Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1888-03-31

celebrated inn belonging to Don 1gnacio
| Iturbe, an old Byzcayan bodeguero, match
less as teller of Falstaffan tales and Jug
gler of Cuban viands. Near the inn is a
wonderful laguna or pool that legend says
has no bottom. Here we caught and after
wards ate some delicious fish, the vijaca re-
sembling our American perch and as tooth
some as Adirondack trout We also discov-
cred that here were even more beautiful wo-
men than at far-famed San Francisco de
Paula; Joined in the genuine guateque or
country dance at one cabin, in the Eapateo of
another; and were treated to the efandango at
a pretty villa on the heights. We also
fought the Cuban mosquito all night with
the eseoba anarza, a shrub resembling the
potato-vine in bloom, as a smudge to the
soft and sensuous accompaniment of unseen
bandurrias and guitars; and passed a grew
some day exploring a cave or subterranean
roadway edged with a nelodious, invisible
stream fully two leagues long and inhabited
by millions of bats. In no other spot have I
ever seen or heard of such my1iads of bats.
At every stumble of our ponies, rattling,
Tapping and moaning they fell upon us and
its of darkness, and after a clamny, half hui
man, half impish embrace, slid gaunoily
down upon the dank earth, uttering hoarse,
mournful, gurgling plants of protest.
GUINEs.
Again at cid Guines, which is scarcely
more than village, the loiterer has much to
study and enjoy. 1t is more Moorish than
Havana; more Doric than any village of the
Holy Land and as pretty as rese-embowered
garden. No village in Europe that I have
ever seen furnishes such quaint old corners,
or when the eye and mind tire of these, gives
in every direction across its marvellous vals
ley such enchanting prospects. The untold
riches of the earth far and near have set
their opulent seal on ali things; and one can
Ek,aA
il the world are here housed. So too in
Guines the Spanish idea of the constant
clusion OF women is less rigorous. Balcony
and portico swarm with the beauties, fair as
| the tropic flowers among which they smile.
They arc even upon the streets in dainty
squads. Everywhere are song and music,
and flowers and women and Incidence. And
seated underneath the cool porch arches of
| old Posada de Roig, what medieval sights
and groupings are beheld. There against the
portals of San Julien de los Guines church is
a group of lazzaroni basking in the sun, as
| typical of all that is desperate and dolorous
| as Rome, Constantinople OF Morocco can
show. Here beside you gitanos 6lthier
and more persistent than ply their black arts
| in Lisbon, Madrid or Valladolid. At the
mouth of that narrow calle are a dozen
whites and blacks as innocent of clothing or
shame as the Kanaker girls of the Solomon
Islands. All about in balf-caught threno-
dies are sounds of music from instruments
made and played precisely as when the same
| notes resounded among the arabesques and
fretwork of the Alhambran Court of Lions
half thousand years ago. Water carriers
pass with puncheons on their heads just as
| they did in the days of Herod in Egypt.
While through the medieval vision set actu-
| ally before your eyes of to-day, coming to a
| later time and form, which yet seem but rel
| les of dead centuries, are the ancient vo-
lantes dragged sleepily along; eaballeros sem
| oritas on horseback as though page of Don
| Quixote were furnished; and half-naked qua
| jiros with ox-boats primitive as the porterage
L sE 4l,a tlnr.n Hr1r,s