The Church de la Concepcion, built about 1795, was the only church edifice which by a certain classic simplicity approached the solemn beauty of a Greek temple. The Carmelite Church was interesting for the tomb of Bishop Compostele with the epitaph, which expressed his wish to be laid to rest "between the lilies of Carmel and the choirs of the virgins." None of these churches had pews or chairs, the seating capacity being limited to two rows of stalls or benches along the nave. This made for an admirable democracy in a society which otherwise rigorously segregated the castes for it happened not infrequently that men of rank and ladies of position found themselves beside a poor negro. Occasionally, however, one could see a lady going to mass with her family of children, accompanied by a negro, carrying a rug and a small chair; and when such a handsome senora seated herself in the center of the rug with her offspring grouped about her, the effect was so picturesque as to call for the brush of a Velasquez. But this privilege was limited to white ladies of rank only. The music in the churches, on the other hand, was exclusively furnished by the musically gifted negroes. Though it sometimes occurred in Cuba, as in other colonies of America, that owing to the lack of printed church music sacred words were adopted to secular tunes, and frequently to those of popular comic opera, the master works of the old church composers were sometimes heard at special occasions. Among the streets of Havana the most metropolitan was the Calle de la Muralla, so called from the muralla or rampart built by Governor Ricla. This was the Rue de la Paix for the women of Havana. It was lined with "tiendas de ropas," shops displaying all the latest importations of dress goods and wearing apparel. At that time, as at the present, the fashionable ladies of the Cuban capital insisted upon keeping pace with the styles of dress and adornment which prevailed in the great cities of Europe, as their pecuniary means, their taste and their natural gifts abundantly enabled them to do. Every morning the street was crowded with the carriages of ladies engaged in shopping. For no white woman, unless she belonged to what in the southern states of North America would have been called "poor white trash" was allowed to go on foot during the day, unless she was going to mass. Up to the twenties of the new century and beyond, this convention was rigidly observed. Those who had to go on foot were not seen on the Calle de la Muralla until the evening hours. Then it was crowded with as gay and handsome a multitude of women, white, black and of all the intervening shades, as ever trod the pavement of a southern capital.