towards the narrow entrance of the harbor, before we were hailed by the Castle.

Our knowledge of Spanish was insufficient to comprehend the import of the salutation, but our Captain, who had been somewhat annoyed already by missing an entrance the night before, and by delay and obstinacy of the Pilot, seized his trumpet, and thundered back an answer which rather intimated to the garrison that he should go through if they blew the timbers out of the ship, and on he went.

The entrance to the harbor is through a narrow channel, which, running inland, turns suddenly to the right, and expands into a circular bay of over a mile in diameter. Only a single vessel can enter at a time, and as we passed in, we saw the buoys still anchored over the wrecks of British ships which had been sunk in the attack upon the city. On the heights at the left, stood the buff walls of the Cabanos, surmounted by the ensign of Spain, and as we rounded the point and steered towards the center of the bay, the whole city lay before us upon the right. Before we had dropped anchor the little wicker covered boats were alongside, with oranges, limes, pines, bananas, poodle-dogs, and other less familiar products of the tropics. The Custom House officers were not long behind them. Then came the struggle for permits, and the demand for baggage and passports. Finally we found ourselves stowed away in a cock-boat and approaching the shore. What a strange place! The traveler who goes over all Europe, (except perhaps the Moorish parts of Spain,) may come to Havana and find everything different from all he has ever seen before.

We had the traveler's usual experience with Custom Houses, and then with our trunks mounted upon a primitive truck, we tracked our way to the Hotel. It was an ancient building, of coral rock; at the front was a wide double leaved gate or door-way, through which both man and beast enters; emerging from this we stood in the hollow square of the courtyard, the home of the horses, cows, dogs, chickens, peacocks, and just then of two formidable stag-hounds. By a flight of stairs we ascended to a gallery running around the interior of the building and overlooking the court-yard below; from this the doors open into the parlors and sleeping rooms. We entered one of the former; it was a spacious room paved with red tiles, hung round with blue, and a large bow window, from ceiling to floor, without glass, opened to a balcony upon the street. We sat down here; opposite was a low wall enclosing a deserted and wild looking yard, where a solitary goat was browsing beneath the shade

of a cocoanut tree. This was the rear of what had once been a nunnery, but now was the barracks of a large detachment of the Spanish army. The walls were moss grown, and the iron gate-way looked as though it had not opened for centuries. In a little tower upon one of its angles, stood a soldier, whose duty was to toll the hours upon the old bell that swung above his head.

It was near midday; the sun beat fiercely upon the city; keeping under the shadows, we sauntered forth for a bath. By direction we entered a little enclosure resembling a garden; it was filled with strange looking shrubs and flowers, and an air of oriental calmness and mystery hung over it, broken only by the soft notes of an invisible guitar. The baths were of marble, and a grateful perfume impregnated the air. What a luxury that bath was; its memory lingers with us yet. It was dinner time when we returned. They have but two meals commonly in Cuba-breakfast at nine, and dinner at three o'clock. The Cubans are early risers, and are generally at their work by six in the morning. Merchants go on 'change in Havana at that hour, and by nine their day's work is done. The heat is too intense to do much between breakfast and dinner, except within doors; and after their last meal they spend the day in riding and other amusements.

But to return to the dinner; the table was spread in the gallery near the parlor, and overlooking the court-yard beneath. Lady Emeline Stuart Wortley, the somewhat celebrated English authoress and traveler, was a guest at the same hotel with us, but coming a few days after we arrived, there was no room left her but a sort of dark pantry, which, despite its closeness, she, with her daughter, occupied as bedroom, dining-room, and parlor, prefering to submit to this inconvenience rather than contaminate the Duke (her father's) blood by sitting in the airy gallery at the table d'hote, albeit not a few of the real sovereign people beside ourself sat there.

One nowhere sees handsomer cattle, or poorer beef, than in Cuba, unless it be in the northern part of Maine. Perhaps it is to be explained by the sailors' proverb upon the "respective origin" of meat and cooks. The fish, however, are fine and in great variety. Vegetables, fruits, made dishes, confections and such things, you find in perfection. The table was bountiful; claret is served in pitchers like water, and is a favorite drink all over the Island.

The sea-breeze begins about this time in the day, and is very refreshing; so when the heat of the day had somewhat abated, accompanied

by two ladies, our compagnons du voyage, we took a volante for a drive. One of these, Miss Genevieve was a sweet girl of some fourteen years, and of such rare beauty that when in Italy, the Italian artists used to sketch her as a study. Her romantic attachment and marriage, three or four years afterwards, to a Polish nobleman, his cruel desertion of her, their subsequent remarriage in the cathedral at Moscow by ukase of the Russian Emperor, and her immediate and eternal farewell to her husband, thereupon banished as an exile to Siberia, are doubtless familiar now to all our readers. But little did we then dream, as day after day we sauntered amid the orange groves, in the brief twilight of the tropics, hand in hand with Genevieve, or together cantered our horses among the palm forests, or along the pebbly sea beach, shell and coral strown, that such a future lay before her. Peace be with thee, fair Gennie, wheresoe'er thou art.

The volante resembles the old-fashioned gig or chaise, except that the body is swung far forward of the axle, and nearly the whole weight falls upon the horse's back, who, in addition, carries the black driver. The driver himself is picturesque enough-frequently a tatooed savage from the wilds of Africa, his usual dress a scarlet coat with lace trimmings, and a pair of boots that project far above his knees, armed at the heel with enormous silver spurs, the whole dress giving him the appearance, when off his horse, of an overgrown grasshopper. The horse's tail is carefully braided and tied fast to the saddle, a contrivance, probably, to enhance his beauty and render him more comfortable in a climate where flies and muskitoes abound. The seat of the volante is just wide enough for three, and pulling up the front screen, we dashed on over the smoothly-paved and narrow streets, toward the outer gate. The gate is very narrow, and a sentry with his musket, kept the guard. Crossing the moat, and winding among the angles of the outer fortifications, we were in the city "outside the walls," which is much more modern and airy than the old town. The great drive of the Havanese is the Passeo de Tacon, a broad macadamized road, lined with royal palms, and skirted on each side with two paths, which are shaded by flowering shrubs. Fountains and statutes adorn the whole line, and on pleasant evenings the avenue is crowded with equipages, each vying with the other in the splendor of its outfit and the livery of its driver.

The police of the city is military, and, indeed, everything in Cuba is done at the point of the bayonet. This road is kept in repair by the state prisoners, and we often saw them under the guard of a soldier, chained to a ball, pounding the hard surface of the carriage track. A

gang of these wretched creatures used to pass our hotel every night on their return from work to prison. The clanking of the manacles with which they were chained together, always told us of their approach.

Driving in, towards sunset, we encountered a division of the army returning from review. There were some five thousand men, and they presented a striking contrast to the prim militia which semi-occasionally parade our streets at home. They had an air of easy home-feeling in their rolling march, and looked as if they were intended for actual service. They were of dark olive complexion, with short hair upon the head, and none on the face except a black mustache. Their dress was white linen, gilt buttons, white shoulder-straps, black patent leather caps, and white gaiters and gloves. The officers' dress was a little longer coat, in the frock style, sword, sash and plume; in other respects like the rank and file. And as the long column rolled in towards the city, the arms flashing in the slanting rays of the sun, and the fine martial music swelling up from numerous bands, the sight was one to stir a military enthusiasm in a more peaceful breast than ours.

Those who do not attend the opera at Havana, usually stroll off in the evening to the Plaza, before the Captain-General's palace, to hear the music. The palace is an immense building, with a large court within, and facing the Plaza des Armas, a charming little park, ornamented with a statue of one of the Ferdinands, and planted with palms and flowers. After a light tea, for the Cubans themselves as we said, eat little or nothing after dinner, we went there. A large crowd of gentlemen were already quietly promenading, waiting the bands' arrival, and "bright harnessed " ladies, meanwhile, in full dress and with uncovered heads, were sitting in their volantes, for a Cuban lady upon no occasion adventures to set foot upon the ground.

A French traveler says, that recently when the wife of the CaptainGeneral, wishing to reform the custom, "essayed to walk, the scandal was so great, that she relinquished the attempt, as likely to add one to the other causes of a threatened revolution." Women's rights reach farther than we think.

At eight o'clock, the band appeared. No description can convey a tithe of the beauty of that scene. On one side stretched the long front of the palace, its arched windows hung with rich curtains and brilliant with gas lights, on another stood the somber residence of the Intendencia, opposite the white and glistening gate-way of the barracks, its arch surmounted by the crown royal of Spain, and near it the little chapel, half hid beneath the shadows of the tree planted upon the spot where Columbus first said mass upon the Island; in the distance, the

cathedral in whose chancel still sleep the ashes of the great discoverer himself, near by, an antique fountain from which leaped a fairy-like cascade, whose tinkling waters sparkled in the silver light of a full moon, riding in a sky of the deepest blue, the palm leaves above us just stirred by the bland sea-breeze, and over all the rich music of the finest band we ever heard. It was a scene almost unearthly fair-"beautiful exceedingly."

F. E. B.

Literary Notices.

Greece and the Greeks of the Present Day. By EDMUND ABOUT. New York: Dix, Edwards & Co. For sale by T. H. Pease.

This book, by one of the best known of the young French litterateurs, effectually dispels all the rose-colored fancies which he had entertained of the modern Greeks, especially since their war of independence. M. About shows modern Greek as destitute of courage, of common honor and honesty, as generous only to his countrymen, and suspicious to the last degree of foreigners.

"The Greeks,” he says, "have made for themselves abroad a detestable reputation; in any country, the name of Greek is used for a sharper or a swindler. I am obliged to say that they do not deserve more than their reputation." (p. 48.) Again:

"Europe believed at one time that all the Greeks were heroes; I have heard some old soldiers affirm that they were all cowards. I think I am nearer the truth in saying that their valor is discreet and reflecting. During the war of Independence, they fought chiefly as skirmishers behind bushes. No doubt there have been found among them some soldiers brave enough to venture on the plain, but they were not the greater number. Camaris, who used to set fire to a fleet by laying alongside of it, has a subject of astonishment to the whole nation. It must not be supposed that all the Greeks were like Camaris, and it is always a bad plan to judge a nation from individuals. It was not the Greek fleet that attacked Xerxes or Salamis; it was one man-it was Themistocles. The Greeks wanted not to fight; and Herodotus relates that a voice was heard in the air, which exclaimed Cowards, when will you cease to fleet' The Greek nation is not born to make war, whatever it may say. Had it as much courage as it pretends to, discipline, which is the principal strength of war, will always be wanting."

We might cite many other passages which we had marked, intending to give the book a longer review, if our space had permitted.