To face p. 232.

Columbus, "It is the most beautiful island eyes have ever seen." Cuba is the original home of the bottle-palm, where it grows wild. Those who have seen the bottle-palm avenue in the Royal Botanical Garden at at Sibpur near Calcutta must have felt what an enchanting scene it is! In Cuba those palms are so abundant that their seeds are used as a food for fattening pigs. The bottle-palm on account of its splendid beauty is also known by the name of "royal palm." It is the most conspicuous of all the trees of the island. It not only adds to the beauty of the landscape, but it also serves a variety of useful purposes. The stem is used as timber in the building of cottages, the leaves are used as thatching for the roof, and the roots have medicinal value. Plates, buckets, basins, and even kettles for boiling water are made from different parts of the tree.

Pine-apples, cocoanuts, lemons, oranges, guavas, mangoes and other fruits are grown in the island in large quantities. The delicious lime juice that we drink in India in the hot weather is made from West Indian limes.

Lemonade, orangeade and other similar drinks in Cuba are prepared from fresh fruits. These drinks are not stored up in bottles as in India. In the cafes of Cuba, if you ask for a limonada (lemonade), the juice from a fresh lemon will be extracted by a fruit-press, and served to you after being mixed with a proper quantity of water and sugar. Orangida (orangeade) will be similarly prepared from the juice of fresh oranges. In preparing the drink from pineapples, no water is required, as the juice of a single fruit is sufficient to fill a glass. Pineapple juice served with ice is called in Spanish piña fria; and sherbet prepared from tamarind is called tamarinda. The cafes of Cuba which are crowded in the summer remind one of the boulevards of Paris. Most of the Cubans, however, indulge in soft drinks unlike the people of Paris. Havana is called Petit Paris (Little Paris) on account of its gaiety and resemblance in many respects to the French metropolis; but the Cubans do not drink in excess like the Parisians who seldom quench their thirst with water-the nature's beverage.

I very well remember that when I was taking my first meal in Paris, the French waiter without asking me beforehand what I would have for drink at once interrogated me, "Vin rouge ou vin blance?" (Red wine or white wine?) I felt ashamed to ask for plain water; I, therefore ordered for limonad (lemonade), which was available there. When I had to pay a franc or ten pence for a glass of lemonade, and the other man at my table paid only four pence for a cup of champagne, I felt a little despondent, and thought that if I had to live in France for a number of days, although I was an absolute teetotaler, I would have to take to drinking at least for the sake of economy!

Bananas (Musa Sapientum) and plantains (Musa Paradisiaca) are extensively grown throughout the island. As in India, the banana is used as a fruit and the plantain as a vegetable. The latter is peeled, roasted in hot ashes, and eaten with butter when quite warm, and as it is quite rich in starch, it is often used as bread in Cuban households. On one occasion, while visiting the farm of a poor