The immediate environs of Havana are disappointing, although some of the neighbouring villages are pretty enough. Every visitor to Havana is sure to be taken to three places--Puentes Grandes, Marianao, and Carmelo. A little railway carries you, as slowly as steam can do it, in about an hour, out to Marianao. If it were not for the groups of palm trees and the huge plantain leaves, generally very dusty and tattered, hanging over the garden walls, you might easily mistake the country for certain districts in Northern France. It undulates, just as it does in Normandy, up and down over low-lying hills, and the straight roads, bordered with coca palm trees, reminded me forcibly of the poplar avenues round Rouen. Before very long, however, you are made aware that you are under the Southern Cross, for, just before you reach your destination, you form your first acquaintance with the banyan tree, of which there is a celebrated group, considered one of the finest in the West Indies, standing in the middle of a field. The central tree, which must be of great age, is of vast size. From its upper branches it has cast down numerous feelers, which, in their turn, have become big trees, and so the one growth contrives to cover some four or five acres of ground. After you have amused yourself by walking in and out of the innumerable arches and avenues formed by this grand specimen of perhaps the most extraordinary species of tree in existence, you follow a narrow path, and walk on to Marianao, a Cuban village boasting an odd-looking church painted a vivid blue, and some very nice country houses, embedded in orange and banana orchards. There are a number of restaurants in the place, and on Sundays the foreign residents, especially the Germans, come out here to eat supper and drink lager-beer. What pleased me most about Marianao were the country lanes, which are bordered by hedgerows covered with delightful creepers, the coral,--with its clusters of pink and white flowers,--the morning glory, with its wealth of azure blossoms,--the scarlet passion flower,--the blue sweet pea,--and a species of wild stephanotis, with an overpowering scent. [Illustration: MATANZAS.]