Few matters strike the observant stranger with a stronger sense of their peculiarity than the Cuban milk-man's mode of supplying that necessary aliment to his town or city customers. He has no cart filled with shining cans, and they in turn filled with milk (or what purports to be milk, but which is apt strongly to savor of Cochituate or Croton), so there can be no deception as to the genuine character of the article which he supplies. Driving his sober kine from door to door, he deliberately milks just the quantity required by each customer, delivers it, and drives on to the next. The patient animal becomes as conversant with the residence of her master's customers as he is himself, and stops unbidden at regular intervals before the proper houses, often followed by a pretty little calf which amuses itself by gazing at the process, while it wears a leather muzzle to prevent its interference with the supply of milk intended for another quarter. There are doubtless two good reasons for this mode of delivering milk in Havana and the large towns of Cuba. First, there can be no diluting of the article, and second, it is sure to be sweet and fresh, this latter a particular desideratum in a climate where milk without ice can be kept only a brief period without spoiling. Of course, the effect upon the animal is by no means salutary, and a Cuban cow gives but about one third as much milk as our own. Goats are driven about and milked in the same manner. Glass windows are scarcely known even in the cities. The finest as well as the humblest town houses have the broad projecting window, secured only by heavy iron bars (most prison-like in aspect), through which, as one passes along the narrow streets, it is nearly impossible to avoid glancing upon domestic scenes that exhibit the female portion of the family engaged in sewing, chatting, or some simple occupation. Sometimes a curtain intervenes, but even this is unusual, the freest circulation of air being always courted in every way.[26] Once inside of the dwelling houses there are few doors, curtains alone, shutting off the communication between chambers and private rooms, and from the corridor upon which they invariably open. Of course, the curtain when down is quite sufficient to keep out persons of the household or strangers, but the little naked negro slave children (always petted at this age), male and female, creep under this _ad libitum_, and the monkeys, parrots, pigeons, and fowls generally make common store of every nook and corner. Doors might keep these out of your room, but curtains do not. One reason why the Cubans, of both sexes, possess such fine expansive chests, is doubtless the fact that their lungs thus find full and unrestrained action, living, as it were, ever in the open air. The effect of this upon the stranger is at once visible in a sense of physical exhilaration, fine spirits and good appetite. It would be scarcely possible to inhabit a house built after our close, secure