Puentes Grandes lies half-way between Marianao and Havana. It possesses the only nail factory in the country, worked by several hundred coolies. Carmello is a village of restaurants and cabarets, situated at the head of a little sandy bay glorified by a tradition that it was once visited by Columbus. Hither people drive out of an evening from Havana, to eat oysters, lobsters, and other crustacea, and, above all, to enjoy the cool sea breeze. Here I first beheld the most astonishing of all flowers--the _aristolochia pelicana_. It is a variety of the _aristolochia sìpho_, which has been recently brought over to England from America and acclimatised, and which is popularly known as the "Dutchman's pipe," on account of the peculiar shape of the flower, which is exactly like a little tobacco-pipe. The Cuban variety is a sturdy creeper, with enormous, heart-shaped leaves. This flower must be seen to be appreciated. When open, it presents the appearance of a huge porous plaster about a foot in diameter. The edge is perfectly white and waxy, the centre a dark brown, with a slit in the middle, opening into a pod-shaped cup, and furnished with sharp bristles, usually garnished with drops of syrup, to allure the flies and other insects, which, when once they enter that little "parlour," find themselves in a veritable ogre's castle, whence no escape is possible, for the hungry flower soon absorbs and devours them. When the pouch is full,--and it will contain several hundred insects,--the enormous flower closes, and assumes the exact shape of a beautiful white duck. Severed from its stem, and placed in the centre of a bouquet of flowers, or on a sheet of looking-glass in the centre of a dining-table, this weird flower produces a very startling effect. It is the custom in Havana to place one of these strange freaks of nature in the centre of a bouquet, which is always offered to a successful prima-donna on her first appearance at the National Theatre. One fine morning towards the middle of Lent I left Havana with a friend, to make a tour of the other cities of the island, beginning with Matanzas. A Cuban railway is unlike any other railway in the world. The carriages are built on the American plan, with a promenade from end to end, but there are no glass windows, and when one considers the heat, one is thankful that there are no cushions, to harbour dust and insects. The conductor stands in front, and is perpetually ringing a bell, which does not seem to help on the speed of the train in the very least degree.