turning corners.

Cuba was early in the field with a railway.  In 1830, the United States had only thirty-two miles of line, the beginning of its present enormous system.  Cuba’s first railway was opened to traffic in November, 1837.  It was a forty-five mile line connecting Havana with the town of Guines, southeast of the city.  While official permission was, of course, necessary before the work could be undertaken, it was in fact a Cuban enterprise, due to the activity of the Junta de Fomento, or Society for Improvement.  It was built with capital obtained in London, the