a visit to the fish-market of Havana, and no stranger in Havana should fail of seeing this remarkable sight.

The fish glow with all the colors of the rainbow, with the most splendid clearness and distinctness; they are blue, yellow, red; they are edged with gold and violet, gold-tinted, and s♂ on—it is the most magnificent fishsplendor that any one can imagine. The most beautiful algæ and corals are gathered from the sea around Cuba.

Good Mrs. F. has frequently invited me to accompany her to the opera, but I am so covetous of the air and the moonlight here, that I prefer spending my evenings on La Plaza des Armas. Nature here is to me No. 1; people and their fine shows, No. 2; I shall, however, go to-morrow to a large soirée at the house of the English consul, and see there the Spanish beauties. And then farewell to Havana for a time.

I have received two invitations which have greatly pleased me the one to Matanzas, to the house of an American merchant there; the other to a plantation at a few miles' distance, from a Mrs. De C., whose friendly letter was a real refreshment to me; for there I shall be able to get out into the country, and to become acquainted with palms, and coffee-shrubs, and sugar-cane, and other tropical growths. I am greatly delighted. I wished to leave Havana, where the oppressive heat and the unusual mode of living have caused me to suffer from an intolerable headache, which I have now had for three days, and which I can not get rid of, although I am as much in the air as possible. To-morrow I shall go by rail-way to Matanzas, which is not quite a day's journey.

Before I close my letter, I must tell you the arrangement which the Swedish consul here, Mr. N., and Mr. S., wish to make for me. Mr. N. has a small country-house which he does not occupy, in the beautiful garden region close by the S.'s. This he wishes to furnish for me, and there I am to live in rural peace and freedom, attended by VOL. II-N

a respectable duenna, and to take my meals with the S.'s, who also invite me to take up my quarters with them as soon as their guest-chamber, which is now occupied, shall be at liberty. Is not this charming? I shall not probably avail myself of this proffered kindness, but I am grateful with all my heart for such hospitality. The good F.'s are, however, at the bottom of it all. God bless them!

You have now frost and snow, and cold, cold air, cold all around you! and here it is too hot for me; and heat is not much better than cold, particularly when one has a headache. But heart and soul are sound, and with them I embrace you in all love!

LETTER XXXIV.

Matanzas, Feb. 23d.

How beautiful it is here, my little heart; how good it is to be here! In this glorious air, fanned by balmy zephyrs, in this light, excellent, and, in every respect, comfortable home-the house of Mr. and Mrs. B.-where I am now staying, I feel myself, as it were, living anew. I have now been here for a whole week, which has passed like one bright, beautiful day.

It seemed to me pleasant to leave that hot, dusty Havana early on the morning of Monday the 16th, and there also I left my headache. I parted with it the night before, when I went to bed, and had a sound sleep. That kind, cordially good Mrs. F. was up with me at five o'clock the next morning, and had coffee brought for me and herself from a Restaurateur's, because she would not disturb her slaves so early; and after having taken a heartfelt leave of her and her husband, I seated myself in their volante, accompanied by one of the youngest sons of the house, and my favorite Frank. The calashero cracked his whip in the air, and we rapidly swung away to the

rail-way station. I was glad when I, with the help of my young conductor, had got safely through all the difficulties and impediments of the rail-way, and was seated quietly in a spacious carriage. The carriages are built in the American fashion, because Americans constructed the rail-way and built the carriages at Cuba. All the windows were down, to allow the glorious morning air free ingress; and although all the gentlemen who were in the carriage-from forty to fifty in number-smoked cigars or cigaritos, there was no smell of smoke, and scarcely any to be perceived. The air of Cuba seems to have the power of annihilating smoke. I was the only lady in the carriage, and sat solitarily on my sofa, and nearly solitarily in my portion of the carriage; but all the more uninterruptedly could I see around me, and—ah! that morning, when I flew over the new earth, beautiful as a paradise, through a paradisiacal atmosphere, and saw around me new and enchanting scenes and objects—it was only by inward and deep thanksgiving that so much enjoyment could be sanctified.

There had been rain in the night, and splendid clouds piled themselves in masses along the horizon, and grouped themselves in fantastic shapes above the blue mountains. Now they lifted themselves in heavy draperies above them, to flee from the ascending sun; then formed a magnificent portal, with a frame of gold; and beyond it shone a sea of soft, rose-colored light; it lightened above the tops of the mountains, and-the sun rose. The fantastic little blue and yellow villas, with their splendid gardens full of splendid flowers and strange plants; the palm-thatched cottages in the fields, the lofty, green palm-trees above their yellow-gray roofs; groves of mango, plantain, orange, and cocoa-trees, the verdant hedges and fields, all shone fresh and beautiful amid the gushing sunshine in the moist, mild morning.

Along the whole course of the way new and lovely ob

jects met my eye; flowers, plants, gardens, dwellings, all bade me good-morning as we sped past them. But a potato-field and a large cabbage-ground greeted me as fellow-countrymen and old friends. The whole country looked like an immense garden; beautiful palms presented themselves at all distances, waving their crowns in the morning wind, and along the edge of the horizon before me arose a chain of dark blue mountains, the heights of Camerioca.

I was quite well; no human being could be better; both body and soul had wings, and I flew over the beautiful, brilliant earth.

The villas disappeared by degrees, and plantations of sugar-cane, and other vegetable growths which were unknown to me, took their places. We traveled through whole forests of planted banana - trees. After that the landscape became wilder, and parasite plants showed themselves on tree and meadow. Presently those got the upper hand, and seemed to choke vegetation. The crowns of many trees bore whole gardens of orchids and aloes on their branches. The appearance was queer rather than beautiful, although various of these parasitic plants had very lovely flowers, but the whole looked heavy and unnatural. In one field not far from the road I noticed a lofty, half-dead ceiba-tree, around the gigantic stem of which the parasite Yaguay embra, a female fig-tree, had flung its hundred-fold arms in an immense embrace, entwining the tree from root to head, until it had nearly destroyed its life. This death-struggle between the ceibatree and the female parasite, which grows and nourishes itself with its life, and finally destroys it, is a frequent sight in Cuba, and it is a very remarkable and really unpleasant spectacle. There is a complete tragedy in the picture, which reminds one of Hercules and Dejanira, of King Agne and Aslög.

The first part of the day and the journey were full of

pleasures, among which I must reckon some excellent sandwiches and bananas which good Mrs. F. provided me with, and as I ate them I thought of her, so motherly, so kind, so thoughtful for me and for all who belong to her. Gratitude and joy in human beings is the best food of the soul. In a while the day became too warm, and the whole of nature too much overrun with parasitic growths. It oppressed me, and made me drowsy.

Some ladies with Spanish physiognomies entered the carriage at one of the rail-way stations. They seemed to be country people, but were well dressed, and wore no covering on the head. Two of them were very handsome, were stout, and bore themselves proudly and with great hauteur and ungraciousness to a couple of gentlemen, evidently their admirers, who attended them, and who, at the last moment, presented bouquets with an air which did not look despairing, but rather full of roguishness, as they withdrew, without obtaining a glance from the proud beauties. This woke me up a little. And I was wide awake when we, in the afternoon, left behind us that region of ensnarement, and the landscape suddenly expanding itself, the city of Matanzas was before us, its glorious bay now blue-clearly, brightly blue-and in the background the lofty mountain ridge, Pan de Matanzas, so called from its form, and the opening to Yumori Valley. The freshest, the most delicious breezes met us here; and at the rail-way station I was met by two gentlemen, with mild, agreeable countenances, who bade me welcome. It was my countryman, Mr. F., from Götheberg, now resident at Matanzas, and Mr. J. B., who conveyed me in his volante to his handsome house. Here I was received most kindly by his handsome young wife, a Creole, but with such a fair, fresh Northern appearance, that she needed merely a helmet on her brow to have served as a model for a Valkyria.

With this agreeable young couple I am spending my