ous figure during our brief stay. There are but two seasons,
the wet and the dry, the latter extending from September to May. The
city might have an excellent water supply if there were sufficient
enterprise among the citizens to cause it to be conducted by pipes
from the springs in the neighboring hills. It is now wretchedly
deficient in this respect, causing both suffering and ill health in a
climate especially demanding this prime necessity of life.

CHAPTER III.

Doubling Cape Cruz. -- Trinidad. -- Cienfuegos. -- The Plaza.
-- Beggars. -- Visit to a Sugar Plantation. -- Something
about Sugar. -- An Original Character. -- A Tropical Fruit
Garden. -- Cuban Hospitality. -- The Banana. -- Lottery
Tickets. -- Chinese Coolies. -- Blindness in Cuba. -- Birds
and Poultry. -- The Cock-Pit. -- Negro Slavery, To-Day. --
Spanish Slaveholders. -- A Slave Mutiny. -- A Pleasant
Journey across the Island. -- Pictures of the Interior. --
Scenery about Matanzas. -- The Tropics and the North
contrasted.

To reach Cienfuegos, our next objective point, one takes water
conveyance, the common roads in this district being, if possible, a
degree worse than elsewhere. It is therefore necessary to double Cape
Cruz, and perform a coasting voyage along the southern shore of the
island of about four hundred miles. This is really delightful sailing
in any but the hurricane months; that is, between the middle of August
and the middle of October. It would seem that this should be quite a
commercial thoroughfare, but it is surprising how seldom a
sailing-vessel is seen on the voyage, and it is still more rare to
meet a steamship. Our passage along the coast was delightful: the
undulating hills, vales, and plains seemed to be quietly gliding past
us of their own volition; the tremor of the ship did not suggest
motion of the hull, but a sense of delight at the moving panorama so
clearly depicted. No extensive range of waters in either hemisphere is
so proverbially smooth as the Caribbean Sea, during eight months of
the year, but a stout hull and good seamanship are demanded during the
remaining four, especially if coming from the northward over the
Bahama Banks and through the Windward Passage, as described in these
chapters.

The city of Trinidad, perched upon a hillside, is passed at the
distance of a few miles, being pleasantly situated more than a league
from the co