Thus paraded they through the streets of Paris on the night of July 14, 1789. They were no longer men and women. All that was manly, all that was womanly within them, had been destroyed by their wrongs and their passions. Furies they were as they marched through the streets, repeating their terrible cry.

It was heard in Paris, but its echo went around the world.

XIV.

WHEN that adventurous romancer Jules Verne chose Tampa Bay, on the Florida peninsula, as a starting point for his passenger projectile on its aerial trip to the moon, that modest little indentation on our southern coast achieved more renown than it has any reasonable hope of doing again.

At Port Tampa the only life or movement existant buzzes round a pier built a mile or more through shallow waters into the ocean, from whence the West India steamers of the Plant line sail tri-weekly for Cuba, the "Pearl of the Antilles." One night early in January of '92, the steamer Mascot arrived at the pier and while that racer of the wayward sea was discharging her cargo and passengers, I went in quest of the captain and made the yellow fever in the windward islands a subject of inquiry. I was already sufficiently well informed to know that isolated cases of that or some other malady was continually haunting the tropics, but at that time unusually disquieting rumors of an epidemic of "Yellow Jack" at Havana had been rife in Florida for a month or more, and I wanted to know, you know, because if these things are only found out after reaching your destination, "Where are you? Why, there you are, you see, as one of

the English passengers remarked. The captain, a pleasant little man in navy blue, assured us that similar rumors were circulated every year when the winter resort season opens, by interested parties, presumably Florida hotel keepers. "I guarantee," continued the captain, bringing his seafaring hand onto my shoulder, "that there is no more yellow fever in Cuba than there is in you." That settled it, and I embarked, retiring an hour later to my stateroom with a vague suspicion that on a closer acquaintance the "Pearl of the Antilles" was likely to be not only a little off color but, worst of all, a straw color.

The staterooms on the Mascot are clean, bright and cheerful, and what is of equal importance to voyagers, they are well ventilated. Each room contains an upper and lower berth, a sofa, stationary washstand, mirror, jugs and decanters of water, an electric light and call button, and a couple of life-preservers, large canvas belts stuffed with coarsely-ground cork. There were instructions in a frame on the wall requesting the occupant of the room to try on a belt. The writer complied, but his figure being somewhat given to central expansion, there was not enough lifepreserver to go around, and as a means of aiding longevity, what there was would have been as useful

as a lightning rod in the hands of a drowning man.

We left for Key West in a threatening sea, and it commenced to rise as the moon went down. Clouds had been gathering and a light wind and rain, forerunners of a storm over the face of the waters, commenced to beat against the shrouds. Not a star remained in what an hour before had been a cloudless sky, while the flying scud went thick and fast to windward and the passengers fled below. When leaving land none of the voyagers were in a mood to exchange the warm sweetness of the ocean night breeze for the stuffy atmosphere of the salon or gangways, but wind and wave rule on the great southern gulf as on other seas.

Next morning the sun came up glowing like a ball of fire. The wind had gone down during the night, but ship and sea were still rolling, while the personal appearance of the few passengers who came on deck gave unerring proof of their having passed a restless night; one in particular, a Spaniard, was frightfully ill and probably thought of all the sins he had ever committedand would commit over again if he lived and got another chance. Towards evening the ship reached Key West, an island of twenty thousand inhabitants, lying in the Caribbean Sea, and celebrated, as you are aware, for its extensive manufacture of cigars and for nothing else. The extent of the key or island is about three by six miles, and eleven feet above the surrounding sea. When the cigar makers there are out on a strike, which a local government of ficer informed me was an event of almost tri-weekly occurrence, they amuse themselves by catching turtle, fishing or diving for sponges, the only three industries remaining. Owing to the extensive cigar factories Key West is said to be one of the richest as it certainly is one of the dirtiest cities of its size in the country. It is in importance the ninth

port of entry in the United States, and the third naval strategic point. The city alone pays more import duty and internal revenue tax than all the rest of Florida, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi combined. Passenger steamers remain there but five or six hours and that is quite long enough for any one not particularly interested in the manipulation of the odorous Indian weed. I found the city and location dull and commonplace, the streets and environs malodorous and off the one main thoroughfare, lonely and deserted; the population being mainly cigar makers, were probably at work in the factories. In its present prosperity and lack of sanitation Key West stands in need, not of the golden age but of the sewer-age. Towards midnight our ship slipped her hawser and stood out to sea. Half an hour later that Florida key and its glimmering lights, coral reef and combing breakers were fast becoming faint and far in the mists and gloom of the night.

Next morning at early dawn all the passengers were on deck watching for the dim outline of the Cuban coast, on the eastern horizon of the sea. The purple hills of Matanzas first came into view, then followed the wind-worn battlements of the Morro castle on a rocky headland. We took on a pilot, then a quarantine and customs officer and finally passed through a narrow, deep channel between the frowning guns of the Spanish forts, and entering the bay of Havana tie up to a floating buoy in mid-stream, none but Spanish vessels being allowed to dock. We were immediately boarded by the usual horde of howling hotel runners, who each secured some of the living prey, and dragged them and their baggage into the boats lying alongside. An examination of all but the hand baggage followed at the custom house where we landed. Shortly after carriages were taken, and within an hour most of the pas

sengers had found pleasant quarters at the Hotel Inglaterra, the only first class hostelry, size and location considered, of which Havana can boast. Our party glance at the thermometer, seventy-eight degrees, order a bath, and an hour later, having exchanged our travel-stained attire for white flannel, linen duck or other summer suits with Panama hats, we are prepared to do the city and be done in turn. In Havana hotel charges and everything else are high except cigars and the grade of morality. At the Inglaterra, the tariff is four

to six dollars per day, extra meals one dollar and a half; New York papers fifteen cents, American magazines seventy-five cents, Havana illustrated papers fifty cents each, and parquette seats in the theatres two dollars, the latter, however, will sell admission pro rata for a single act of any performance, after which should you desire to remain, another ticket may be purchased from the ushers in the aisle. The most prominent place of amusement is the old Tacon theatre, that long time temple of Melpomene and Thalia, of comedy

and tragedy and of Esmeralda whose memory is dear alike to the heart of Spanish grandee and Cuban creole.

The buildings of Havana, public and private, rarely attain more than two stories and never exceed three. The principal material used is a soft, cream colored limestone, hewn into shape with two-edged, short handled broad-axes which the native builders are very skillful in the use of. Mouldings, segments and circles, with the simpler designs in scroll work and carvings are readily formed with the one tool. While the work does not bear close inspection, the porous nature of the material will not admit of a finer finish, for which reason the walls are generally plastered in stucco and painted on the exterior. In the latter case the colors selected are sky-blue, yellow, red, pink, pea-green and similar shades of an equally modest and retiring disposition. Among the more pretentious structures the ceilings average twenty feet in height, and where these occur on new, outlaying or border streets, the second and third stories project over the sidewalks and are supported by colonnades of lofty, stone pillars, forming arcades which are cool and pleasant for shoppers and other pedestrians; but in the older parts of city the streets do not exceed thirty feet in width. In an article on Japan written for this magazine some months ago the writer stated that the side-walks in that country averaged three feet wide and thought them roomy enough as nobody used them; in Havana, on the busiest thorough fares they are but two feet in width and everyone uses them or attempts to. Hence, of two pedestrians meeting, one must step momentarily into the street, a by no means desirable alternative when their condition is normal. In some of these narrow streets where shopping is done largely by visiting strangers, notably in the Calle del Obispo, (street of the

Bishop) enterprising storekeepers stretch awnings across from side to side leaving the entire thoroughfare in a cool shade that is delightful to walk or ride beneath.

Oddly enough the houses possess no chimneys. Fires are not required except for cooking, and then a little charcoal takes the place of other fuel. With few exceptions window sash are not used; the openings required for light and ventilation are barred against intrusion by plain or ornamental iron work and closed at all only by paneled wooden shutters. Thus, rooms on the ground floor are open to the curious glances or supervision of idle passers-by. Residences, like stores and public buildings are flush with the sidewalk. Employes of an establishment generally take the noon-day meal, at least, with the proprietor on the premises, when the table is set in the store or shop in plain view of the customer or passer-by. The streets are sprinkled, if at all, by hand hose, but as a rule the semi-liquid filth of a Cuban thoroughfare is of such a clammy, ropy consistency that no dust can form; nothing generates therefrom but the foul, fetid exhalations of the fever breeding soil.

One day in passing through a squalor-haunted region I noticed a dozen or twenty Spanish soldiers engaged in deluging the streets from a fire plug and swabbing the reeking filth into the so-called sewers where it is probably lying now. I was startled at the unusual energy displayed and asked my Mexican friend, Colonel Colorado Maduro, who knows all about these things, what it meant. He replied that that particular district was threatened with incipient yellow fever. A few cases of the desolating malady were rampant in the south-western quarter, but was not spreading and I presume it is rarely if ever inexistent in the island; like the wind it strikes and goes wheresoever it listeth, frequently passing by the weak and emaci