In a country where the censorship weighs so heavily on the press, and on literature in general, as it does in Cuba, prose writers find little or no scope for their talent. Poetry, especially high class poetry, does not appeal to the masses so readily as prose, and being considered less dangerous is more leniently dealt with. Besides, it is generally published "for private circulation alone." Cuba has produced a few good local historians, among them the compiler of a work which has been of the greatest assistance to me in the historical portion of this book--_Los tres historiadores de la Isla de Cuba_--a collection of the chronicles of Herrera, Valdes, and Urietta, with copious notes and additions. Although local journalism dates from the middle of the last century, the Cuban newspapers of the present day are of the flimsiest and most stupid description. They are even worse than those published in Constantinople, the censorship being, if anything, more childishly interfering than that of Abd'ul Hamid. Barring a few telegrams from Madrid and New York, the great political events in Europe and America are barely noticed at all. On the other hand, you will find plenty of information concerning the life of the calendar saint of the day, of St Rosa of Lima, for instance, or of the Blessed Filomena. Although music is universally popular in Cuba, I know of no distinguished Cuban composer, musician, or vocalist. Yradié has collected and elaborated a number of Cuban popular airs, and Bizet has immortalised the Habanera in _Carmen_, but the first ten bars of that air are the only ones he has retained without alteration, though characteristic rhythm is well preserved. The less celebrated _Paloma_, by Yradié, is, I think, more genuinely Cuban. The negro melodies of the island are absolutely barbaric, and devoid of time and tune. They have nothing in common with the charming plantation airs of the Southern States of America.