The game of Jai Alai was introduced here from the Basque Provinces of Spain, during the first Government of Intervention in 1900, and became very popular with both Cubans and visitors from the United States. General Leonard Wood and his aides soon acquired the habit of visiting the Fronton and spending an hour or so in practice every morning. Jai Alai is played in a building erected for the purpose with a court some two hundred feet in length, inclosed on three sides by smooth stone walls, perhaps forty feet in height, and having a concrete floor. It is played with two opponents on each side known as the blues and the whites. The ball is similar to that of the tennis court, made in Spain with a high degree of resiliency and costing five dollars. It is thrown from a long narrow wicker basket, or scoop, slightly curved at the point, to retain the ball while swung to the head or end wall. The gloved part of the instrument is firmly strapped to the forearm of the player. The ball is caught in this sling-like scoop, and from its length of some thirty inches or more is driven with great force from the further end of the court to the opposite wall. On the rebound it must be caught by one of the two opponents, on either fly or first bound, otherwise a point is scored against the side that falls. A three-inch band is painted around the end of the court, parallel with the floor and about four feet above it. The ball must strike the wall above this band, and the science of the play is to drive it into the corner at such an angle that your opponents will find it impossible to catch it as it caroms back. Once the game starts, the ball never stops its flight through the air, from the wicker scoop to the end of the wall and back, until an error is made which counts against the side that fails to catch it. And since the player cannot hold the ball in his wicker sling for an instant, the action is decidedly rapid and the excitement soon becomes intense. A player may occasionally be seen to leap into the air, catch and fire the ball back to the end of the court, he himself falling flat on his back, leaving his partner to take care of the return. Thirty points constitute the usual game and about an hour is required in which to play it. Jai Alai was suspended during the latter part of President Estrada Palma’s term, on account of the heavy betting that accompanied it, but owing to insistent popular demand, it was again installed at the Fronton in the Spring of 1918.