, 1888-04-22
MARKETS.
The Countless aud Necessities
There ObtaInable.

hHNA " AaN'Hbe bS 80 49,
other large Cuban cities, are undoubtedly
the finest IN the world. Those of New
York, Philadelphia, New Orleans and
San Francisco are surely deservedly
famous: but when one considers the ac-
tual size and conveniences of the market
houses themselves, the countless ~necessi-
ties and ~luxuries attainable aside from an
actual food supply; and especially the be-
wildering variety Of everything in flesh,
fowl, fish, fruit, vegetables and flowers,
securable at any one metropolitan market
house in any coastwise city; it is only
honest to confess that the most noted in
the United States fares but lily by con-
trast.
There are no places in Cuba more
worthy OF repeated visits than the Ha-
vana markets. They are splendid affairs,
at least two of them, in themselves; they
furnish a rare spectacle of tropical food
and fruit products impossible to equal III
months of travel in the island; and the
scenes one witnesses, as well as the people
who are met, are tull OF pleasure and in
terest. They are three In number-Plaza
Vieja, in the square at the intersection OF
TenIente Rey, Muralla, San lgnaclu and
Mercaderes streets; Plaza de Colon, near
Parque Central and the Prado; and Plaza
de Napor, just west of Campo dc Marie,
in the new business and residence quarter
of the city. Besides these there is an
ancient market and plaza frequented by
the lancheros, guadanerosan ana other queer
folk of waterside voc,ltions in old Regla,
across the bay.
At the latter market you will find Gu
ban metropolitan low life intermingled
! with the rawest and rudest forms of inte-
rior existences to your hearts content. 1t
is the locality of all others where the
g%uaiiro of the country meets the lazy city
lou on terms of the sunniest equality, and
while hartering his greasy pouches of
cane-leaves fodder, chickens, o. and all
manner of fruit, exchanges valiant tales
Of country proves for city yarns OF street
| and sea, while q~uafing huge drafts of
wine, flirting bravely with the senoritas
Of all colors, or gambling at dominoes,
loteria or tutti, with the abandon of a
| Spanish grandee. From daylight until
dark the old Regla market is a seething
mass Of these lowly folk who chatter and
| below a%larmingly; but they are all a sim
pie hearted lot, as harmless as noisy, and
as happy as filthy, which is saying a good
deal.
The Plaza Vieja must have been built a
couple of hundred years ago. 1t is inthe
very heart of the Oldest quarter of the
city, well down by the deserted Plaza de
San Francisco and the wharyes, where
| the mourntul ruin of the church of that
name, and the deserted ar~chbishop's
palace, mutely attest the glories Of a
former time. The market is small and
low, with stupendous walls; while the
architecture of all the buildings Of the To-
cality is of the most squatty yet massive
character. On every hand are the cen
tury-old structures, each one strong
| enough for a fort; while the pillared col
umns of facadcs and supporting arches OF
porches with gigantic bases and entabla-
lures are ludlcrously tremendous when the
| insignificance Of the low buildings behind
them are considered.
Every stranger who gets sight OF this
ancient locality, in former times the cen
ter of the fabulous wealth and business
activities of the Havanese, Is drawn to 1t
again and again, Not only have age and
rum sealed it for decay, but every present
feature of the place intensiies the I'M
preston that one has come upon, as IN a
dream, IL quaint bit of the qualntest Of
thousand-year old European cities, where
all the intervening time and progress
have swept past, leaving everything
shriveled and silent, almost as at Pompell
and Herculaneum. The utensils at the
market are precisely such as you could
have found at Toledo, half a thousand
years & The architecture is more
Dorian thar that of ancient Greece. The
lazzaroni, crouching at the bases Of pillars
and at tue edge of shiny pools beneath
m0uldy arches, are sodden shrlveled,
voiceless and apparently as dead as the
yellow mummies Of Thebes. Negro,
mestiZos and coolie servitors about the
quaint place are barred to the waist, and
their feet are sandaled like the ancient
pilgrim iriars. Every face you see
dreamily set in Moorish window, or as ii
carved in bronze against the rail OF over
hanging balcony, Is an old face, as II
gathered from the antiques to fill out the
strange old picture. Animated skeletons
of g~uaiiros with sparse produce from the
country seem alone 70 supply and provide
while their beasts OF burden, with their
heads between their fore legs, lean in
their sleep against wall and pillar the EN-
bodiment of brute old age.
So, too, the seeming is intensified by
those who buy, and those who struggle
past the Plaza Vieja. Here the aristoc.
racy once INT Tenacious of old ways
and localities, white-haired men and wo-
men with traces of former rank and pres
| tige about them, tottcr out of the old
| structures hereabout saunter .listlessly in,
purchase meagerly of indolent stallmen,
and shuttle back within their shadowy
old alcobas. Mould and CRIME and slime
in brave company have claimed the spot
and its weird habitues for their own. But
up above, where the crumbling roofs are
touched by the glowing sun, all along the
narrow Gales in every direction, are such
bits of angle. arch and Gaping key; such
gems of barbaric color; and such rare and
ancient architectural iaucies in oriel, folia-
ton and dainty lace like balconies like
hecks of sea.foam flung upon the gray
old rocks: as never else this side of the
Atlantic thrilled poets thought or warmed
an artist heart.
The Plaza de Colon and the Plaza de
Vapor, however, are outside of the city's
fortressed walls. They are extraordi-
narily large structures for Cuba, each one
covering an entire block of ground. The
first one, first built as population and
4 A. Ii