wilders the faculties, and confuses one's
principles of gravitation, toleration, etc., etc. You enter from the
Tophet of the street, and the intolerable glare is at once softened to a
sort of golden shadow. The floor is of stone; in the midst trickles a
tiny fountain with golden network; all other available space is crowded
with marble tables, square or round; and they, in turn, are scarcely
visible for the swarm of black-coats that gather round them. The smoke
of innumerable cigars gives a Rembrandtic tinge to the depths of the
picture, and the rows and groups of nodding Panama hats are like very
dull flower-beds. In the company, of course, the Spanish-Cuban element
largely predominates; yet here and there the sharper English breaks upon
the ear.

"Yes, I went to that plantation; but they have only one thousand boxes
of sugar, and we want three thousand for our operation."

A Yankee, you say. Yes, certainly; and turning, you see the tall, strong
Philadelphian from our hotel, who calls for everything by its right
name, and always says, "_Mas! mas!_" when the waiter helps him to ice.
Some one near us is speaking a fuller English, with a richer "_r_" and
deeper intonation. See there! that is our own jolly captain, Brownless
of ours, the King of the "Karnak"; and going up to the British lion, we
shake the noble beast heartily by the paw.

The people about us are imbibing a variety of cooling liquids. Our turn
comes at last. The _garcon_ who says, "I speke Aingliss," brings us
each a delicious orange _granizada_, a sort of half-frozen water-ice,
familiar to Italy, but unknown in America. It is ice in the first
enthusiasm of freezing,--condensed, not hardened. Promoting its
liquefaction with the spoon, you enjoy it through the mediation of a
straw. The unskilful make strange noises and gurglings through this
_tenuis avena_; but to those who have not forgotten the accomplishment
of suction, as acquired at an early period of existence, the _modus in
quo_ is easy and agreeable.

You will hardly weary of watching the groups that come and go and sit
and talk in this dreamy place. If you are a lady, every black eye
directs its full, tiresome stare at your face, no matter how plain that
face may be. But you have learned before this to consider those eyes as
so many black dots, so many marks of wonder with no sentence attached;
and so you coolly pursue your philosophizing in your corner, strong in
the support of a companion, who