veritable cataract of morning glory, the deep blue flowers so thickly set together that not a green leaf is to be seen, for many yards. When you least expect it, the wooden walls open, and discover a glimpse of some placid lake, embedded like a jewel in a frame of dark green orange trees laden with golden fruit, and covered with every sort of water lily, varying from the most dazzling white to the deepest crimson and violet. The heat is so great that you feel an irresistible impulse to throw off your clothes and jump into the pellucid water; but your guide, divining your intention, soon makes you alter your mind, assuring you that the bed of the lakelet swarms with uncanny aquatic snakes, while perchance that unpleasant individual, the ugly caiman, lurks in the dark, under yon mass of arum lilies, ready to pounce upon you, and snap off your leg. Yonder is a turtle scudding along, and round the shores of an islet, covered with delicate bamboo cane, sails a whole fleet of gorgeous water fowl. The impulse to push forward and discover new wonders and beauties for yourself is swiftly checked by your guide, who warns you that, as the sun begins to drop, noxious vapours presently will rise,--vapours charged with deadly fevers and incurable agues. And so you hurry back, thanking heaven, all the time, that you have a guide with you, for without his friendly aid you might wander round and round in this maze of luxuriant vegetation, never straying far from the point whence you started, and sink at last, exhausted, to die of hunger and thirst, with, it may be, a cluster of tempting poison peaches dripping luscious but death-dealing syrup just above your parched lips. In forests such as these, stretching for leagues across the island, do the Cuban rebels pitch their camps.