r the city. In the front
hall of Le Grand's, this morning, a lady, standing in a full dress of
spotless white, held by the hand a naked little Negro boy, of two or
three years old, nestling in black relief against the folds of her
dress.

Now we rise to the higher grounds of Jesus del Monte. The houses improve
in character. They are still of one story, but high and of stone, with
marble floors and tiled roofs, with court-yards of grass and trees, and
through the gratings of the wide, long, open windows, I see the decent
furniture, the double, formal row of chairs, prints on the walls, and
well-dressed women maneuvering their fans.

As a carriage with a pair of cream-colored horses passed, having two men
within, in the dress of ecclesiastics, my driver pulled up and said that
was the Bishop's carriage, and that he was going out for an evening
drive. Still, I must go on; and we drive to his house. As you go up the
hill, a glorious view lies upon the left. Havana, both city and suburbs,
the Morro with its batteries and lighthouse, the ridge of fortifications
called the Cabana and Casa Blanca, the Castle of Atares, near at hand, a
perfect truncated cone, fortified at the top--the higher and most
distant Castle of Principe,

"_And, poured round all,_
_Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste_"--

No! Not so! Young Ocean, the Ocean of to-day! The blue, bright,
healthful, glittering, gladdening, inspiring Ocean! Have I ever seen a
city view so grand? The view of Quebec from the foot of the Montmorenci
Falls, may rival, but does not excel it. My preference is for this; for
nothing, not even the St. Lawrence, broad and affluent as it is, will
make up for the living sea, the boundless horizon, the dioramic vision
of gliding, distant sails, and the open arms and motherly bosom of the
harbor, "with handmaid lamp attending":--our Mother Earth, forgetting
never the perils of that gay and treacherous world of waters, its change
of moods, its "strumpet winds"--ready is she at all times, by day or by
night, to fold back to her bosom her returning sons, knowing that the
sea can give them no drink, no food, no path, no light, nor bear up
their foot for an instant, if they are sinking in its depths.

The regular episcopal residence is in town. This is only a house which
the Bishop occupies temporarily, for the sake of his health. It is a
modest house of one story, standing very high, with a commanding view of
city, harbor, sea,