One of the most interesting of Havana's church façades is that of San Francisco de Paula, which is on Paula street, south of Paula Park, near the water front.

PARKS AND PRADO.

AMONG the alluring features of Havana are the parks and promenades and drives which extend from the water front on the Gulf through the center of the city out to Principe Hill. The central parkway is the Prado, which connects Columbus, India and Central Parks with Punta and the Malecón. Beyond Columbus Park are the drives or paseos La Reina, Carlos III., and Tacon. The location of all of these is shown on the map. PARQUE COLON (Columbus Park) was originally a mosquito and feverbreeding marsh which was drained by the enterprise of that public spirited Bishop Espada, whose name is venerated by Cubans for the reforms he wrought and the public benefits he secured to them. Tacon laid it out as the Campo de Marte (Field of Mars) for a drill ground for the Spanish soldiery; inclosed it with a great iron fence, the one which is now in front of the Botanical Gardens and the President' Summer Palace, on the Paseo

"HABANA."

del Carlos III., and associated his own name with those of the great Spanish explorers by calling the four gates Colón, Cortés, Pizarro and Tacon. The bitter fruits of a State policy which necessitated a drill ground for its soldiery were grimly illustrated in the '90s, when the Campo de Marte was filled with a multitude of wretched, starving reconcentrados. A year or two later the field was whitened with the crowding tents of the American soldiers. When the Americans came into possession of Havana and instituted that series of public works which regenerated the city, they cleaned up the parks, renovated and improved them, and planted grass lawns, which were the first ever seen in Havana. The

Campo de Marte was transformed into the Parque Colón, which has developed with the years and become an attractive pleasure ground with palms and shrubs and tropical flowers and fountains.

IN INDIA PARK, adjoining Colón, is the well known India Fountain (La Fuente de la India) which was presented to the city by Count Villanueva, whose estate was here, and after whom the Villanueva station of the United Railways takes its name. The fountain is of marble, and was done in Rome. The pedestal supports the seated figure of an Indian maiden allegorical of Havana. She wears a headdress of feathers and has a quiver of arrows. In one hand is held a cornucopia, in the other a shield with the Arms of the City; conventional sea monsters complete the design. In the old days a Military Band played in India Park every evening from eight to nine.

From here a broad avenue, parked and shaded with laurels, extends north; this was formerly called after Queen Isabel III., Parque Isabel la Catolica, but is now a part of the Prado. The Pasaje Hotel and the Payret Theater front on this part of the Prado connecting India and Central Parks.