The times., 1898-12-11
4 TRIP IN THE TROPICS
Oddities and Beauties From
Port Royal to Havana.
CUBA's SOUTHERN COAST
A Spectacular Sunset-Pecuiinritie
of the Southern Cross-Across the
Caribbean Sea = improvement Mt
SautiaGo--The Isla dc PfnOs-Prog-
greso Anything But Progressive.

Havana. Cuba, Nov. 9.-One who has
never witnessed a sunset in tropical wa
tiers may be said TO have lived almost in
vain There is no use trying to describe
1.-THE crimson and gold, green, amethyst.
purple and sapphire, reflected in varying
tints on sea and shore. on sails and hills,
in wonderful but brief pyrotechnics.
have seen hard-headed business men, as
void of sentiment as the cattle and crops,
the ores and machines they have come
down here to invest their money in,
"gush" like school girls under the
glamour of the western skies and drop
into poetry with Wegg-like facility, anent
the dying day and twilight letting her
curtain down and pinning 1t with star.
The trouble with twilight in these re-
gions is that she let's the curtain down
too quickly as IL II went on roller springs
Those who love the northern cleaning
miss that shadowy hour of dreams and
fancies Here, the sun makes no prelimi-
nary arrangements for retiring-he wraps
his gorgeous cloak about him and leaps
into bed; and then the face of nature
changes as suddenly and completely as
the prompter's bell rings up the curtain
on theatrical tr. .nsformation scene.
and hardly had we time to note the
mossy roofs and towers of that shabby
town. all gilded in the evening light, be-
fore the picture faded and old Ocean be-
came indeed gray and melancholy
waste" 1t is worth coming far to watch
the stars blaze out in the tropic night
There seem to be three times as many
as are seen in the skies at home-ai
larger and brighter, not twinkling as In
hut clla a
steady illumination. And then, the mys-
terious. far-reaching milky way; and the
literally golden moon. swinging nearer
to earth here than elsewhere!
Ayfew of the Southern Cross.
Among the unfamiliar consultations is
the Southern Cross, lying prone upon the
horizon at dusk and slowly mounting the
heavens till midnight, when 1t leans d.
rectly overhead. 1t requires considerable
lima gination. however, TO bring its irregu-
lar cluster of stars into resemblance oil
the Christian emblem. Travellers new to
the lands over which # hangs always look
out snxiously for It. but are unable 20
find 1t without assistance; and are In
variably disappointed in II on hrst ac-
auaintance.' The truth Is that, although
SO much of romance has clung for CEN
turtles around the Southern Cross, whlch
led the Conquistadores to their triumphs
and atrocities. 1t cannot hold candle TO
Orion. the Pleiades. or the homely Big
Dipper. It's only redeeming trait being that
1t guides navigators in one quarter of the
globe as the North Star does in another.
In reality. it is no cross at all-or. at most,
a MANNED and lop-sided one. minus head
and arm But somehow the constellation
beloved of mariners grows on ones fancy
like the sleepy trade-winds that fan the
heated brow-like the taste for aguacates,
mangoes and other insipid tropical fruits
like the phosphorescent ignis fatuus,
cleaning at night on the southern seas
and Turing one to sit on deck tin the small
hours OF the morning. As the so-called
cross gradually assumes an upright posi-
ton, pointing its tip 10 the two prominent
stars in Centaurus. one recalls the sweet
story of Paul and Virginia" and remem-
bers the words of the venerable priest: