Vera Cruz, on the Mexican coast, has proven that it is possible to exterminate yellow fever, and it is a duty owed to civilization that Havana shall follow along the same path.  If all other excuses were to be ignored, the United States for years has had ample cause for intervention in Cuban affairs, as a measure of safety to the health of her own citizens, as truly as one man may complain to the authorities if his neighbor maintains a nuisance in the adjoining yard.

The business quarters of Havana.

Once anchored in the safest place in the harbor, the mail steamers are surrounded without delay by a fleet of peculiar boats of a sort seen only in the bay of Havana.  For a bit of silver, the traveler is taken ashore, the journey to the landing stage being a matter of but a few moments.  The journey through the custom house is not a formidable one, for unless there is suspicion of some contraband goods, the customs officers are not exacting upon travelers.  At the door of the custom house, or aduana, wait the cabs, which are cheaper in Havana than in any other city of the new world, and they serve as a conveyance to the hotels, which are all grouped in the same neighborhood.

The streets through which the traveler passes are picturesque, but hardly practical, from the American point of view.  Some of them are so narrow that carriages cannot pass, and all traffic must go in one direction.  Nearly all of the business streets have awnings extending from one side to the other, between the roofs, as a protection from the tropic sun.  The sidewalks on some of the most pretentious streets are not wide enough for three persons to walk abreast, and on others two cannot pass.  On every hand one gets the impression of antiquity, and antiquity even greater than the four hundred years of Spanish occupancy actually measures.  Spanish architecture, however modern it may be, sometimes adds to that impression and one might believe himself, with little stretch of the imagination, to be in one of the ancient cities of the old world.

Tke streets are paved with blocks of granite and other stone, roughly cut and consequently exceedingly noisy, but upon these narrow streets front some shops as fine as one might expect to discover in New York or Paris.  It is true that they are not large, but they do not need to be, for nearly all are devoted to specialties, instead of carrying stocks of goods of the American diversity.  The one who wants to shop will not lack for temptations.  The selection is ample in any line that may be named, the styles are modern and in exquisite taste, and altogether the shops are a considerable surprise to one who judges them first from the exterior.  Stores devoted exclusively to fans, parasols, gloves, laces, jewels, bronzes, silks and the beautiful cloth of pineapple fiber known as nipe cloth, are an indication of the variety that may be found.  The shoes and other articles of men’s and women’s clothing are nearly all direct importations from Paris, and where Parisian styles dominate one may be assured that the selection is not a scanty one.  Clerks are courteous even to the traditional point of Castilian obsequiousness, and altogether a shopping expedition along this Obispo street is an experience to be remembered with pleasure.