street, swathed in furs and woollens, and shivering
through all my wrappers. I heaped mountains
of extraneous coverlets in my berth that
night. It was not quite so cold next day. On
the third it was positively mild. On the fourth
morning, taking my ante-breakfast walk on deck,
I remarked with astonishment that I was clad
in a full suit of the very thinnest nankeen, and
that I wore a very broad-brimmed straw hat.
Nankeen white linen, or thin blue flannel, were
the only wear among my fellow-passengers, and
the ladies had become positive zephyrs. The
smallest children on board testified very
conclusively indeed, as to the weather having become
warmer, by removing their apparel altogether,
unless restrained by parents or nurses; and
then I remembered that I had kicked off all
the bedclothes during the night, and had
had troubled dreams bearing on iced cider-
cup. We had all become transformed. Where
yesterday was a fire-shovel, to-day was a fan. We
looked no more on a grey angry wintry ocean,
but on a summer sea. It seemed ten years ago
since there had been any winter; and yet it was
only the day before yesterday.

For four-and-twenty hours did we sigh and
swelter, and complain of the intolerable heat, and
yet think it the most delightful thing in the
world. We dined at four o'clock, as usual; but
the purser, if he contracted for our meals, must
have made rather a good thing of our repast
that day. The first course was scarcely over,
before seven-eighths of the diners rushed on deck
to see the highlands of Cuba. Yonder, rather
blue and indistinct as yet, was the Pan of
Matanzas. That day we dined no more; but,
there being a bar on deck, forward, with a New
England bar-keeper of many virtues and
accomplishments in his profession, many cheerful
spirits adjourned to his little caboose, and, with
steadfast and smiling conviviality of countenance,
did liquor up on Bourbon and old Rye, till the
Pan of Matanzas, to which we had come so close
that it was clearly visible to the naked eye, must
have been, to the convivialists, more indistinct
than ever.

We were yet fifty miles from Havana; but
by the help of strong opera-glasses, and lively
conversation, and a glorious tropical sunset, they
were the shortest two and a half score miles I
ever knew, by land or sea. Coasting along the
northern shore of Cuba from Matanzas westward,
by high hills and white houses which, without
any intervening beach or sand, came right down
to the water's edge, like the castle-crowned vine-
hills of the Rhine, we sighted, just before sun-
down, the Morro Castle itself: a great mass of
dun-coloured rock, and tower, and battlement,
and steep, of which the various parts seem to
have grown into one another, like a rocky
convent of the Sagra di San Michelo, so that you
could scarcely tell which was castle and which
crag. From its summit floats the flag of the
Most Catholic Queen, blood-red and gold; and
in front, and in the sea, like a tall grenadier on
guard, stands the Morro Lighthouse. No
Confeds have put that out. We pass between the
Morro and a promontory called the Punta, and
can see a harbour, forested with masts, and a
city all glancing and twinkling with light. We
revel in thoughts of landing, of abandoning our
keys to a commissionaire, and leaving the
examination of our luggage until the morrow
morning; of rushing to an hotel; of bathing,
and supping, and going to the Tacon Theatre,
or eating ices at La Dominica, after the band
has done playing on the Plaza di Armas. Bless
you, we know all about Havana by this time. I
seem to have been familiar with the place for
years. Did not Dagger and Bodkin and eke
Carving-knife, tell me all about it? But the
Captain of the Port of San Cristobal de la
Habana is a great man—a very great man, under
correction of the Capitan-General Dulce, be it
spoken—and his laws are stringent. The sun-
set gun has been fired; the last notes of the
warning trumpets have died away from the
ramparts. We are just permitted to smuggle into
the outer harbour; but there is no landing for
us until six A.M., and under the guns of the
Morro we are bound to remain all night. A
very few years ago, even this privilege would not
have been granted us, and we should have been
forced to turn our heads seaward, and anchor in
the roads.

It was tantalising, certainly; but still it was
exceedingly pleasant, and no one felt inclined to
grumble. It was something, at least, to know
that the huge engines were at rest, and that we
should hear their churning and grinding, their
panting and trembling, no more, until, like poor
Jack in Dibdin's song, we "went to sea again."
So all the call was for coffee and cigars; and we
idled about the deck, and speculated on what
might be going on in the innumerable tenements
in which the lights, now dim, now bright, were
shining. Then out came the moon, like a great
phantom of greenish white, and spread her arms
right over the city of Havana. We could make
out the hoary towers of the cathedral, and the
church where is the tomb of CHRISTOPHER
COLOMBOS; we could see the long slanting shadows
cast by the beetling guns of the Morro on the
rubbled walls. Boats came and went on the
glassy waters of the harbour. There were lights
in the port-holes of the ships too. What was
going on there, I wonder? Skipper drinking
cold rum-and-water. First officer playing a quiet
rubber with the surgeon, the supercargo, and
dummy. Purser making up his accounts; foremast
men drinking sweethearts and wives, in the
round-house. Everybody glad that the voyage
is over, save, perhaps, that poor Northern lady
in the captain's state-room, propped up with
pillows, affectionately tended by that little band
of Sisters of Charity who are going to New
Orleans, and who is dying of consumption.
Even she, perchance, is grateful that the restless
engines no longer moan and labour, and that
tomorrow she may land, and die in peace.

As "good nights" and "buenas noches" cross
each other in the harbour, you begin to wish you
could find a friend to take a second in "All's
well." For the waning moon now deserts you,