In another print, dated 1670, representing the market-place at Havana, a number of ladies are seen wearing the old Spanish costume, farthingale and mantilla _au grand complet_, as we see them in the pictures of Velasquez, and attended by slaves carrying China silk parasols with deep fringes, to shield their mistresses from the sun. In one corner a slave is being sold, while in another a sacred image is carried in procession by a number of friars. Half-naked negroes are running about hawking bananas, oranges, and pineapples. To the left of the market-place is a church, now no longer in existence, which must, I presume, have been that of San Domingo, annexed to which were the prisons of the Holy Office, which undesirable institution was established early in the 16th century, soon after the foundation of the colony. It worked in Cuba with as much fierce cruelty as in all the other Spanish dominions, and _autos da fé_ of heretics and heathens were a frequent form of entertainment. Early, too, in the 17th century, a good-sized theatre, where the plays of Calderon and Lope de Vaga were doubtless performed, was opened in Havana. In Holy Week, _autos_, or sacred dramas, were given in the open, "weather permitting." In a word, Havanese life, in those far-off times, was a reflection of life in Spain as it has been depicted by Cervantes and Lesage, and the Countess d'Aulnoy. Very soon after the Conquest, the Church obtained large grants of valuable property, and down to the first quarter of the present century a good fifth of the island was Church property. Most of the great religious orders were represented--including the Benedictines and the Carthusians. The Franciscan and Dominican friars had a number of priories in various parts of the island, and were much esteemed by the people, whom they steadily befriended. To their credit, be it recorded, the Dominican friars occupied themselves a great deal with the condition of the slaves, obtained the freedom of many, and redressed the wrongs of thousands. The Jesuits made their first appearance very soon after the creation of their celebrated order. They established themselves in Havana, Santiago, Matanzas, and Puerto Principe, where they opened Colleges for the education of the sons of the upper classes. There were also many nunneries, peopled generally by sisters from Europe, who educated the daughters of the wealthy, and gave primary instruction to the children of the people. As is usually the case in Catholic countries, numbers of churches were built, some of them of considerable architectural pretensions, in the well-known Hispano-American style, of which many excellent examples are still extant, not only in Havana, but throughout the whole of South America. Some of the more popular shrines, like that of Neustra Señora de Cobre, the Lourdes of Cuba, were, and are still, rich in _ex votos_, in gold, silver, and even jewels.