St. Landry democrat., 1888-07-21
RAILWAYS IN CUBA,
d Mounted Courier Precedes the Trai,

Mounted Courier Precedes the Train to
Herald It's Approach.
Railway travelling in Cuba has some
curious aspects. For instance, when
trains arrive and depart for cities or
villages it is rather a queer thing to
see, between the depots and limits of all
municipalities, man on horseback
preceding the engine. No train NAV
arrive Or depart more rapidly than the
speed OF this courier, who announces
his own and the trains coming by tre.
mendous bellowings and hallooings.
Sometimes he is provided with sort Of
trumpet, which he sounds lugubriously.
The railways are nearly all of narrow
guage, and freight and passenger cars
are little and low. Not long ago Gu
ban engineers were nearly all Ameri-
cans and received fabulous wages.
This was also true of the en-
gineers on the sugar planta-
tions. But Cubans are bright and
initiative, and they are alone now in
charge. The machinery attests that.
1t is dingy, rusty, half-ruined.
The Cuban engineer handles his en-
gine in hesitant, hysterical sort of a
way. He is no mechanic. If break
down occurs he calls upon every body
within reach and, in complete despera-
ton, ''talks it all over" runs away al
together or commits suicide from sheer
fright.
The railway stations are all walled
| about as high as a fortress, and freight
Is handled in the yards and transferred
much as a lower Mississippi river
steamboat is wooded by negro roust-
abouts who ''shanty' with dismal
songs, or by the unwieldy bull-carts,
with their picturesque carretoneros, so
common to the streets of Havana.
There are some odd regulations about
Cuban railway travel. Ticket offices
are closed five minutes before departure
Of trains; and if one thus fails of secur-
ing a ticket, one-third additional to reg
ular fare is exacted for the first division
over which your route may lay. You
are allowed to carry free only hat box
or a medium size valise; but if your
train does not make schedule time YOU
can stop anywhere along the route and
get your entire fare refunded. No
persons of color" are allowed in first
class cars, though gamecocks in bas-
kets are; and if you attempted to ride
upon the platform or to occupy more
than one seat, you would Immediately
be turned over to the guardia civil,
whose members ride on trains between
stations to firt with fair senoritas, and
to constantly enforce the fact that Spain
owns Cuba.
AS in most European countries, there
are three grades of passenger coaches,
and all are modelled on the American
plan. The third grade cars have only
solid wood seats; the second are very
plain, but the seats are of ''cane;" the
first are very pleasant and convenient
and in most cases pretfly enough deco
rated, the woven cane seats taking the
place of our plush cushions on account
of the difference in climate. The con-
ductor is uniformed as. with us, and is
the busiest man on earth for the amount
of business he transacts. He is at
everybody every five minutes for re-ex-
animation of tickets, and pompous
guardia civil, soldier of one of the
three classes of military in the island,
is forever at his heels, glaring impu-
IDENTIFY into faces, demanding with mad
dening frequency your passport, if you
happen to be a foreigner, and especially
30 if an American, whom the Spaniard
loathes, and searching your person, or
even a lady's reticule, if the whim seizes
him.-Cor. Philadelphia Times.