Cienfuegos, which, by the way, is the most promising town in the Island, in the commercial sense, is notoriously ill policed, and is a sprouting-ground for all manner of diseases. A report dated November 21, 1898, made by D. E. Dudley, Sanitary Inspector, U.S.M.H.S., notes the fact that its elevation above sea-level is only about eight feet and it is surrounded by a belt of lowlands from eight to ten miles wide. The streets are seventy feet wide, unclean, and out of repair, and in the wet season are fields of nasty mud. There are three sewers, one from the Hotel Union, and another from buildings in the same block, and the third and only public sewer is from the Civil Hospital. The first two of these sewers empty into the bay at the steamer wharf, about two feet above the water-line, and when the wind is in the right direction the gases and vile odours are blown back into the buildings, filling them with stenches. The Hotel Union, the Charity Hospital, and a few private dwellings have modern water-closets, but elsewhere over the city the houses have shallow privy sinks, which are emptied at night and the contents dumped against the cemetery walls. Around the cemetery is also the dumping-ground for garbage, dead animals, and all the refuse of the city, the disposal of which is not under any especial authority. This dumping-ground is a mile and a half from the Hotel Union. Dr. Dudley says: "Here in this garbage reservation can be seen large numbers of buzzards, feasting on dead horses or dogs, or perched on the cemetery walls, waiting for fresh consignments. Extensive lagoons and lakes of foecal matter taken from privy vaults lie spread upon the ground. A small section of this reservation faces the bay, and here the collector of the garbage has his living-quarters, in an old tumble-down hut. "The only cemetery is situated a mile and a half from the heart of the city. It is surrounded by a wall twelve feet high, which furnishes vault room. The cemetery is very small and the section reserved for paupers is more than overcrowded. During my visit ten graves were being dug. By actual measurement I found these graves three feet in depth. Coffins are loaned by the municipalities to paupers, and the bodies alone are buried. In these pauper graves three bodies are buried, one over the other; and then, in less than one year's time, they are reopened and made ready for new bodies. Portions of skeletons were thrown out of each of the ten graves I saw. In consideration of a dollar, a grave was opened for me, and I counted four skulls. In closing up the graves, these bones are packed around the new bodies. As a rule the topmost corpse is so near the surface that the earth has to be banked up a foot in order completely to cover it.