semi-tropical beauty. To the mind of the Scribe, of all the courses that he has played, it resembles most the Country Club at Greenwich, Connecticut, and the French course of La Boulie. It was laid out for the benefit of the average paying member, rather than with an eye to stiffening up the game of the resident "pro" and the club's two crack amateurs. There is one hole, the eleventh, which, in sheer beauty, probably rivals any golf-hole in the world. From a high tee the fair green slopes down to a winding river two hundred yards away. On the farther bank the approach to the high plateau of green is between two noble royal-palm trees. Super-drivers have occasionally been holehigh from the tee. A two hundred - yard drive, straight down the course, too often finds the water hazard. For that reason the hole is perhaps not the best of golf. But even the man who would use the Mona Lisa or the Venus of Milo as a lie, provided he found his ball perched upon one or the other, might readily overlook that.

lies in the open! They recall what Horace Hutchinson wrote of the days when golf was first being taken up in Scotland and the Scottish kings played over Blackheath: "If the soil then was as flinty as it is to-day, no wonder that they governed so badly." The Havana course has everything that belongs to a first-class modern course, and something of its own besides-wonderful turf and

Of our game that day all that shall be said is that if the diplomatic corps of the United States could have seen its representative running down thirty-foot putts, a certain secretary of legation would have been adjudged worthy of the ambassadorship to the Court of St. James's.

On the veranda of the Country Club may be seen a sprinkling of Cuban men and women. But the club, as an institution, is essentially the diversion of the

resident or the visiting American. As ardent a sport-lover as any in the world, the Cuban is, temperamentally, out of tune with golf. He wants something with quicker action. The bull-ring passed with the Spanish rule. Under the American occupation, Gen. Leonard Wood felt that a substitute was needed, and introduced pelota. In a few years it was found necessary to suppress the new sport. Not that the Cubans did not take to it. They took to it with such enthusiasm that half of the population became bankrupt through extravagant betting. A second substitute was found in the introduction of American baseball. In Havana it is played on the grounds of the Almendares Club on the Paseo de Tacon, opposite the Botanical Gardens, the site of the bull-ring in former days. For the lovers of horse-racing there is the race-track at Marianao, with its horde of American horses, jockeys, trainers, and book

makers.

Just as the traveler in Dresden is supposed to visit the china-works of Meissen, and in Chicago the stockyards, in Havana the accepted sight is one of the cigar and cigarette factories. On the eve of departure from home you will have been burdened with commissions. According to the sex of the friend, the commission will be to buy cigars or mantillas. If the former, pin the man down to a definite choice. If it is the Corona Corona that he wants, let him say so. If the Laranaga, how many? In the case of the mantilla, throw yourself on the mercy of the countrywoman nearest at hand, no matter whether or not you have ever seen her before. She will understand, cheerfully accept the commission, and probably derive huge amusement from a day's conscientious labor in your behalf in O'Reilly or Obispo. Then in the cigar or cigarette factories, what impressed the Scribe most was not the little brown man rolling deftly with his fingers, but the voice from the gallery above, the voice of the paid reader, translating the news of the European War or declaiming a chapter from a book by Victor Hugo. For three hours every day this reading goes on, half the time being given to newspapers, and the

VOL. CXXXVI.-No. 812.-28

other half to fiction. The choice of reading is not left to the reader, but is governed by a ballot system. The tobacco workers elect among themselves a president, secretary, and treasurer. The workmen contribute the fund which pays the reader's salary. The selection. of novels is a deliberate process. The reader judges the period required for a certain book, and a few days before he is to finish one the secretary holds an election to determine what novel should be taken up next. As many as fifty different novels may be proposed at one of the elections, but the choice usually centers on three or four of wide note. Some years ago sentiment in one of the factories was divided between Quo Vadis? and Père Goriot. Finally, Sienkiewicz's book was chosen by one hundred and eighty votes to one hundred and fifty. But most often the choice falls on modern novels, preferably those by Spanish writers. No year passes in any Havana factory, it is said, without a reading of Don Quixote. Among English novels read are Vanity Fair, Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, and some of the melodramatic stories of Wilkie Collins and Hugh Conway. Some of the English poets are favorites, in particular Byron. Only one American book has ever had repeated reading in Havana cigar-factories, and that fell into disuse about twenty years ago. It was Uncle Tom's Cabin. Victor Hugo is an unfailing favorite.

No matter how well known Sherlock Holmes is in England and the United States, to realize the full measure of his notoriety one must ramble through Galliano and San Raphael. There will be found, behind gaudily colored covers, a Señor Sherlock Holmes of Iberian appearance and deportment who is the hero of an endless series of adventures, the very titles of which would mystify and astonish Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. These paper-covered books represent the imaginative work of various hackwriters, and are sold by the tens and hundreds of thousands. At the top of the cover there is a portrait of the creator of the science of deduction, a portrait which in general conforms to the picture first drawn a quarter of a century ago by Doctor Doyle in the pages

of A Study in Scarlet, but so unconsciously, yet subtly, altered by the crude artist that it is a Spaniard whom we see instead of the lean, athletic Englishman of the original invention. How many of these tales have been printed it is impossible to say. Here are a few of the titles that caught the eye of the Scribe on the Havana book-stalls: The Seller of Corpses, The Bloody Hammer, In the Pittsburgh School of Crime, The Infamous Gang of Cairo, Jack the Ripper, The Forgers of London, Sherlock Holmes and the Opium Smokers.

A great deal has been written of the night life of Havana. Except that it carries farther into the early hours of the morning, due to the rest enforced by the intense heat of the midday sun, it differs very little from the night life of any other city of the south. The same theater and opera-goers-the local guide-book will tell of the wonders of the Teatro Nacional, the third largest theater in the world-the same flaneurs at the café tables that would be seen in any other city where the outdoor streetlife prevails. In February and March, the then new dancing was being furiously pursued. There were nightly endurance dances in the gardens back of the Miramar. In 1917 dancing had gone out apparently as irrevocably as ping

pong.

There is another phase to the night life of Havana that properly belongs to the past, too. Once San Isidro, a narrow, winding street running from the harbor walls to the railway station, blared and flaunted in evil glory. Travelers from all over the world talked of it with mingled repugnance and admiration. It was not an outraged sense of civic virtue that wrought the reclamation. Hard-headed business did that. The American-controlled railway, wanting the ground occupied by San Isidro and adjacent streets for a future freight station, had the buildings condemned as unsafe.

Also, formerly prospective visitors to Havana heard much of the latitude allowed to the moving-picture displays. That, too, has all been changed. It is to be feared that many American travelers do not regard the amelioration. with entire approval. It was the pre

vailing sentiment that was expressed by the somewhat austere but altogether charming lady from Boston: "I am justly indignant," she confessed, on the eve of departure for the north. "I feel that I was inveigled to Havana on false pretenses. I had heard so much about the wicked movies. I have been to every cinema-house in the city. I have spent all my money, and I have seen nothing more dreadful than Charlie Chaplin."

Years ago, in the columns of Charles Dickens's All the Year Round, George Augustus Sala wrote of Calle Obispo in a series on "The Great Streets of the World." There to-day are the heavy cornices, the overhanging balconies, the sparring signs, and the awnings that in the sunny hours are stretched from roof to roof, creating an atmosphere of yellow dusk, just as when he saw it; a quaint and altogether charming streak of shadow in the midst of Havana-in-thesunshine. Its suggestion of an Eastern bazaar was noted by Sala, and has been noted by every observant traveler since. But Sala was writing up to a title. Obispo is not one of the great streets of the world; it never was, nor is it likely to be. So may Broadway be termed, or Piccadilly, or the Avenue of the Champs Élysées, or the Cannebière of Marseilles, or the Ringstrasse, or Michigan Avenue. But Calle Obispo no more than the Waterport Street of Gibraltar, or the Esplanade of Tarascon. Of course, it was of a different Havana that Sala wrote in the eighteen-sixties. The Malecón, the building of which reclaimed a part of the city that had been used as a dumping-ground, was the work of Gen. Leonard Wood. The old Calle del Prado-Street of the Meadowdates back to the despotic but constructive Tacon, Governor-General in the first half of the nineteenth century; but the new Prado was largely remodeled during the American occupation. But, old or new, the Prado has always overshadowed Obispo, which may be spoken of as the "next street to O'Reilly," just as O'Reilly is the "next street to Obispo.'

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After all, the impression that a city's streets make upon one is largely a matter of the streets to which one has been

accustomed. Once, many years ago, a French tramp-steamer carried the Scribe from Marseilles to Gibraltar, with stops at Oran, Nemours, and Melilla. After the Cannebière, that spacious avenue of which the Marseillaises are so proud "if Paris had a Cannebière it would be a little Marseilles," is the saying there-it was hard to turn around in Waterport Street. But returning to Gibraltar after three days across the strait, among the alleys of Tangier, Waterport Street seemed as broad as the moral law. Thus, in Havana, it is the contrast that impresses the traveler from the United States and causes him to seek out with wonder the Loma del Angel.

That there is no middle class in Havana, that its people are all exceedingly rich or pitifully poor, is one of the first bits of information that the American resident imparts to the visitor. You hear stories of the fabulously wealthy Cubans, the sugar kings, and the tobacco kings. Along the Prado are the houses in which they live. You hear of the pride of the pure Spanish blood, which holds itself aloof, and which sends prospective mothers back to Spain in order that the child may be spared the ignominy of Cuban birth. In sharp contrast are the half-clad and undernourished children of the poor.

But

to the casual eye the poverty that exists is a happy Latin poverty which neither solicits nor provokes sympathy. Slums there may be, but they do not repel. The squalor that sickens and saddens the soul is seen seldom save in the cities of the north. The ragged shirt of the poor Havanese does not move to pity, but to envy. On the surface, at least, he is far more comfortable in the sunshine than the American visitor. If he is moved to mild industry he can preside over a tobacco kiosk, or sell state lottery tickets. The population of Havana is estimated at something like two hundred and fifty thousand. Doubtless an understatement. There must be at least that number of cigarette and lottery-ticket venders. What of the cab- and taxidrivers? What of the thirty thousand members of the Clerks' Club, and the twenty-five thousand members of the Centro Gallego?

It was in Havana that the Scribe first learned the joys of the Rubberneck. For years, in many cities, he had surveyed it with intolerant eyes from the curb. With a smug snobbishness once regarded as superior sophistication, he had contemplated the smiling faces of the eager, stretching sight-seers. It was all very well for them, but there was such a thing as being above and beyond following the Man from Cook's Personally Conducted Tours, and the raucous voice of the megaphone pirate. But as we grow older we go back to the simple joys, or are less self-conscious. And so it was under an "Ask Mr. Somebody" sign that the Scribe booked his place, and contentedly took his seat.

"The finest Spanish cooking in the world, a cuisine that no hotel or restaurant in Madrid can equal." Such had been one of the Illustrator's promises. We found The Two Brothers one night. It looked out over the harbor from a waterside street near the wharves. On the second floor there was a diningterrace. The "finest Spanish cooking in the world." But that must have been The Two Brothers of other years. As we found it, the whole atmosphere of the place was chilled and dispirited. The tale of a glory that had waned was read in the crumpled shirt-fronts of the waiters, in the dreary slowness of the service, in the quality of the fare itself. Is there anything more pathetic than the restaurant of yesterday? We seemed to be sitting before the very ghosts of viands. There is a story by Leonard Merrick called "Little Flower in the Wood." It is the tale of a shabby little restaurant of Montmartre known as The White Wolf, which, on the verge of failure, is raised by the whim of the reigning dancer of the moment to fame and prosperity. Years pass. The restaurant flourishes, but the dancer loses all that life holds to attract. One night she finds her way back to The White Wolf, to sit in the corner and to live again in dreams the glorious days that have gone. The restaurant, once gone to decay, can never come back to relive the hours of brightness. It is an entombed coffin of dead reveries, of fashions that have passed.

So no more of The Two Brothers.

T was a late summer afternoon at Kingsmill, though if perchance you might have spoken of it as "afternoon" to any of the denizens, white or black, of that demesne of fixed customs and ancient traditions the word would have been regarded with critical suspicion. After twelve meridian it was always "evening" at Kingsmill until midnight. It had never occurred to the "white folks" that it might be otherwise; and the faith of the negroes was founded on an early verse in the Good Book, read to them by Mis' on Sabbath days in the loom-room, "And the evening and the morning were the first day."

The kitchen windows were all open, and the breeze from the river moderated the heat of the hickory fire in the big chimney-place, whose right jamb showed a space of deep attrition in the bricks from the whetting of many kitchen knives since the days of the colony.

"Notice dem w'ared-away bricks?" Ommirandy reminiscently queried of Delphy. "Dey ain' w'ared away nowhar's, 'scusin' o' dat side. Does you know what dat signify, Philadelphy?"

"Nor'm," responded Delphy, scooping a corn dumpling out of the big pot with a long-handled iron ladle for Uncle Jonas's supper. "What do it?"

"Dat shows dar ain' nuver been no lef'-handed cooks in dis kitchen sence it was built. Dey all done sharpen dey knives wid dey right hand."

"Lissen at dat, now, will ye?" whispered Ariadne to Evadne. "Ain' she smart?"

"I dun'no' 'bout no lef'-handed cooks in dis here kitchen," interjected Uncle Jonas, who sat patiently waiting for his dumpling and pot-liquor; "but dey p'int❜ly is some lef'-minded folks 'roun' dis here country."

"What de matter wid you now,

Jonas?" asked Ommirandy. "You always is got some grunt ur 'nuther agin' sump'n. Who done rob Janey's henroos' lars' night?"

"Dey ain' been nobody, marm," responded the patriarch. "Dey ain' nobody done rob no hen-roos'. But I gwi’ tell you-all sump'n what's wusser'n stealin' chickens. It tuk me a long time fur ter think it out, but I done think it. An' Mr. Sinjinn, he sesso, too."

"I boun' you think it out, ef it's sump'n low-down," commented Ommirandy, tartly. "I boun' you is, Jonas."

"Yes, marm," continued the old man, serenely. "I is, an' I gwi' tell it ter ye. I had de 'casion fur ter advance de Rev'un' ten dollars 'long o' de ten ur mo' years I done been one o' de deacons, an' ain' had no money fur ter pay my dues; an' bein' ez how I ain' got de cash jes' convenient, I conclude I gwi' try fur ter borry it f'om de man at de cote-house what makes his livin' robbin' de niggers on intrus'. He one o' dem scalawags which you-all done heerd Mars' Jeems tell about 'em. Well, sir, I went down dar, an' I sez ter de man, 'I wanter borry ten dollars.' He say, 'Fur how long?' I say, 'How much you gwi' charge?' He say, 'One mont', two mont', three mont', fo' mont', five mont', six mont'?' I say, 'Looky here, white man, I ain' got no time fur ter be foolin' wid all dem mont's. How much do it cos' me fur one mont'?' He say, 'Two dollar an' a harf a mont', an' I takes out de charge.' I say, 'I gwi' think 'bout it.' Den I goes off an' sets down in de fence-corner an' figgers. I figgers it dis here way."

Uncle Jonas illustrated his calculation by placing the end of his right forefinger in the palm of his left hand and holding it there.

"I sez ter myse'f: 'I dun'no' when I gwi' git de money fur ter pay dat ten dollars back. Durfo', ef I borrys it fur one mont', an' pays two-fifty cash,