Of an early winter morning--a winter morning in Cuba is like an ideal one in late May in our latitudes, Tacon Gardens are delightful, they are so well arranged and so full of interest. In the centre is the Quinta, or summer-house, which you reach by a very long verdant tunnel, formed of Pacific roses and the clustering yellow banksia. Here also I first made the acquaintance of the duck plant, or _Aristolochia pelicana_ of which more anon, and of the divinely beautiful Cuban morning glory, _convolvulus major_--with its immense bunches of the deepest blue flowers. In the evening the moon-flower opens its colossal white disks, and the night-blooming cerus is also a perennial attraction to those who have never seen it burst into glory at a given hour, and shed around an almost too powerful odour of attar of roses. Take Havana for all in all, in times of peace it is by far and away the pleasantest city in the Southern Hemisphere--the most resourceful, for it has capital public libraries, museums, clubs, and theatres. Of an evening it is quite charming. Then the streets are thronged with people until early morning. The bands play selections from the latest operas--even Wagnerian airs--the señoras and señoritas parade up and down with their attendant cabaleros, and mostly in evening, nay, full ball dress, with only a lace veil over their heads. A brilliant double line of equipages fills the central drive, and very smart many of them are--as well turned out as any in Hyde Park or the Bois. The cafés, and there are hundreds of them, are dazzling with electric and incandescent light, and packed by a motley crowd as picturesque as it is animated. Negresses, in gaudy cast-off finery, offer you _dulce_ or sweetmeats, and coloured boys cry "limonata" and ice water. Everybody has a cigarette between their lips or their fingers. Banjos twang and mandolines tinkle in all directions, and if you chance to get a good seat at the Café Dominico, or the Louvre, where the world of fashion is wont to assemble to suck ice drinks through long straws, smoke cigarettes, and criticise their neighbours, you can pass many an amused hour, watching the passing show of this West Indian Vanity Fair.