ch the cassava bread is
made, pale-green fields of the cane, brown tracts of pasturage, partly
formed of abandoned coffee estates where the palms and scattered
fruit-trees were yet standing, and forests of shrubs and twining plants
growing for the most part among rocks. Some of these rocky tracts have a
peculiar appearance; they consist of rough projections of rock a foot or
two in height, of irregular shape and full of holes; they are called
_diente de perro_, or dog's teeth. Here the trees and creepers find
openings filled with soil, by which they are nourished. We passed two or
three country cemeteries, where that foulest of birds, the turkey-vulture,
was seen sitting on the white stuccoed walls, or hovering on his ragged
wings in circles over them.

In passing over the neighborhood of the town in which I am now writing, I
found myself on the black lands of the island. Here the rich dark earth of
the plain lies on a bed of chalk as white as snow, as was apparent where
the earth had been excavated to a little depth, on each side of the
railway, to form the causey on which it ran. Streams of clear water,
diverted from a river to the left, traversed the plain with a swift
current, almost even with the surface of the soil, which they keep in
perpetual freshness. As we approached Matanzas, we saw more extensive
tracts of cane clothing the broad slopes with their dense blades, as if
the coarse sedge of a river had been transplanted to the uplands.

At length the bay of Matanzas opened before us; a long tract of water
stretching to the northeast, into which several rivers empty themselves.
The town lay at the southwestern extremity, sheltered by hills, where the
San Juan and the Yumuri pour themselves into the brine. It is a small but
prosperous town, with a considerable trade, as was indicated by the
vessels at anchor in the harbor.

As we passed along the harbor I remarked an extensive, healthy-looking
orchard of plantains growing on one of those tracts which they call
_diente de perro_. I could see nothing but the jagged teeth of whitish
rock, and the green swelling stems of the plantain, from ten to fifteen
feet in height, and as large as a man's leg, or larger. The stalks of the
plantain are juicy and herbaceous, and of so yielding a texture, that with
a sickle you might entirely sever the largest of them at a single stroke.
How such a multitude of succulent plants could find nourishment on what
seemed to the eye lit