The age-herald., 1902-03-09

~ On Shipboard, Leaving Havana, TN Cuba, March 3.-Have you ever N U been .o -4avana? I have. My O advice? Yes. Go> But make all your arrangements in advance. Then you will know that you are paying for what you ge.. Otherwise the only people. other than, of course, your friends from the States. who don't do" you are the cabmen. These cabmen-most abused of all people-have a scale of prices and stick to them, whether you speak Span- ish or not.
 The hotels get you going and coming. They have american prices in American money, ranging from five to eight dollars day at the most select houses. But the extras, written on your bill in Span ish just before the steamer Is to sail and which you pay to get away, keep you thinking in expressive and violent lan- guage for a full day after you leave. But what's the use? Americans have done much for the Cubans. Why should they not continue? They have nothing but money, and the Cubans want 1t. They know not the petty newspaper man from
 
 the thousand
 But to detail. The trip from Birming hhm to Tampa is a good one. From Tam pa to Havana via Key West Is not so good. The ships are fair, but the eatables thereon are bad. These little ships were used by the army during the Spanish American war and evidently got into the corned beef habit. They have kept 1t up. But they land you in Havana. The harbor looks a bit like Naples, minus Vesuvius. Morro and Cabanas are impos- ing upon your left, and the city of stone and cement houses of blue and pale canary upon your right. The harbor is shaped like a kite with the entrance a mere gateway between rocks barely four hundred feet across.
 Your ship anchors in the harbor. You go ashore in a launch. Then your bag gage is inspected. You have your ef- fleets ruffled, but you pay no duty. Then you take little Victoria cab and drive through paved streets but twenty feet wide to your hotel. You are first struck w. the immaculate cleanliness of the city. Am erican rule has done it. Street cleaners and sweepers are everywhere. Washington Is no cleaner.
 You get to your selected hotel. Then your trouble commences. "Yes. we have rooms. They will be ready In twenty minutes. Get breakfast. Then we will send you up,"
 You get breakfast of peeled oranges, coffee and rolls and again call to be directed to your room.
 "A party is just going to Morro Castle and Cabanas Fortress. It is only two- hours trip-yery pleasant Go with them. Your rooms will be ready when you re- turn. Go with them."
 You ara caught. You pay the guide one likewise. You are rowed across the har- bor in an old yawl, marched up the hill to Morro, view it's old walls, its port holes and dungeons. Then you walk a half mile across a grassy hill overlook ing the harbor to Cabanas. where a regiment of Cuban artillery under Amer ican officers is now stationed Cabanas covers twenty or thirty acres of hills overlooking the harbor. There are great WdliS, anu IOi liSSSSS etii0 uuh6cOhS, f'ilu prisons, and headlines where executions have taken place. You are led through dark passages. up stone steps, upon par apets, over bridges and meats and all manner of old things. Then you emerge upon a plateau to face modern young Cuban soldiers who speak only Spanish being drilled by a young Bir- mingham boy-Brown by name-who speaks only the words of the military manual in Spanish Then you walk or slide down incline planes to the water again and are rowed across to Havana in time for a mashed hotel luncheon. Your room is still not quite ready. It has had to be secured out, and the chambermaid, who is a man always in Havana, can not be hurried He takes his time It matters not how eager you may be- The floors are of tile; the walls of cement; the beds of iron and the springs of steel There are no mattresses-only comforts spread over the springs and a sheet on top. There Is another sheet and cotton blankets to cover you. It is as hot here now as it is in Birmingham in June.
 The male chambermaid can not be and before a great while the Davis Creek Coal and. Coke Company will be getting