Santa Teresa was founded in 1701 and is located at Compestela and Teniente Rey Streets. The convent of Santa Clara was built in 1664 and began with a fund of $550. It extends from Cuba to Havana Streets and from Sol to Luz Streets, covering two solid blocks of ground, and is the largest convent in the Island of Cuba. Owing to the recent increase in the price of city property, the space covered by this convent is valued at $1,500,000. In 1704 the convent of Belen was founded at the corner of Compostela and Luz Streets, covering an entire block of ground that had served previously as a recreation park for the Bishop of Compostela. Within this convent the Jesuit Order established what was known as the “Royal College of Havana,” whence were graduated some of the city’s famous lawyers and scholars. This order maintains an Observatory and weather bureau, whence reports in regard to storms in the Caribbean are contributed to the daily papers. Belen, among the devout Catholics of Cuba, is undoubtedly one of the most popular institutions of the West Indies. Shortly after the inauguration of Woodrow Wilson as President of the United States, Mr. William E. Gonzalez was appointed Minister Plenipotentiary from that country to the Republic of Cuba, and took up his residence in the old colonial mansion built by the Echarte family, located on the corner of Santa Catalina and Dominguez Streets. This beautiful quinta occupies a block of ground in the old aristocratic residence district of Cerro, some three miles distant from Central Park. The building, although only one story in height, is quite imposing, built of stone with white marble floors throughout, inclosing a beautiful patio that forms one of the unique and charming attractions of old-time residences in Havana. A wide marble flagged gallery runs all around this patio from which a soft subdued light enters the many rooms facing upon it. A broad porch, whose heavy flat roof is supported by long rows of stone columns, faces the south, and above it flies the Stars and Stripes from sunrise to sunset. The garden or grounds occupying the eastern half of the block are filled with beautiful shade trees and sweet scented flowers that have been brought from many parts of the world, while in front a row of stately royal palms reach up some 80 feet or more toward the blue sky. La Chorrera, the Fort of Almandares, is a picturesque little old fort, some fifty feet square and two stories in height, built of coral rock in the year 1646, which rests upon a little islet not much bigger than the fort itself, at the eastern entrance of the Rio Almandares. Slave labor undoubtedly entered into the construction of this fort, although it is said to have cost 20,000 ducats. A flight of stone steps has been built up to the second floor that communicates with the entrance to the fort. Over this is a tablet giving the date of construction and the name of its builders.