Love of children, and willingness to make any sacrifice for their happiness, are perhaps exaggerated developments of the motherly instinct. A man will be polite to you in Cuba even if he intends to sign your death warrant the next moment. A Cuban mother will yield to any caprice of her children, even although she may realize that in so doing she endangers their future. As a result, Cuban children, although lovable and affectionate, are not always well behaved or gentle mannered. Still this depends largely, as it would in any country, on the temperament and education of the mother, who in Cuba has all to do towards forming the character of the child, especially the daughter, in whose “bringing up” the father is supposed to take no immediate interest or part. The love which parents, rich or poor, educated or ignorant, bestow on their children, no matter how many little ones may compose the family, or how small the purse which feeds them, is proverbial. No child, even of a far removed relative, is ever permitted to enter an institution of charity if it can be avoided, but will find instead an immediate and hearty welcome in the family of a man who may not know at times where to look for money for the next day’s meal. The original stock from which sprang the natives of Cuba, and from which many of their traits undoubtedly came, reverts back to the followers of Columbus, and to the old time conquerors of Mexico and the New World. These gentlemanly adventurers were mostly from the southern provinces of the Iberian Peninsula, whose blood was more or less mixed with that of the Moor, and whose chief physical characteristics were regularity of features, beauty of eyes, teeth and hair, and whose mental attributes were dominated by pride, ambition, love of pomp and ceremony, with great powers of endurance, a strong aversion to ordinary forms of labor, exceptional courtesy, and an intelligence frequently marred with almost unbelievable cruelty. These original pioneers or soldiers of fortune in Cuba found the climate exceedingly to their liking and, after love of conquest and adventure had been tempered by increasing years, and the possible accumulation of modest means, they settled down to quiet and fairly industrious lives in the Pearl of the Antilles. From them sprang the true Cuban race, in which still remain many of the physical, moral, and intellectual traits of their ancestors. Some of these early settlers made wives of comely Indian women, whose beauty had captured their fancy, and while the influence of the kindly, pleasure-loving “Cubenos” has not made any deep or striking impression on the race, it may account for the quite common fondness of display and love of gaiety found in the Cuban of today.