Notes on Cuba : containing an account of its discovery and early history : a description of the face of the country, its population, resources, and wealth : its institutions, and the manners and customs of its inhabitants : with directions to travellers visiting the island / by a Physician.

Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes on Cuba : containing an account of its discovery and early history : a description of the face of the country, its population, resources, and wealth : its institutions, and the manners and customs of its inhabitants : with directions to travellers visiting the island / by a Physician. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    looks down on the public square in front of the mansion of the Captain-General, price $68 a month. Madam Roullet keeps also a fine airy establishment near the paseo outside the walls, where English and French are spoken, price $2 a day. Mrs. Chambers has one of the best houses in Havana ; it is in the Calle Obra Pia, price $2 a day. Mrs. Alexandre, No. 19, Calle Cuba, Mrs. Butts near Mrs. West's, and Mrs. Cutbush, Washington Hotel, Calle Obispo, opposite the Captain-General's mansion, charge each about $ 1.50 a day. An Italian, who speaks English and French, keeps a good hotel about two miles from the city near the race-ground, to which an omnibus runs several times in the day ; it is called El Progresso, and the price is $ 1.50 a day. The following tariff may facilitate the stranger's movements in Havana. For the carriage of a trunk by a negro porter, for a boat to a vessel in the harbor, which also conveys you back to land, for one to the steps leading to the Cabanas, each a peseta; if more than two persons enter the boat an additional coin may be demanded. Ferry-boat to Regla one real; for a volante to Guanabacoa $ 1 ; for one by the hour in Havana $ 1 ; for a single ride two pesetas; for one to the railroad depot four rcdlesfuerles. No other coins but Spanish are current in Cuba; the medio is our six cent piece, the real sevillanos the Spanish ten cents, the realfuerte our twelve cents, the peso our dollar, and the oaza the Spanish doubloon. The peseta, which was once valued at twenty-five cents, has been reduced to its true value of twenty cents, and so many have in consequence been remitted to Spain, that the traveller will do well to supply him- self with silver change, and the smaller Spanish gold coins, before he leaves his country, where they may be bought also at a discount. The months of October, November, and December may be spent on the south side of the island, either in Guines or on Dr. Finlay's plantation, the Buena Esperanza. Both are in a great measure protected by their position from the most unpleasant accompaniments of northers, the drifting rains, the clouds being often exhausted before they reach those places. The situation of Buena Esperanza is drier, and the atmosphere more bracing