At the close of the repast, the Emperor begged to be informed in what way he could be permitted to testify his appreciation of the towering talents of his gifted subject.

"Son of Heaven," answered Mienyaun, "grant me only the hand in marriage of my beauteous Ching-ki-pin. No other ambition have I."

The Emperor was provoked at the modesty of the demand. In truth, he would have been glad to see the young poet united to one of his own daughters. But his imperial word was pledged, and as Mien-yaun willed it, so it was.

XII.

THEIR home is a little cottage on the bank of the Peiho; finery never enters it, and neatness never leaves it. The singing of birds, the rustling of the

has no

breeze, the murmuring of the waters are the only sounds that they hear. Their window will shut, and their door open,-but to wise men only; the wicked shun it. Truth dwells in their hearts, innocence guides their actions. Glory more charms for them than wealth, and all the pleasures of the world cost them not a single wish. The enjoyment of ease and solitude is their chief concern. Leisure surrounds them, and discord shuns them. They contemplate the heavens and are fortified. They look on the earth and are comforted. They remain in the world without being of it. One day leads on another, and one year is followed by another; the last will conduct them safe to their eternal rest, and they will have lived for one another.*

*The concluding lines are from a modern Chinese poem.

THE HARBOR OF HAVANA.

As we have said, there were some official mysteries connected with the arrival of our steamer in Nassau; but these did not compare with the visitations experienced in Havana. As soon as we had dropped anchor, a swarm of dark creatures came on board, with gloomy brows, mulish noses, and suspicious eyes. This application of Spanish flies proves irritating to the good-natured captain, and uncomfortable to all of us. All possible documents are produced for their satisfaction,-bill of lading, bill of health, and so on. Still they persevere in tormenting the whole ship's crew, and regard us, when we pass, with all the hatred of race in their rayless eyes. "Is it a crime," we are disposed to ask, "to have a fair Saxon skin, blue eyes, and red blood?" Truly, one would seem to think so; and the first glance at this historical race makes clear to us the Inquisition, the Conquest of Granada, and the ancient butcheries of Alva and Pizarro.

As Havana is an unco uncertain place for accommodations, we do not go on shore, the first night, but, standing close beside the bulwarks, feel a benevolent pleasure in seeing our late companions swallowed and carried off like tidbits by the voracious boatmen below, who squabble first for them and then with them, and so gradually disappear in the dark

forward, where the sailors are playing leap-frog and dancing fore-and-afters. I have a genuine love of such common sights, and am quite absorbed by the good fun before me, when a solemn voice sounds at my left, and, looking round, I perceive Can Grande, who has come up to explain to me the philosophy of the sailor's dances, and to unfold his theory of amusements, as far as the narrow area of one little brain (mine, not his) will permit. His monologue, and its interruptions, ran very much as follows:

I.-This is a pleasant sight, isn't it?

Can Grande.It has a certain interest, as exhibiting the inborn ideal tendency of the human race;—no tribe of people so wretched, so poor, or so infamous as to dispense with amusement, in some form or other.

Voice from below.-Play up, Cook! That's but a slow jig ye're fluting away

at.

Can Grande.-I went once to the Five Points of New York, with a policeofficer and two philanthropists;-our object was to investigate that lowest phase of social existence.

Bang, whang, go the wrestlers below, with loud shouts and laughter. I give them one eye and ear,-Can Grande has me by the other.

Can Grande.-I went into one of their miserable dance-saloons. I saw there the vilest of men and the vilest of women, meeting with the worst intentions; but even for this they had the fiddle, music and dancing. Without this little crowning of something higher, their degradation would have been intolerable to themselves and to each other.

Here the man who gave the back in leap-frog suddenly went down in the middle of the leap, bringing with him the other, who, rolling on the deck, caught the traitor by the hair, and pommelled

him to his heart's content. I ventured to laugh, and exclaim, "Did you see that?"

Can Grande.-Yes; that is very common.- -At that dance of death, every wretched woman had such poor adornment as her circumstances allowed, -a collar, a tawdry ribbon, a glaring false jewel, her very rags disposed with the greater decency of the finer sex,-a little effort at beauty, a sense of it. The good God puts it there;- He does not allow the poorest, the lowest of his human children the thoughtless indifference of brutes.

And there was the beautiful tropical sky above, starry, soft, and velvet-deep, -the placid waters all around, and at my side the man who is to speak no more in public, but whose words in private have still the old thrill, the old power to shake the heart and bring the good thoughts uppermost. I put my hand in his, and we descended the companionway together and left the foolish sailors to their play.

But now, on the after-deck, the captain, much entreated, and in no wise unwilling, takes down his violin, and with pleasant touch gives us the dear old airs, "Home, Sweet Home," "Annie Laurie," and so on, and we accompany him with voices toned down by the quiet of the scene around. He plays, too, with a musing look, the merry tune to which his little daughter dances, in the English dancing-school, hundreds of leagues away. Good-night, at last, and make the most of it. Coolness and quiet on the water to-night, and heat and mosquitoes, howling of dogs and chattering of negroes tomorrow night, in Havana.

The next morning allowed us to accomplish our transit to the desired land of Havana. We pass the custom-house, where an official in a cage, with eyes of most oily sweetness, and tongue, no doubt, to match, pockets our gold, and imparts in return a governmental permission to inhabit the Island of Cuba for the space of one calendar month. We go trailing through the market, where we buy peel

ed oranges, and through the streets, where we eat them, seen and recognized afar as Yankees by our hats, bonnets, and other features. We stop at the Café Dominica, and refresh with coffee and buttered rolls, for we have still a drive of three miles to accomplish before breakfast. All the hotels in Havana are full, and more than full. Woolcut, of the Cerro, three miles from the gates, is the only landlord who will take us in; so he seizes us fairly by the neck, bundles us into an omnibus, swears that his hotel is but two miles distant, smiles archly when we find the two miles long, brings us where he wants to have us, the Spaniards in the omnibus puffing and staring at the ladies all the way. Finally, we arrive at his hotel, glad to be somewhere, but hot, tired, hungry, and not in raptures with our first experience of tropical life.

It must be confessed that our long-tried energies fall somewhat flat on the quiet of Woolcut's. We look round, and behold one long room with marble floor, with two large doors, not windows, opening in front upon the piazza and the street, and other openings into a large court behind, surrounded by small, dark bedrooms. The large room is furnished with two dilapidated cane sofas, a few chairs, a small table, and three or four indifferent prints, which we have ample time to study. For company, we see a stray New York or Philadelphia family, a superannuated Mexican who smiles and bows to everybody, and some dozen of those undistinguishable individuals whom we class together as Yankees, and who, taking the map from Maine to Georgia, might as well come from one place as another, the Southerner being as like the Northerner as a dried pea is to a green pea. The ladies begin to hang their heads, and question a little :-" What are we to do here? and where is the perfectly delightful Havana you told us of?" Answer:-"There is nothing whatever to do here, at this hour of the day, but to undress and go to sleep; the heat will not let you stir, the glare will not let you

write or read. Go to bed; dinner is at four; and after that, we will make an ef fort to find the Havana of the poetical and Gan Eden people, praying Heaven it may not have its only existence in their brains."

Still, the pretty ones do not brighten; they walk up and down, eyeing askance the quiet boarders who look so contented over their children and worsted-work, and wondering in what part of the world they have taken the precaution to leave their souls. Unpacking is then begun, with rather a flinging of the things about, interspersed with little peppery hints as to discomfort and dulness, and dejected stage-sighs, intended for hearing. But this cannot go on,-the thermometer is at 78° in the shade,- - an intense and contagious stillness reigns through the house, some good genius waves a bunch of poppies near those little fretful faces, for which a frown is rather heavy artillery. The balmy breath of sleep blows off the lightly-traced furrows, and, after a dreamy hour or two, all is bright, smooth, and freshly dressed, as a husband could wish it. The dinner proves not intolerable, and after it we sit on the piazza. A refreshing breeze springs up, and presently the tide of the afternoon drive sets in from the city. The volantes dash by, with silver-studded harnesses, and postilions black and booted; within sit the pretty Señoritas, in twos and threes. They are attired mostly in muslins, with bare necks and arms; bonnets they know not, their heads are dressed with flowers, or with jewelled pins. Their faces are whitened, we know, with powder, but in the distance the effect is pleasing. Their dark eyes are vigilant; they know a lover when they see him. But there is no twilight in these parts, and the curtain of the dark falls upon the scene as suddenly as the screen of the theatre upon the dénouement of the tragedy. Then comes a cup of truly infernal tea, the mastication of a stale roll, with butter, also stale,-then, more sitting on the piazza,—then, retirement, and a wild hunt after mosquitoes,—and

so ends the first day at Woolcut's, on the Cerro.

HAVANA. THE HOTELS.

"SHALL I not take mine ease in mine inn?" Yes, truly, if you can get it, Jack Falstaff; but it is one thing to pay for comfort, and another thing to have it. You certainly pay for it, in Havana; for the $3 or $3.50 per diem, which is your simplest hotel-charge there, should, in any civilized part of the world, give you a creditable apartment, clean linen, and all reasonable diet. What it does give, the travelling public may like to learn.

Can Grande has left Woolcut's. The first dinner did not please him,—the cup of tea, with only bread, exasperated,and the second breakfast, greasy, peppery, and incongruous, finished his dis gust; so he asked for his bill, packed his trunk, called the hotel detestable, and

went.

Now he was right enough in this; the house is detestable; - but as all houses of entertainment throughout the country are about equally so, it is scarcely fair to complain of one. I shall not fear to be more inclusive in my statement, and to affirm that in no part of the world does one get so little comfort for so much money as on the Island of Cuba. To wit: an early cup of black coffee, oftenest very bad; bread not to be had without an extra sputtering of Spanish, and darkening of the countenance;-to wit, a breakfast between nine and ten, invariably consisting of fish, rice, beefsteak, fried plantains, salt cod with tomatoes, stewed tripe and onions, indifferent claret, and an after-cup of coffee or green tea ;-to wit, a dinner at three or four, of which the inventory varieth not,-to wit, a plate of soup, roast beef, tough turkeys and chickens, tolerable ham, nameless stews, cajota, plantains, salad, sweet potatoes; and for dessert, a spoonful each of West India preserve,-invariably the kind you do not like,-oranges, bananas, and another cup of coffee;-to wit, tea of the sort already described;-to wit, attend

ance and non-attendance of negro and half-breed waiters, who mostly speak no English, and neither know nor care what you want to wit, a room whose windows, reaching from floor to ceiling, inclose no glass, and are defended from the public by iron rails, and from the outer air, at desire, by clumsy wooden shutters, which are closed only when it rains ;-to wit, a bed with a mosquito-netting;-to wit, a towel and a pint of water, for all ablutions. This is the sum of your comforts as to quantity; but as to their quality, experience alone can enlighten you.

Taking pity on my exile at the Cerro, Can Grande and his party invite me to come and spend a day at their hotel, of higher reputation, and situated in the centre of things. I go;-the breakfast, to my surprise, is just like Woolcut's; the dinner idem, but rather harder to get; preserves for tea, and two towels daily, instead of one, seem to constitute the chief advantages of this establishment. Domestic linens, too, are fairer than elsewhere; but when you have got your ideas of cleanliness down to the Cuban standard, a shade or two either way makes no material difference.

Can Grande comes and goes; for stay in the hotel, behind those prison-gratings, he cannot. He goes to the market and comes back, goes to the Jesuit College and comes back, goes to the banker's and gets money. In his encounters with the sun he is like a prize-fighter coming up to time. Every round finds him weaker and weaker, still his pluck is first-rate, and he goes at it again. It is not until three, P. M., that he wrings out his dripping pocket-handkerchief, slouches his hat over his brows, and gives in as deadbeat.

They of the lovely sex, meanwhile, undergo, with what patience they may, an Oriental imprisonment. In the public street they must on no account set foot. The Creole and Spanish women are born and bred to this, and the hardiest American or English woman will scarcely venture out a second time without the severe escort of husband or brother. VOL. III.

43

These relatives are, accordingly, in great demand. In the thrifty North, man is considered an incumbrance from breakfast to dinner,-and the sooner he is fed and got out of the way in the morning, the better the work of the household goes on. If the master of the house return at an unseasonable hour, he is held to an excuse, and must prove a headache, or other suitable indisposition. In Havana, on the contrary, the American woman suddenly becomes very fond of her husband:-" he must not leave her at home alone; where does he go? she will go with him; when will he come back? remember, now, she will expect him." The secret of all this is, that she cannot go out without him. The other angel of deliverance is the volante, with its tireless horses and calesero, who seems fitted and screwed to the saddle, which he never leaves. He does not even turn his head for orders. His senses are in the back of his head, or wherever his mistress pleases. José, calle de la muralla, esquina á los oficios,"—and the black machine moves on, without look, word, or sign of intelligence. In New York, your Irish coachman grins approval of your order; and even an English flunkey may touch his hat and say, "Yes, Mum." But in the Cuban negro of service, dumbness is the complement of darkness;—you speak, and the patient right hand pulls the strap that leads the off horse, while the other gathers up the reins of the nigh, and the horses, their tails tightly braided and deprived of all movement, seem as mechanical as the driver. Happy are the ladies at the hotel who have a perpetual volante at their service! for they dress in their best clothes three times a day, and do not soil them by contact with the dusty street. They drive before breakfast, and shop before dinner, and after dinner go to flirt their fans and refresh their robes on the Paseo, where the fashions drive. At twilight, they stop at friendly doors and pay visits, or at the entrance of the café, where ices are brought out to them. At eight o'clock they go to the Plaza, and hear