LLAMAS.
Not far from the coast of America is Cuba, and here bullock wagons suitable to the tropical climate of the island are used, with shady roofs made of palm-leaves. These are driven by negroes, who urge on the animals with long, iron-pointed goads. The reins are attached to the ends of the bullock's horns.
CUBAN VOLANTE.
In the streets of Havana, the capital of Cuba, hooded carriages called volantes, or kitrins, are seen. They are drawn by two horses or mules, one being harnessed between the shafts while the other is outside on the left. Sometimes three horses are driven abreast. These vehicles are very curious in appearance, for they have enormous wheels and shafts that are over fifteen feet in length. The horses are ridden by negro postilions, who sometimes wear gorgeous scarlet liveries ornamented with gold lace, and jack-boots that reach almost to their waists.
From Cuba we can travel east or west, sailing either round the Horn or the Cape of Good Hope, but whichever direction we choose our ship comes at last to the great island continent of Australia. There we find, in the large towns such as Sydney and Melbourne, tramways, motor-cars, and even the old familiar hansom cabs of the London streets.
Australia has not any strange vehicles of its own, for when discovered it was inhabited only by savages, and it had no animals that could be used as beasts of burden. These latter have, however, been imported and acclimatized, and now horses and cattle may be seen everywhere, while, if we travel across the sandy plains of the west, we meet long lines of heavily laden camels that look as if they had marched straight out of the Sahara or the Arabian deserts.
