and
sprinkled the premises with holy water, after which the festivities
commenced. The music consisted of a harmonicon and a notched gourd,
which was scraped with an iron rod to mark the time. Cakes and lemonade
were handed about in trays. Grandmothers sat patient with their
grandbabes on their laps while the mothers danced to their hearts'
content.

It chanced one day that I attended one of these merry-makings. While the
dance was in progress a superbly handsome man, bronze in complexion and
very polite in manner, commanded from the musicians, "Una polka por
Madama Howe." I had neither expected nor desired to dance, but felt
obliged to accept this invitation.

A large proportion of the Dominicans, be it said in passing, are of
mixed race, the white element in them being mostly Spanish. This last so
predominates that the leading negro characteristics are rarely observed
among them. They are intelligent people, devout in their Catholicism and
generally very honest. Families of the wealthier class are apt to send
their sons to Spain for education.

Quite distinct from these are the American blacks, who are the remnant
and in large part the descendants of an exodus of free negroes from our
Middle States, which took place in the neighborhood of the year 1840.
These people are Methodists, but are, for some reason, entirely
neglected by the denomination, both in England and in America. They are
anxious to keep their young folks within the pale of Protestantism. Of
such was composed my little congregation in the city of Santo Domingo.

In the place last named I made the acquaintance of a singular family of
birds, individuals of which were domesticated in many houses. These
creatures could be depended upon to give the household warning of the
approach of a stranger. They also echoed with notes of their own the
hourly striking of the city clocks, and zealously destroyed all the
insects which are generated by the heat of a tropical climate. The _per
contra_ is that they themselves are rather malodorous.

During my stay in Samana a singular woman attached herself to me. She
was a mulatto, and her home was on a mountain side in the neighborhood
of the school of which I have just spoken. Here she was rarely to be
found; and her husband bewailed her frequent absences and consequent
neglect of her large family. She had some knowledge of herbs, which she
occasionally made available in nursing the sick. She one day brought her
age