BY M RS. JULIA WARD HOWE. BOSTON. TICKNOR AND FIELDS. M DCCC LX. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by TICKNOR AND FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY....

W HY one leaves home at all is a question that travellers are sure, sooner or later, to ask themselves,—I mean, pleasure-travellers. Home, where one has the "Transcript" every night, and the "Autocrat" every month, opera, theatre, circus, and good society, in constant rotation,—home, where everybody knows us, and the little good there is to know about us,—finally, home, as seen regretfully for the last time, with the gushing of long frozen friendships, the priceless kisses of children, and the l

N ASSAU looked very green and pleasant to us after our voyage;—the eyes enjoy a little fresh provision after so long a course of salt food. The first view of land is little more than "the feeling of the thing,"—it is matter of faith, rather than of sight. You are shown a dark and distant line, near the horizon, without color or features. They say it is land, and you believe, it. But you come nearer and nearer,—you see first the green of vegetation, then the form of the trees,—the harbor at last

T HE breakfast being over, we recall the Captain's parting admonition to be on board by ten o'clock, with the significant gesture and roll of the eye which clearly express that England expects every passenger to do his duty. Now we know very well that the "Karnak" is not likely to weigh anchor before twelve, at the soonest, but we dare not for our lives disobey the Captain. So, passing by yards filled with the huge Bahama sponges, piles of wreck-timber, fishing-boats with strange fishes, red, ye

A S 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 o

"S HALL 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

O NE is apt to arrive in Havana with a heart elated by the prospect of such kindnesses and hospitalities as are poetically supposed to be the perquisite of travellers. You count over your letters as so many treasures; you regard the unknown houses you pass as places of deposit for the new acquaintances and delightful friendships which await you. In England, say you, each of these letters would represent a pleasant family-mansion thrown open to your view,—a social breakfast,—a dinner of London wi

T HE gentlemen of our party go one day to visit the Jesuit College in Havana, yclept " Universidad de Belen ." The ladies, weary of dry goods, manifest some disposition to accompany them. This is at once frowned down by the unfairer sex, and Can Grande, appealed to by the other side, shakes his shoulders, and replies, "No, you are only miserable women, and cannot be admitted into any Jesuit establishment whatever." And so the male deputation departs with elation, and returns with airs of superio

"Far from my thoughts, vain world, begone!" However enchanting Havana may prove when seen through the moonlight of memory, it seems as good a place to go away from as any other, after a stifling night in a net, the wooden shutters left open in the remote hope of air, and admitting the music of a whole opera-troupe of dogs, including Bass, Tenor, Soprano, and Chorus. Instead of bouquets, you throw stones, if you are so fortunate as to have them,—if not, boot-jacks, oranges, your only umbrella. Yo

T HE Spanish government experiences an unwillingness to admit foreigners into the Morro, their great stronghold, the causes of which may not be altogether mysterious. Americans have been of late especially excluded from it, and it was only by a fortunate chance that we were allowed to visit it. A friend of a friend of ours happened to have a friend in the garrison, and, after some delays and negotiations, an early morning hour was fixed upon for the expedition. The Fort is finely placed at the e

I HAVE not told you how Can Grande took leave of the Isle of Rogues, as one of our party christened the fair Queen of the Antilles. I could not tell you how he loathed the goings on at Havana, how hateful he found the Spaniards, and how villanous the American hotel-keepers. His superlatives of censure were in such constant employment that they began to have a threadbare sound before he left us; and as he has it in prospective to run the gauntlet of all the innkeepers on the continent of Europe,

I DO not mean to give portraits of the individuals at our hotel. My chance acquaintance with them confers on me no right to appropriate their several characteristics for my own convenience and the diversion of the public. I will give only such general sketches as one may make of a public body at a respectful distance, marking no features that can fix or offend. Our company is almost entirely composed of two classes,—invalids and men of business, with or without their families. The former are eas

A HOT and dusty journey of some six hours brought us to Matanzas at high noon. Our companions were Cubans, Spaniards, Americans, and game-chickens, who travel extensively in these parts, sometimes in little baskets, with openings for the head and tail, sometimes in the hands of their owners, secured only by a string fastened to one foot and passed over the body. They seem to be objects of tender solicitude to those who carry them; they are nursed and fondled like children, and at intervals are v

"As this Sunday is Carnival, you cannot do better than drive about the city, and then go to the Plaza to see the masks. My partner's wife, with whom you have now so comfortably breakfasted, will call for you in her volante this afternoon, between five and six o'clock. She will show you the Paseo, and we will go and see the masks afterwards." So spoke a banker, who, though not our banker, is our friend, and whose kind attentions we shall ever recall, when we remember Cuba. So he spoke, and so it

As there are prejudices in Cuba and elsewhere, touching the appropriate sphere of woman, Hulia was not taken to the Cockpit, as she had demanded and expected,—not to see the chickens fight, but to see the Spaniards see it. Forgive her, ye Woman's-Righters, if on this occasion she was weak and obedient! You would have gone, no doubt,—those of you who have not husbands; but such as have must know how much easier it is to deal with the article man in his theoretical than in his real presence. You m

N OT many days did we tarry in Havana, on our return. We found the city hot, the hotel full, the invalids drooping. The heat and the confined life (many of them never crossed the threshold) began to tell upon them, and to undo the good work wrought by the mild winter. They talked of cooling breezes, and comfortable houses, with windows, carpets, and padded sofas. Home was become a sort of watchword among them, exchanged with a certain subdued rapture. One of them was on the brink of a longer jou

T HE least shrub has its blossom, if you only know how to find it. The dullest country town in New England has its days when people hear speeches and get drunk, the one act illustrating the morals, the other the manners of the community. In like manner, the smallest village in Cuba has its Sunday, when the imprisoned women go to church in their best clothes, the men attend cockfights, and in the evening there is ball or sermon, according as the Church makes feast or fast. The population of San A

O NE of our number, visiting the public schools of San Antonio one day, found the course of studies for boys of very respectable extension,—it comprised all the usual elementary branches, including the History of Spain, such a history of that country at least as is good for Cuban boys to learn. For the education of girls, a single hour was reserved, and into this were crowded the necessary reading and writing, a little instruction in accounts, and the geography of the island. My friend remonstra

I T is not with pleasure that we approach this question, sacred to the pugilism of debate. Nor is it worth while to add one word to the past infinity of talk about it, unless that word could have the weight of a new wisdom. We Americans, caught by the revolutionary spirit of the French, make them too much our models, and run too much to grandiloquent speech, and fine moral attitudinizing. The attitudes do not move the world,—the words do not change the intrinsic bearings of things. They whom we

F AREWELL to Havana! the pleasant time is over. We are to return where we belong. Not with undue sentimentalism of sorrow, as though it were greater loss to see beautiful places and forsake them, than to have staid at Pudding-gut Point, Coxackie, or Martha's Vineyard all one's life, having beheld and regretted nothing else. When travellers tear themselves from the maternal bosom of Rome, a pang is inevitable, and its expression allowable. Even meretricious Paris sometimes harpoons an honest Amer