regiment in which the Captain-General has most confidence.  The military notes pronounce El Principe undoubtedly the strongest natural position about Havana now occupied by defensive works.  Its guns sweep the heights of the Almendares, extending from the north coast southward by the hills of Puentes Grandes to the valley of Cienaga, thence eastward across the Hill of the Jesuits and the long line of trees and houses leading to the Cerro.  The country beyond the Cerro is partly sheltered by trees and hills, but eastward El Principe commands in places the country and the bay shore, and gives fire across Havana seaward.

The most vulnerable spot in the defenses of Havana is the aqueduct of Isabella II, or the Vento.  The water is from the Vento Springs, pure and inexhaustable, nine miles out of Havana.

All three of the water supplies to Havana, the Zanja and the two aqueducts of Ferdinand VII and of the Vento, proceed from the Almendares and run their course near to each other, the farthest to the west being the Zanja and to the east the Vento.

At Vento Springs is constructed a large stone basin, open at the bottom, through which springs bubble.  From this reservoir the new aqueduct leads.  It is an elliptical tunnel of brick, placed under ground, and marked by turrets of brick and stone placed along its course.

From the Vento Reservoir the new aqueduct crosses the low valley south of Havana, following generally the Calzada de Vento, which becomes, near the Cerro, the Calzada de Palatino, to a point on the Western Railway marked 5 kilometers (about); hence the calzada and the aqueduct closely follow the railway for about a mile, terminating at a new reservoir.

The Vento water is the best thing Havana has, and indispensable.  The old sources of supply are intolerable.  The main water supply is the Zanja.  Throughout the most of its course this river flows through unprotected mud banks; the fluids of many houses, especially in the Cerro ward which it skirts, drain into them; men, horses, and dogs bathe in it; dead bodies have been seen floating in it, and in the rainy season the water becomes very muddy.  In fine, the Zanja in its course receives all which a little brook traversing a village and having houses and back yards on its banks would receive.  The water can not be pure, and to those who know the facts the idea of drinking it is repulsive.  This supply had long been insufficient to the growing city, and in 1835 the well-protected and excellent aqueduct of Ferdinand VII was completed.  It taps the Almendares River a few hundred yards above filters mentioned, hence carried by arches to the east El Cerro, and for some distance nearly parallel to the Calzada del Cerro, but finally intersecting this.  These works are succeeded by the Famous Vento.  When Havana is fought for hereafter the fight will be at the Vento Springs.  This remark is not made in the military notes, but the military men know it well.  When General Miles expected to attack Havana he procured all the accessible surveys and detail of information, official and through special observation and personal knowledge obtainable of the water works.  Life could not be sustained many days in the city of Havana without the water of the adorable Vento.