"The Admiral, Don Christopher Columbus, and the Spanish Army, being possessed of the 'Cerro de la Vega,' a place in the Spanish island, erected on it a cross, on whose right arm, the 2nd of May, 1492, in the night there appeared with her most precious Son, the Virgin, Our Lady of Mercy. The Indians, who occupied the island, as soon as they saw Her, drew their arrows, and fired at Her, but as the arrows could not pierce the sacred wood, the Spaniards took courage, and, falling upon the said Indians, killed a great number of them. And the person who saw this wonderful prodigy was the V. R. F. Juan." The Jesuits have an important college for boys in Havana. Annexed to it is the Observatory, said to be the best organised in South America. The church is handsome, and over the high altar hangs a famous holy family, by Ribeira. In connection with this college there is also a museum and library, especially rich in drawings and prints, illustrating Cuban life and scenery, from the sixteenth century down to our own times. The wooden images of saints on the altars in the Havanese churches are most picturesque, and their costumes often very quaint. St Michael, for instance, may appear in white kid dancing shoes and a short velvet frock, and the Madonna is usually attired in the cumbersome Spanish court dress of the sixteenth century; with farthingale and ruff complete. A remarkably fine old church is San Francisco, long since desecrated and converted into the custom-house. It has a noble tower, and stands in a conspicuous position down by the harbour. In the suppressed monastery is a vast room with a glorious cedar-wood ceiling. San Francisco is famous in the annals of Havana for a triple murder, which took place upon its altar in 1833, before the Church was converted to profane purposes, and was still one of the most popular shrines in the city. Hard by is an old-world café--the Leon de Oro--which in those days was tenanted by an Italian with a pretty wife. The worthy man got jealous of her, and, finding out that her paramour was the Secretary of the Captain-General, Don Alonzo Vales y Sandoval--watched his opportunity to avenge himself. It chanced that the noble Don was ordered to watch by the Sepulchre in this church on Holy Thursday evening. Dressed, therefore, in his scarlet robes, as a member of the Confraternity of the Sacred Blood, the unlucky gentleman was apparently absorbed in prayer before the altar, when the infuriated Italian dealt him a blow in the back with a stiletto, which killed him there and then. Before the horrified congregation could arrest him, he murdered his wife, who was kneeling in prayer close by her lover, and then stabbed himself--all of which uncanny tragedy I found solemnly related in choice Spanish in an old Havana journal, dated June 17, 1833.