"Life offers no attraction here for anybody who is not in commerce. Dependent on one's self, there is no relaxation for anyone who has lived in France and there played a certain rôle. One must not expect theaters, nor cafés, nor public promenades, and still less societies. One does not know how to spend the time and this is a real annoyance to a man of leisure. The carnival, especially where there are French, offers the only opportunity to banish in a degree the dryness of the entertainments in these countries--and what entertainments! One would never dream of seeking them, if one were not so far from Europe. The residents in comfortable circumstances come to town, you play a game of cards in some house, in others you drink abundantly, and in most you are bored. The country has hardly more attraction for any one having no residence; but besides the restraint which is banished there, you can at least enjoy a morning and an evening walk; and if you are so lucky as to come across some wealthy resident of the better class, you may in rare instances find yourself in agreeable company. But there are parts of the country where neighbors hardly visit one another once a year." This is a true glimpse of life in the colonies before the British occupation. Had the distinguished foreigner who made these observations come to Cuba after the administration of la Torre, he would have found the theatre and the promenades, and perhaps even the cafés he had previously missed. For the prosperity which set in for the island after King Carlos III. began to relax the unreasonable restrictions upon her trade and navigation, brought with it to the wealthier classes that leisure which calls for higher forms of social life and leads to the appreciation of such entertainment as the arts of music and drama offer. The theatre of Havana became the meeting place of Cuba's intellectuals and the center from which began to radiate the modest beginnings of a Cuban culture, which a century later was to produce poets that took their place beside those of the mother country. With closer commercial relations and increasing facilities of travel even the inhabitants of the country living on their haciendas a beautiful domestic life, but one making for a certain clannishness, gradually came out of their isolation, and benefiting by the progress of their urban neighbors, were stimulated to participate in enterprises which a few decades before they would have spurned. The constantly growing intercourse with the Old World, bringing them into touch with contemporary thought, was another leaven that began to work in the minds of the Cubans, and to encourage activities and interests held as being entirely without the range of a people whose chief pursuits for some centuries had been agriculture. Thus Cuba entered upon her first period of progress.