who lived there. Here, and in other districts throughout town, not only the streets had names Empedrado, because it was the first paved; Tejadillo (Little Tile), because a house upon it was the first to have a tiled roof; Blanco (Target), because the artillery school practised there when it was well outside the walled city, but many corners and crossings had their own particular titles. The corner of Habana and Empedrado was called the Corner of the Little Lamp,' because in a tobacco shop there shone steadily the only street light of the district. The corner of Compostela and Jesus Maria was Snake Corner,' because of the picture of a serpent painted on a house wall there. Sol and Aguacate was 'Sun Corner,' for a similar reason, and the facade decoration there probably named the whole of Sol (Sun) Street. The block on Amargura between Compostela and Villegas was known as the Square of Pious Women,' because two very religious ladies lived near, and because, too, of the particular station of the cross located on Amargura at this point.”1

Just off the Plaza de Armas is la Fuerza, that quaint fortress constructed by the order 1 Cuba, by I. A. Wright, New York, 1910.

of De Soto in 1538. This, which is probably the oldest building of any kind in the City, attracts the greatest amount of attention from visitors. For a long period the fort was the official residence of the governors of the Island, who embellished its interior with handsome furniture, statuary and paintings. As the City grew and more formidable works usurped the protective office which La Fuerza had so capably filled in earlier days, the building was utilized as barracks, storehouse and even jail. The moat was filled in and a high wall raised in its place. During the American occupation the fortress was restored to something like its original form by the replacement of the moat and drawbridge and the restoration of the bastions. At present the building is used as a depository for the national archives.

An excellent view of the harbor may be had from the tower of La Fuerza. The bell in this old tower bears the date 1706. Formerly it sounded the hours throughout the day and night, and was used to give the alarm in time of danger. The guns of the fort have repelled more than one attack, and so highly was the importance of La Fuerza held in the infant period of the colony, that a royal decree re

quired all war vessels entering the harbor to salute the fortification. La Fuerza failed, however, to stop the French pirate De Sores, who captured and partially destroyed it, before firing and sacking the City.

The Cathedral, a short stone's throw from La Fuerza, is not the largest, nor the most beautiful, nor even the oldest church in Habana, but it has a special interest for the tourist because the bones of Christopher Columbus reposed there until the Spaniards evacuated Cuba, when they carried the relic with them and deposited it in the Cathedral of Seville.

The Cathedral was erected close to the waterfront, in what was then the centre of the City. Originally a Jesuit convent, the building was remodelled and devoted to its present purpose in 1789.

In an official map of Habana published in 1800, there are thirty-two notations referring to the most important points and buildings of the City. Of these references, seventeen apply to religious institutions. Whilst far from maintaining the same proportion, the ecclesiastical structures are very numerous. The oldest of these is the Convent of San Francisco, which stands upon the waterfront, adjoining the plaza