faded away to nothingness. Havana began to
assert its own individuality. I saw a town
whose houses were painted in all the colours of
the rainbow. I saw long lines of grey and
crumbling bastions, and curtains and ravelins
built in old time by jealous Spanish viceroys, and
which, I learned, not without pleasure, General
Dulce, the then Captain-General, was beginning
to demolish, to give the pent-up city of Havana
elbow-room. From all these bastions and ravelins
the morning drums and trumpets of the
garrison were braying and rub-a-dubbing at the
most alarming rate. The port seemed as full
of shipping as the Pool of London, and what
scant show of blue water there was to spare
was packed close as Cowes harbour at a
regatta with the shore-boats. Pretty little skiffs
they are, with a lateen sail, often decorated
with a portrait, en pied, of San Cristobal, the
patron saint of Havana, and with a gaily striped
awning aft. From where we lay was a good
twenty minutes' row or sail to the custom-house.
Were the Americans to gain possession of
Cuba—a consummation which, for many reasons,
is most devoutly to be wished, for they would
be bound to commence their occupation by the
abolition of slavery—they would have twenty
piers built in the inner port in less than six
months, and the passenger steamers would
come quietly up to the pier-foot and discharge
their passengers on the wharves without any
boats at all; but this is not the Spanish way
of doing business. "Mastana," they would
answer, were this necessary reform pressed
on their attention. The authorities are of
opinion that the harbour boatmen have a right
to live as well as other folks, so you are not
allowed to proceed from your ship to the shore
without the intermediary of a boatman, to whom
you pay a dollar, and as much more as he can
argue you out of. He never threatens, never is
rude: his endeavours to obtain an additional
four and twopence cannot even be called
begging. He puts the case to you as one between
man and man; he appeals to your sense of
justice, your self-respect, your honour. You are a
caballero; he is a caballero. This—here he rests
on his oars a moment, or objurgates Pepe, his
assistant, who is putting on too much sail—will
at once lead you to accede to his demand. The
name of the boat which conveyed me to shore
on this said morning was La Rectitud. The
boatman was a most unconscionable rogue;
but there was something in the calm assumption
of dignity in the name on the stern, which drew
the dollars from us as though we had been
two-years children. I am reminded that when I
use the first person singular, I might with
greater propriety use the plural; for in this trip
to Havana I made one in a party of three. I
had two genial travelling-companions, both
fellow-countrymen, in whose mirthful fellowship
I enjoyed to the full all the humours of Havana,
and with one of whom I was destined to travel
to a stranger and more distant land, of which,
in process of time, I purpose to discourse.
But, as these travelling-companions happen to
be alive and merry—as they will probably read
these papers, and as one in the Old and the
other in the New World is as well known as
Charing Cross—I feel that it would be impertinent
to drag them into a rambling and fantastic
narration, full of perverse conceits and most
egregious fancies; and I hesitate, too, to veil
them under thin pseudonyms or provoking
dashes. Let me, then, the old Babbler, be
solely responsible for all I put my egotism to;
and as for any other travellers, not my
immediate companions, whom I may touch upon,
do you set them down as mere brain-worms,
abstractions, and creatures of the imagination.
Do you know that I was once most savagely
handled by the "Affectionate Review" for
having made an "unmanly attack" on the
character of a lady, in depicting the airiest
shadow in the world of a harmless spinster,
by name Miss Wapps, with whom I journeyed
due north, as far as Cronstadt, ten years ago?
To please critics of the affectionate school, all
travellers should be blind, and deaf, and dumb,
and should write their words in invisible ink,
and publish them in coal-cellars.

I, then, Babbler, having, after many shouts,
and with much loss of inward animal moisture,
selected a boat from among upwards of fifty
applicants, saw my luggage thereinto, and free
pratique having been granted by the officer of
health, was rowed to shore. I should not have
minded that health-officer's boat as a conveyance,
but for the thought that people whose business
is mainly with the quarantine and the lazaretto
usually carry about with them the seeds of the
cholera or the yellow fever, and die thereof. It
was a most luxurious shallop, with an awning
striped crimson and white, a rich carpet, and
cushioned benches. The crimson and gold
banner of Spain, with the crown on, floated at
the stern; and under the awning the health
officer lolled at his ease, clad in bright nankeen,
a red cockade in his Panama, and smoking a
very big paro. My passport, a document with
a very big red seal, granted me by Mr. Archibald,
her Majesty's consul at New York, had
been left with the purser on board the steamer,
and would duly be transferred to the Havana
police authorities. The journey to the shore is
very picturesque, though somewhat tedious.
One man rows; another attends to the sail;
both are smoking and occasionally squabble;
and you, the passenger, are expected to steer.
If you happen to be totally unacquainted with
that art and mystery, the possibility of your
running foul of other craft in the port is not a
very remote one; and sometimes, while the
boatmen are quarrelling or singing a little duet
about "Juani-i-i-ta, la chi-i-i-quita!" the boat lets
you know that she has something to say for
herself, by heeling over and capsizing. But I believe
no passenger in a shore-boat was ever known to
be drowned before he had paid his fare; and if
you steer badly, the helmsman in the next boat
may be steering worse; and the two negatives
make an affirmative, saying "yes" to the question
whether you are to get safe to the custom-