having made the passage in just over half an hour. Entering, we found our rags as we had left them, and in five minutes we were all sound asleep. At eleven we were roused to a good meal, none the worse for our excursion, except a general feeling of disgust at our filthy condition and the inhabitants of Havana, which the liberal allowance of wine went far to dispel again. We had hardly finished our desayuno when the yellow-visaged vice-consul appeared and conducted us to the consulate, whence, after a rigid and unsympathetic cross-examination by the consul as to our means, we were taken to a slopseller's, and fitted out with a supply of cheap clothing, which we put on in the shop, the grinning tradesman making a bonfire of our discarded rags in his compound at the back of the premises.

Being now fit to appear in the streets without attracting general notice, we sallied forth again, not without another warning from the vice-consul to keep near the shipping office, so as to be ready for the first chance of getting away. To this we paid little heed, separating and going whither our fancy led us. Somehow, I found myself gazing into the spacious billiard saloon of the Hotel St. Isabel, where I soon ingratiated myself with the onearmed marker, and laid the groundwork of the subsequent good time I enjoyed. Speaking the language well enough for practical purposes and with all a London gamin's assurance, I got on famously with the jovial English and American skippers who frequented this place, and it was not until nine o'clock that I suddenly remembered the injunction laid upon us to be all indoors by that time. Hurriedly bidding farewell to my new friends, I hastened across the broad Plaza de Armas, now a glittering scene of gaiety, with a fine military band playing in its centre, and long rows of well-appointed carriages, containing most of the upper classes of the city, drawn up all around it. Under that cloudless blue sky and in that balmy atmosphere this outdoor pleasaunce was delightful beyond description. Every trace of the languor and general air of overburdened misery that was so apparent in the streets during the day had disappeared, and with the advent of the ladies, hidden hitherto behind the close shut jalousies, all abandoned themselves to the witchery of the hour.

Fascinated by the wonderful sight, I loitered on the side walk before entering the Fonda, until a sharp reminder from the proprietor recalled me to a sense of my delinquency, and I hurried into the gloomy apartment in the rear that was our temporary

home. All hands were gathered listening to the facetious gabble of one of the servants, who spoke some fragments of English. He was telling them that our bedchamber was ready, and expatiating upon its delights. We did not expect much, but felt glad to be secluded from the visits of any more recruits during the evening, our visitors of the previous night having been marched off into the interior at daybreak. But when we entered our dormitory no one spoke a word. Each dumbly looked at his fellow and then around. It was a long lean-to shed, whereof one side was the rugged wall of the main building, the sloping roof, and the other side of ill-joined slabs of timber. There were no windows, the many interstices admitting light as well as air through roof and outside. Along its centre for its whole length ran an open sewer, through which the drainage of the house flowed in a sluggish horrible stream to join the deeper ditch outside. Charpoys, like exaggerated campstools, were ranged on either side of the sewer, but other conveniences there were none, and the floor was of bare earth. Awful visions of cholera and el vomito haunted me, aided by the monotonous tolling of the great cathedral bell, and at last, terrified beyond endurance and really ill into the bargain, I crept from my charpoy and stealthily moved out of that abominable chamber into the bright moonlight which streamed in as I opened the door, as if it would drive out the foulness brooding within. Yellow fever was even then beginning its ravages in the city, and little wonder, considering the absolute lack of any sanitary arrangements. Fortunately for me, I slept no more in this vile place. A room was found for me at the Hotel St. Isabel by the marker, and there I took up my abode, only visiting the Fonda occasionally to see my shipmates and share with them some of my easily acquired wealth.

To tell the truth, my stay in Havana is one of the pleasantest recollections of my life. Whether my diminutive size, consummate assurance (or impudence), combined with the fact that although an English boy, I spoke Spanish fluently, made all the people with whom I came in contact treat me with the utmost kindness, I do not know. But this much is certain, that go where I would, into a grand shop in the Calle Obispo or Calle O'Brien, or to a fruit stall in the market, I could spend no money ; what I wanted was always handed me with a pleasant smile, and my coin waved back to me with a deprecatory move of the hand. Yet judged by " ordinary standards it was a time of great distress. Not only

was there an incessant drain of men and money into the interior, for which continual expenditure there was no return, but faction was rife within the city itself. I could never understand the political imbroglio, but there were certainly three parties, who distinguished themselves (among the poorer classes) by wearing caps of a different colour—red, yellow, and blue. Fierce and bloody encounters were of continual occurrence in the wineshops and dark byways, where knife and pistol were freely used without any attempt at hindrance by the serenos. Their duty seemed to consist solely in bawling the hours and hiding between whiles. To see two or three badly hacked corpses in one street at early morning was by no means uncommon, and such occurrences played a large part in the columns of the two newspapers.

The one force which seemed to be reliable was the Guardia Civile, composed of the tradesmen, clerks, and well-to-do people. They wore a fine uniform, were well armed, and mounted guard in regular rotation, besides attending strictly to drill, all of which duties were, of course, a great tax upon their time. But, as they were really preparing to defend their own property, they did not complain, and repaid themselves, I have no doubt, by surcharging their commodities accordingly. Certainly there was no appearance of poverty except among those unfortunate wretches the slaves. In spite of the disturbed state of the island a vast amount of business was done in its staples, mostly with American vessels, and if the Yanks were disliked such a feeling was certainly not apparent.

That awful scourge, the yellow fever, made rapid strides during the first two months of my stay. The number of deaths was so great that all attempts at single burial, except in the case of wealthy people, were quite abandoned. A vast trench was dug on the outskirts of the city, into which, as we read of our own Great Plague, the dead were unceremoniously tumbled and covered with quicklime. The great bell of the cathedral tolled unceasingly, and its portals never closed, while masses went on night and day for the rapidly accumulating throng of departing souls. Precautions may have been taken to prevent the spread of infection, but I saw none. In fact no one, at least on shore, seemed to realise what a lazar-house the city was becoming. On board the vessels in the harbour it was different. There the rapidly dwindling crews were filled with terror, and their abject dread of being taken to hospital (whence none ever returned) was heart-rending to see. For as in the town, so in the hospitals,

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sanitary precautions were utterly non-existent, and although the scanty staff of doctors worked like heroes, they were powerless against filth and official apathy. Besides, the attendants were Chinese, and to any one who knows the Chinaman, such a statement is voluminous. Unable to feel himself, apparently, he is absolutely incapable of any but mechanical service, while the groans and agonies of tortured men affect him no more than if they were insects. In fact, every sailor in the harbour believed (what I utterly refuse to credit) that the only chance a man had of living for even a few days in the hospital was to have a crucifix tattooed upon his body, which would ensure him being looked after by the Sisters of Charity. Poor souls, they laid down their

. lives for, and broke their hearts lavishly over, all the sufferers they could reach, but they were a feeble band, and the sick were multitudinous.

Except for the diminishing circle of one's acquaintances, things did not seem greatly different; certainly there was none of that panic that one would have expected to see. But at last there was not a vessel in the harbour with an efficient crew, and there were many without a soul on board. This was about the climax of the pestilence. Every one you met uttered a fervent wish for a hurricane; nothing short of that could possibly save Havana from such a depopulation as would cripple her effectually for years. .

That benevolent meteor, so long and ardently wished for, came at last.

Whether those who had invoked its appearance with such fervour were satisfied while it lasted, I do not know, but if not they were indeed hard to please. I was strolling along the deserted wharves one afternoon, thinking what an awful change had come over the busy bustling place, and pitying from my heart some terribly emaciated slaves who were free to starve, since there were none to drive or feed them. The air was so thick and oppressive that I could hardly breathe, and I looked longingly down at the waters of the harbour, all uninviting as they were, but lacked energy for a bathe. Presently all over the face of the sky came a curious mist, which gave a violet tinge to the subdued glare of the sunlight. Then over the frowning Moro Castle there slowly rose a cloud-massive, velvety black, and edged with a lurid radiance such as plays over a crucible of molten steel. This grim darkness grew rapidly, as if it unfolded itself yet became denser and heavier in the process. And in spite of its blackness there was a premonition of glowing heat in its centre, as if it did

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but drape the crater of a nighty volcano ready to burst. Fascinated by the sight, I wedged myself in between two mooring posts in a sheltered angle of some warehouses and waited to see. Soon the sky became all black except where myriads of fiery threads like incandescent nerves played endlessly about the overhanging pall. A silence as of death ensued for a short space-it may have been half an hour. Then those restless filaments grew brighter and more rapid in their evolutions. A hoarse rumbling began, which vibrated as if it came from the bowels of the earth, and above its deep tones rose a shrill wailing of coming wind. A few raindrops, large as dollars, fell resonantly, and immediately the celestial display began. Jagged sabres of lightning tore the darkness into livid fragments, revealing such a Gehenna of multicoloured fires behind as made the eyeballs smart to look upon. In a few minutes wind, rain, and thunder were blended in one sense-destroying roar; one seemed to be gasping in a chaos of fire, water, and indescribable hubbub, as if all things were being resolved into their primordial elements. Occasionally a perceptible increase in the noise overhead and a momentary deepening of the darkness told me of the flying roofs and wooden walls of destroyed buildings; with that exception nothing was distinguishable. How long this lasted it is impossible for me to say, but it passed suddenly as it came, leaving the bay a weltering vortex of foaming waters besprinkled with wreckage, and the city a mass of ruins. Down the steep streets a veritable flood of waters poured resistlessly, sweeping everything before it like chips in a rain-swollen gutter. And right opposite where I crouched, feeling only half alive, a fine schooner had been caught up, whether by wind or sea I cannot tell, and landed like Columbus's egg upon a shelf of rock jutting out from the cliff a hundred feet above high-water mark. There she remained erect and otherwise undamaged, mutely testifying to the power of the storm.

In spite of the terrific damage every one was jubilant, for as had been expected the besom of the furious cyclone swept away the destroying pestilence, and in a very few days a burst of prosperity ensued which soon effaced all recollections of the late most trying time. And when by the consul's order I was put on board ship and started on my travels again, Havana seemed as gay, rich, and careless as ever, a living exponent of the old epicurean words, “Let us eat, drink, and be merry; for to-morrow we die.'

FRANK T. BULLEN,