Our hotel is soon reached, where quiet rules the hour, all the inmates having gone to the plaza, or slumbering in the arms of tired repose, but the majoral and a few of his assistants. A tall, ebony-colored servant conducts us to our apartments, and turns on the gas, which, in the jail-like rooms, is much needed. I commenced speaking English to the _valet de chambre_, when he looked at me as if in distress, and said, "_Pourquoi ne vous me parlais en Francais!_" "_Vous parlez Francais!_" I relieved his anxiety by giving all our orders in French, to which he responded with much alacrity. The bolting of blinds and doors, combined with the high, substantial brick and mortar walls which surround us, savors very much of captivity--all the oxygen we have at night passing through a small square made in the apertures of the blinds. The canvas-framed stretchers, designed for reclining, and the accommodation of only one person, are canopied over with beautifully-wrought lace, looking both clean, cool, and inviting, to our weary frames. The atmosphere at this place is said to be conducive of sleep. Every thing sleeps, no difference when or where. The driver nods on his cabriolet, which might be attended with direful consequences, but the poor brutes are so jaded they are sleepy too. The salesman snores on his stall, sometimes stretched out full length. The cooly nods over his chopsticks and rice, after he has eaten his dinner, while the more elegant matron inclines her head gracefully, saying, _Siesta_. Morning dawns, leaving no marks of intervening space, but every thing is full of life and business. The butler's voice is heard above the din of dishes and kettles, giving orders, while his busy hands are preparing delicate loin-steaks, mutton-chops, and veal-cutlets, for broiling, and 9 o'clock train from Havana. The coffee is prepared on a separate range near the dining-tables, close to the call of every new applicant for the delightful beverage; it comes steaming out into the big China cups, the servant holding in one hand a kettle of boiling milk, and one of coffee in the other, furnishing us milk and coffee, or _vice versa_. "_Mi café_," at six or seven in the morning, accompanied with a small French roll, fortifies the inhabitants for any movements which they wish to make until breakfast-time. While drinking our coffee the porter, hat in hand, announces _El Volante_, which we had ordered the night before for the purpose of visiting the cave. All efforts to describe that curious conveyance must fail, when compared to the reality of riding in one--it being a vehicle of Cuban origin, not in general use on the island now, except in the country. It is drawn by two horses, one placed between the shafts, the other on the left in rear of the first, upon which a booted, liveried postilion, called a _calesero_, is seated in a diminutive saddle. The center of gravity is nowhere in a _volante_, while it swings and vibrates along softly as a boat on smooth water.