ball-room would not have seemed to me dusty and stifling when compared with this rotunda of nature beneath the heaven of Cuba.

I asked our boatman-who spoke English as well as Spanish-whether he was satisfied with his condition in life. He shook his head: "Things were going dreadfully with him; he should find himself compelled some fine morning to run away from both boat and city."

"You smoke too many cigarettes, Hernandez!" said 1. 'Only twenty a day, signora!" said he, and shrugged his shoulders.

April 22d. Good-morning, my beloved child: I get on charmingly now at the hotel. I have full freedom, have every thing excellent, and the good Mrs. Mary does not let me want for any thing. Early in the morning I go out to walk on my favorite Cortina; watch the waves breaking against the rocks of the Moro; inhale the sea-breezes ; converse with the naiads; visit a church or two; look at the pomp there; listen to the music; then go home across La Plaza des Armas, where I linger a while to study the monument to Columbus, which I afterward at home sketch into my book; but I am obliged to make my observations very warily, for the military on the Square are already beginning to watch me. They suspect that I am plotting an invasion.

Late in the evening I walk about on the azotea among the urns, and watch the moon and the Moro light emulating each other in lighting up the city and the sea, and watch the Southern Cross rise in quiet majesty above the horizon, while toward the northern star, which shows out at sea, I always cast a friendly glance. The roar of the sea comes to me from the side of the Moro, and the gay sound of military music from La Plaza des Armas. Later in the night, the harmonious air and sounds are broken in upon by the Serenos, or fire-watchmen of Havana, who sing so that it really would be deplorable if it were not

so extremely ludicrous. I never before heard such a succession of false, jaw-breaking, inharmonious tones. I can not get angry with them for laughing.

I go to my friends, the F.'s, generally for an hour every morning, to paint the portrait of Mrs. F., which I wish to possess, in memory of one of the best, most motherly women in the world.

While I am thus occupied, she tells me the experience of her lifetime as regards the negro character. Her observations agree in the main with those of Mrs. P. Mrs F. says, as she does, "that there is a great difference in the characters and tempers of the negroes, as is the case among the white races, but that they are, in general, more accessible than these to the sentiment of attachment, of tenderness, and gratitude. The whites make a great mistake when they accuse the negroes of ingratitude. They make them slaves, they demand incessant labor from them, and require after that that they should be grateful. Grateful for what? They who wish really to be the negro's friend will find him grateful and noble-minded. I have had both black and white nurses for my children, but with the black only have I been perfectly satisfied."

An affecting proof of love and strength of character among the negroes was related to me, in the history of a young negro couple who loved each other, without being able to marry, because the master of the young negro woman obstinately refused to consent to her marriage. Love, however, had had its way, and the young lovers had a child. The master of the negro woman, in a fury of anger at this discovery, forbade her again to see the young man, or he to see his child. The young negro was in service at Mrs. F.'s; he was an excellent young man, with one only fault-he loved liquor, and not unfrequently allowed himself to be overcome by it; and this propensity increased all the more, now that the sorrow of not being VOL. II.-R

able to see his wife and little boy often almost drove him to despair. Mrs. F. said to him,

"If you will break yourself of this habit of strong drink, I will allow you a peso a week, and lay the money by for you, and with it you may, in time, buy the freedom of your child."

From this moment the man became perfectly sober, and persevered in being so for many months. After this time of trial, Mrs. F. paid him the money which she had promised, and added to it, in order, said she, to show him her esteem and satisfaction, as much more as was necessary to purchase the freedom of the child. He kissed her hand with joy and tears of gratitude; he was beside himself with happiness, and with the prospect which was afforded him of sometime being able to purchase the freedom of the child's mother also, and being united to her. This was now in progress of accomplishment. In the mean time, the parents and the child had secret meetings, and their love was as heartfelt, as romantically warm and steadfast as that which any novel-writer describes between his heroes and heroines.

Mrs. F. confirmed all that I had already heard of the kindness of the Spanish masters to their domestic slaves, and the care which they take of them in their old age.

But if the domestic slaves are commonly well treated, the slaves on the plantations are, in a general way, quite the reverse; they are looked upon, not as human beings, but as beasts of burden, and are treated with greater severity than these.

The house of the F.'s is now altogether full of love, music, and mirth. Young Louisa F. is married, and will, although still hardly more than a child, now become mistress of her own household.

I have been sorely tempted just now by a journey to Jamaica and thence to Mexico, which would have been by no means difficult of accomplishment. But time and

-besides, I should not in Jamaica, in Central America, nor yet in South America, see any thing essentially different in vegetation, population, manners, mode of building, or in any other way different to what I see in Cuba, under the tropical heavens and the dominion of the Spaniards. And this was essential to me for my picture of the New World. I have now received a clear impression of its southern hemisphere. Books and engravings will help me to see the difference.

And that they already do. I have seen at Mr. F.'s engravings of Mexico and other cities of Spanish America, which seem to me merely repetitions of Havana. And in Prescott's excellent history of the conquest of Mexico and Peru I have become acquainted with the highlands of these countries, as well as with the noble Aztecs who once dwelt there.

Christian Aztecs must one day rule over these glorious countries, and upon their noble heathen foundation erect a new temple, a new community, which shall, in spirit and in truth, make them the highlands of the world.

I have beheld the countenance of the earth beneath the sun's warmest beams, where they call forth palms and coffee-shrubs. I know the circumstances of every-day human life there, its pleasures and its miseries. I have comprehended this new page in the book of creation and the life of nature. I have enjoyed and been grateful. And after two weeks' longer stay in Cuba, to see Madame C. and the paradisiacal regions of the Caffetal to the east of Havana, I shall turn from the tropics and the palms once more toward the United States, and in the course of a few months hope to see again Sweden, you, and all my dear ones. Believe me, the home of the pine-tree is my home, dearer to me than the palm-groves here. Here I could not live after all!

LETTER XXXVI.

San Antonio de los Bagnos, April 23. ABROAD on an adventure in foreign lands, my dear heart, and for the moment not of the most agreeable kind; I am here, all alone, in a little Spanish posada or fonda (a thirdrate public house), as uncomfortable as possible, surrounded by people who do not understand me, and whom I do not understand either. I am here awaiting the arrival of a volante from Signora C., which is to take me to her plantation, about five English miles from this place. Possibly, however, she may not yet have received the letter which announced my arrival here, and the volante, in that case, may not come for a day or two, and I, in the mean time, shall have to stop here; but I am neither uneasy nor in want of food, for my little traveling fairy is with me, and keeps me in capital humor, and has enabled me to fall in with a little Spanish Don on the rail-way, who could speak a little French, and who was delighted to be of service to me. With his help, and my Spanish phrase-book and dictionary, I manage very well. And besides, I have sent off a letter of introduction, which I had with me, to Don Ildephonso Miranda, who lives not far from here," in su Caffetal en Alguizar," and I expect to see him in the course of the day, and with his assistance I shall be able to get out of my fonda, for he speaks French like a native, I am told, and is, besides, a caballero perfetto.

I am now writing to you in a little room with bare whitewashed walls and earthen floor, the only furniture of which is one wooden chair and a wooden table, and with the wind blowing with all its might in through the window. But here it is the warm wind of Cuba, and one can not be angry with it.

My journey this morning by the rail-way was glorious, like another morning journey which I made some weeks