resented as a slight offered to the authorities. The Captain of the Port, an officer of dignity and influence, has absolute power over every vessel which enters it; which he exerts even to the assigning of a place where she shall lie at anchor. The vessel, therefore, which should enter the harbor unpiloted would be pretty sure to find. herself ordered into the most inconvenient position which his ingneuity could possibly discover. If a steamer, for instance, she would be placed a mile away from the coal yards, which are all in one spot, and would be put to great expense in procuring the necessary fuel. Hence the superfluous services of a pilot are always accepted from motives of interest and economy.

The Moro, of which we have heard so much, towers above us upon a bluff, rocky promontory. It is a large work, of which we can but see two sides; one facing the Gulf, and one the narrow en

trance to the harbor; and at the angle of these stands the light-house. The castle is built of the straw-colored, calcareous atone, which abounds upon the island, and its sunny color somewhat softens the frown with which it looks down from its precipitous post. The light-house, which shoots up fifty or sixty feet above the ramparts, is built of the same material, and much after the model of the Eddystone. The light, which told us last night that we were near our haven, is one of the best in the world. It is a revolver, and in a clear night can be seen from the maintopmast head of a vessel thirty miles at sea. It was built not many years ago by a Frenchman, and is served by Frenchmen; for, as we shall have occasion to notice hereafter, Spaniards have not the mechanical skill to master such a mystery as the working, much more the contrivance and erection of even so simple a machine as a revolving light.

The position of the castle gives it absolute control of the passage to the harbor, which we now discover is but a few hundred yards wide, while, from the walls which look towards the Gulf, a strong arm could throw a stone into water too deep for anchorage. A gale of wind dashes huge ocean waves against the rocky base of the fort, flinging the spray up to the lantern of the light-house; yet so completely is the harbor locked within the land, that even at such times but a gentle rolling swell is felt within a cable's length of the entrance. Directly op

posite the Moro is the small fort which attracted our eye when we first looked landward. It is the Punta (Castillo Punta, or Castle on the Point), which is only less famous in Cuban annals than the Moro. Indeed in antiquity and the association of Spain's better days, it possesses much greater interest than its more powerful neighbor. It is the second fortress built by the Spaniards at Havana; and at the time of its construction controlled the harbor, as the Moro does now. It is, of course, built upon principles which were long ago exploded as completely as

any bombshell ever sent from or against its gray, time-worn walls. Now, it is used only as a garrison or state prison. Its pepper-box turrets, antiquated form, and crumbling walls, are the first intimation which the visitor of Havana receives that he is approaching a city whose buildings are not of yesterday and have a history.

We pass the Punta and the Moro, and on our left, just behind the latter, is the Cabaños, an enormous work, to garrison which properly requires a small army. General Concha, when Viceroy, said to an American, that to take it, was the work of forty thousand men. The American was courteous and prudent enough not to reply, that that depended on who were the besiegers, and who the besieged. Like the Moro, the Cabaños is built of the pale yellow stone of the place; and so precipitous is its site, and so identical is its material with that of the spot upon which it stands, that it is almost impossible to discover where the rock ends, and the masonry begins. The huge fort seems to have been a natural formation; an inevitable and fitting termination of rock, which, from its inherent tendencies, has shot up into walls, bastions and escarpments. This work commands the Moro and the city; and it must be reduced before any force, however great, could hold either of those places for half an hour. The best view of the Cabaños is to be obtained on the city side of the harbor, from an unfinished building in course of erection behind the Intendencia,

near the Palace. This building, quite a small one, has been unfinished for nearly twenty years; the work never having been abandoned. Two or three men have, during that time, daily cut a while, not with chisels, but with broad, thin bladed axes, at the stone which has crept into its walls. It is not uncommon in Havana to see men at work at small buildings commenced so long ago that the stones yet to be built up have lain upon the ground until they have become green and mossy by exposure to the weather. There can be no doubt that there are now, and, should the tripartite treaty be made, will be twenty years hence, two sallow individuals in greasy jipijapa hats chipping away at two pieces of yellow stone for the unfinished building behind the Intendencia. Opposite to the Cabaños, upon our right, is the carcel, or principal prison of the place. It is a white building, between four and five hundred feet in length. From it Lopez was led into the wide square, of which it forms one side, to suffer death by the garote vil. We catch a glimpse of the Paseo Isabel II., and some large factories as we pass on, and in a few minutes are in the open harbor of Havana. It is of irregular shape; widening suddenly after its narrow entrance is passed, and being about two miles and a quarter in length, and a mile and three quarters across at its widest part. Into it the city curves in a semicircle of wharves, and public walks and buildings. It has no other communication with the Gulf than its entrance; and as the

tides will hardly turn a cock-boat, its waters are almost stagnant. Into them the drainage with the refuse of the city, and the alluvial wash of the surrounding country, constantly pour; and there they. remain, decomposing in the sluggish reservoir. Even the surface is so undisturbed that the rain which falls upon it does not mingle thoroughly with the salt water below; so that in the wet season there is a stratum over the harbor, which is little more than brackish. Countless numbers of those slow-moving jellies, known to boys as stinging-galls, float lazily about it; and so filled is it with vegetable and animal matter, decomposed to a phosphorescent state, that at night the boatmen seem to be propelling their clumsy barks by flaming swords; so bright and continuous is the gleam of the oar as it passes through the water. And this is more than the phosphorescence of tropical climes; for a few minutes' vigorous pulling will take us into the Gulf, where a fitful flash breaks but now and then, like a smile upon the solemn azure of its surface. All through the glowing summer, pestilence broods upon the surface of this huge cesspool. Its vapor enshrouds the form of Death to those who were not born to breathe it, or who have not once fought and conquered the grim monarch in this guise. It is forbidden on all the national vessels stationed here, except those of Spain, to use the water of the harbor to wash the decks. Save in extreme necessity, no boat leaves them for the shore, or returns, after sundown; and when debilitating sickness makes its appearance among officers and crew, the first remedy sought, and the most effectual, is a cruise of two or three days in the open Gulf. So it must ever be, until another communication is opened with the Gulf, which might be easily done; and feeble as is the tide, its flow would then do much to purify the waters of what is now, under the summer's sun, but a foul and seething caldron, from which mortality steams up.

We at length come to anchor. A boat with the Spanish flag comes alongside, and our captain descends, and asks the privilege of landing his mails and passengers; giving to the deputy of the Captain of the Port, the passports of all whose destiny is Havana, or who wish to go on shore. A Spanish officer makes his appearance upon the deck, a pair of puny sentinels is placed at each companion way, and no communication is allowed with the shore, until the permission of the Captain of the Port is received. Our captain and certain privileged persons can then leave the boat; but the passengers must

wait until their passports have been examined, and a special permit is made out for each one like the following:

WARRANT OF DISEMBARKATION in favor of

Don William Smith, a native of New-York, by profession a purser, who has arrived at this port this day, in the American steamer Cherokee, from New-York."

On the back of this are the following "Regulations":

"It is necessary to present this warrant at the Custom House to take out baggage or ef fects, and to the landlord of the house or establishment to which the bearer may go to dwell, that notice may be taken of it. To leave the city, a pass or travelling license is necessary. The pass may be obtained during the first month by mere exhibition of this warrant. The license, which is good for twelve months may be obtained by applying to the Commissary of Barriers, and the Captain of the District, and afterward to the Government office. These licenses will be given gratis to declared paupers, to lads under 16 who may come from Spain in search of work, to the shipwrecked, and to military men, or other functionaries sent by government upon some transient mission,

'Any person who arrives without a passport, or who neglects to comply with the above instructions, will be liable to a fine of at least ten dollars.

"No stranger can reside in the island more than three months without obtaining a letter of domicil, which he will apply for by memorial through the Consul of his nation.

"No position excuses any person, whatever may be his rank or nation, from the observance of the laws of the government or the existing police regulations."

This document bears the signatures of three officials, or it may be of none; for either may attach to it merely his rubrica, which an American school boy would call a flourish, and which is so important a matter among the Spaniards that it is a legal signature without a name, while a name without a rubrica would be looked at with suspicion, to say the least. For this permit the Spaniard pays one dollar; the foreigner two. We gladly pay the fee, and in our thankfulness to get on shore press a double gratuity upon our chamber-man, who with alacrity leans over the side and shouts "botero!"

Ere the permit had reached us, the sun was high in the heavens, and as we look down upon the boats which now swarm around the steamer, the water seems to glow and sear the eyeballs like molten iron. Every object looks yellow, and is surrounded by a quivering halo of heat. The stunted verdure upon the hills which shut in the harbor, has a jaundiced hue. It is not parched; for it is of the vegetable salamander species, and would not wilt were it transplanted to the well-known

hothouse of D. E. Vil, Esqr.; but it wears its unhealthy look with a natural air, which seems to say that even vegetable life in this country is in some mysterious way dependent upon the action of torpid livers.

Among the motley fleet of boats, we notice some which are evidently not occupied by Spaniards. What country can have produced those very queer, uncomfortable looking "customers" who fill halfa-dozen small boats, and who throng that huge barge which slowly approaches us, to that degree that it looks like a huge human hive upon the waters. Restless and eager, they evidently undergo the tedium of their slow passage with ill-restrained impatience. Most of them are tall and spare; but save a few who have evidently caught the yellow hue of every thing around them, not one seems wanting in energy or strength. Lean and haggard as they are, they could evidently sweep all the Spaniards around them from the face of the earth, and find it but a moment's pastime. Look at their faces, and you will see that they are thinking so now. Yet what scarecrows they are! With long beards and longer hair; unkempt, unwashed; with shirts Isabellacolor (Isabella was the name of a Spanish queen who vowed to the Virgin that she would not change her linen for a whole year, and kept her vow); their boots of the same color; their trowsers sustained by the attraction of adhesion or by one very conspicuous suspender, and thrust knee deep into their boots; a dingy red sash about each waist; their upper garment of any shape or no shape, supposing it to exist at all; and hats in speaking of which no one could by any possibility irritate Moliere's Dr. Pancrace by saying that they had "form;" every other right hand garnished with a long rifle, each one of them looks like the genius of famine bound upon a desperate expedition for the procurement of needful supplies. Whence come they? They came last from yonder steamer which brought them from Chagres whither they came from California. These are the real "Californians" that you read about. The others that you meet sometimes in Broadway, or see at Christy's or the Opera House, are a spurious article: these are

the

only original, and all others are counterfeit" Californians. They are the men who go to the new el dorado from the banks of the Mississippi. Mighty hunters they are; but unlike Nimrod, it may reasonably be feared, not always "before the Lord." They have made what they call "their pile," and are returning, most of them to scatter or to double it at

brag; others to see the more reputable and more fatal excitement of stock operations; some have visions of a seat in the Legislature, mayhap even in Congress; some think that they will enter fashionable life; but hardly one of the haggard, ragged throng has computed carefully the comfort which a judicious employment of his little gold heap would insure him. But here they come pell-meli. They have worked their way through the compact crowd of little boats to the side of our steamer, which is to take them to New Orleans, that in which they came being bound for New-York,-and now, with the. restless eagerness of Americans, they are beginning to throng up the already overloaded passage way, which leads in a gently inclined plain up the vessel's side. To the elaborate and circumlocutory Castilian imprecations of the boatmen, they reply with a directness and intensity which unmistakably declares their AngloSaxon lineage, and push as directly and intently forward. The struggling throng upon the passage-way impedes their progress, and straightway, impatient of the delay, which is not of the least real consequence to them, they begin to clamber up the side of the steamer, rifles and all, as if they were boarding her in earnest; and having reached the upper deck, and gained five minutes which they cannot use, they lean their rusty beards over the side, and take comfort in seeing their companions thrust aside "the damned Spaniards," as they themselves have done. But let them pass: we shall meet others just like them in Havana; and just such negroes, too, as, covered only about the loins, their brawny figures reeking with sweat, and glistening in the sun, are toiling down the passage-way under the weight of enormous trunks and boxes, which are borne upon their heads, and which would crush the arch which protects any but an African brain.

Into this tumultuous, heterogeneous throng we plunge, and gradually descend to the boats. After a confused five minutes, during which the only idea which attains a distinct form in the mind is, that Spanish boatmen and Californians were the chief cause of the dispersion at Babel, we discover, among a score of claimants, the boatman who first answered the hail of our bed-making friend on board the steamer, and are soon seated in a most unromantic seeming bark, quite like the jolly boat of a Communipaw sloop, with the green extinguisher of an Italian Opera prompter over the stern. This last contrivance is as needful an appendage of an Havana boat as its oars.

Without its shelter your boatman might merely row you to the ferry of a famous old fellow-craftsman of his, whose offices few willingly solicit. Our luggage is heaped up around us, and the swarthy oarsman pulls away for the CustomHouse. No Revenue officers boarded us to examine our trunks; and had they done so we would have gained nothing, for boats are allowed to leave or to start from but two places in Havana. One is the Custom-House wharf, the other is much farther up the harbor. Arrived at the former, our luggage is borne past two or three other little sentinels, like those set over us on shipboard, into a large stone-floored hall, open to the air through arches on one side. A solemn and sallow looking gentleman with a pen in his hand, attended by two solemn and sallow gentlemen with pens in their hands, appears and looks solemnly but very courteously into our trunks, and seeing that we are not smugglers and have no revolvers or bowie knives, for no one is permitted to possess arms in Cuba, without a license to do so, -he says "bueno;" and having also taken our permits to land from the clerk of the hotel who has secured us, he retires, and we are free of Havana. In the courtyard are huge trucks, drawn by small asses or puny horses; the truck being formed by one or two long heavy beams

upon low, cumbrous wheels, quite in the style of those used in Boston. Upon one of these our trunks are placed; and, rejecting the offers of half-a-dozen volantes, we choose to walk to our hotel, eager to see somewhat of this strange, quaint looking place; for the view from the water showed us a city so unlike our notions of what we were to see, so oriental in its aspect, that the most torpid curiosity could not fail to be stimulated.

Before we have well got into the street, however, our attention is forcibly attracted to a matter which in fact obtruded itself upon us before we had set foot on shore. We are led by the nose to consider it; our olfactories compel us to remark it. In truth, it may be well questioned by which sense Havana is first perceived. I am rather in favor of the prior claim of the smell. The place is smelt before it is seen. The odor is peculiar, unlike any other; penetrating and yet not pungent, unpleasant and yet not very offensive at first. Nostrils of naturally acute perceptions which have been cultivated into exquisite powers of discrimination, declare that it is composite in its character; and pretend to discern in it the odors of garlic, of cigar smoke, and of offal. In support of this analysis, it must be admitted that three-fourths of the Habaneros eat garlic three times a day, and cook it in