e English, whose enormous wealth is the plunder of India and all
the world for centuries.

The next morning I found we were sailing along the Cuban coast, quite
near the land, which looked so inviting that I made up my mind to go
ashore and stay a month in Havana, so I had my baggage got on deck. Soon
after dinner the engines were stopped for some hours for repacking, the
captain informing me that it was doubtful whether we should arrive in
Havana in time to go ashore that night. At 6 o'clock the sunset gun is
fired, the custom house closes and no more debarkations are allowed that
day. If I went ashore the next day I must be up and off at an early
hour, as the ship sailed at 7.30, so I told the captain if he arrived
before 6 o'clock I would go ashore and wait for the next steamer, but if
we were late I would go on to Vera Cruz with him.

Once having made up my mind to go ashore, I was all eagerness to push
matters. To do so I even asked the captain to tell the engineer to force
the engines a little if possible. It was well on to 6 o'clock when we
steamed past Moro Castle and dropped anchor in the harbor. I engaged two
of the boats alongside, our baggage was hurried into them, my wife went
down the ladder, and speaking some hurried farewells I ran down after
her and sprang lightly into the boat. That instant the sunset gun was
fired. Two minutes later and the custom house officers on board would
have forbidden my leaving the steamer. I say two minutes, but it was
less than half a minute. Half a minute! Thirty seconds changed my
destiny.

CHAPTER XXX.

"HAPPINESS AND I SHAKE HANDS FOR A TIME."

Cuba! What a productive and fertile island it is, with its charming
climate and lovely scenery! But, as in so many of the green spots of
this world, man has blasted and spoiled all that indulgent nature has
lavished here. From the days of Columbus the story of Cuba has been one
of wholesale murder of natives, of revolutions--later of insurrections,
and deadly civil strife, which have ruined whole provinces once covered
with large sugar, coffee and tobacco plantations.

Slavery now, as in all her past Christian history, is everywhere.
Previous to 1861 40,000 slaves were yearly imported in slave ships into
the harbor of Havana.

Perhaps all men are cruel when they are absolute masters of the lives
and fortunes of their fellows and amenable to none for their acts.
Certainly the white Cubans, as a rule, are cruel maste