Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1888-07-07
HAVANA MARKETS.
A Notable Feature OF Cuba's Far Famed
Capital City.

~
Capital City.
The markets of Havana, rs we'll as
those of 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 actual size, and conven-
fences of the market-houses them
selves; the countless necessities and
luxuries attainable aside from an
actual food supply; and especially the
bewildering variety of every thing in
flesh, fowl, fish, fruit vegetables and
flowers, securable at any one metro
politan Cuban 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
Havana markets. They are splendid
affairs, at least two of them, in Them
selves; they furnish rare spectacle
OF tropical food and fruit products inn
possible to equal in months of travel
in the island; and the scenes one wit
nesses as well as the people who are
met are full of pleasure and interest.
They are three in number-Plaza
Vieja, in the square at the intersection
of Teniente Rey, Muralla, San Ignacio
and Mercaderes streets; Plaza dc
Colon, near Parque Central and the
Prado; and Plaza de Vapor just west
of Campo de Marie, in the new bust
ness and residence quarter of the city.
Besides these there is an ancient
market and plaza frequehted by the
lancheros, guadaneros and other queer
folk of waterside vacations in old
Regla, across the bay,
The Plaza Vieja must have been
built couple of hundred years ago.
1t is in the very heart of the oldest
quarter of the city, well down by tho
deserted Plaza de San Francisco and
the wharves, where the mournful ruin
of the church of that name, and the
deserted archbishops palace, mutely
attest the glories of former time.
The market is small and low, with
stupendous walls; while the architect
ure of all the buildings of the locality
is of the most squatty yet massive
character On every hand are the
century.old structures, each one
strong enough for q fort; while the
pillared columns of facades and sup
porting arches of porchos with gigan-
tic bases and ontablatures are
ludicrously tremendous when the in
significance of the low buildings be-
hind them are considered. Every
stranger who gets sight of this
ancient locality in former times
the center of the fabulous
wealth and business activities
of the Havanese, is drawn to it again
and again. Not only have age and
ruin sealed it for decay, but every
present feature of the place intensifes
the impression that one has come upon,
as in Il dream, quaint bit of the
quaintest of thousand-year-ol old Eu-
ropean cities. where all the interven-
ing time and progress have swept past,
leaving every thing shriveled and
silent, almost as at Pompeii and Her.
culaneum. The utensils at the market
are precisely such as you could have
found at Toledo, half thousand years
ago. The architecture ismore Dorian
than that of ancient Greece The laz-
zaroni, crouching at the bases of pill
lars and at the edge Of Shiny pools
beneath moldy arches, are sodden,
shriveled, voiceless and apparently as
dead rs 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
friars. E. b. Waterman, in Gin -"nn"ti
Times.