at prescribed hours to tap me on the chest, probe me in the ribs,
and press my pulse; to say that Dona Mercedes proves the best and
kindest of nurses and most sympathetic of friends; and that even the
loquacious Tunicu, together with a host of acquaintances, makes kind
enquiries after my daily progress, and offers to provide a shopful of
dainties--is to say that the attentions which I receive from strangers
in a foreign country are all that my dearest relatives at home could
desire.

Having passed the night of the fifth day tranquilly, I awake on the
morning of the memorable sixth, in a perfect state of health. All my
pains have disappeared as if by magic: my head ceases to throb; my body
is delightfully cool, and I am otherwise so convalescent that were it
not for my doctor's strict injunctions, I should arise, dress, and
betake myself to the nearest restaurant. But my West Indian physician
administers to my wants in easy stages. I am allowed to sit in a rocking
chair near the window with closed shutters, but I may not wash, neither
may I brush my hair, nor breathe a new atmosphere for several days to
come. From the mildest nourishment in the way of sugar panales and
water, I am gradually introduced to more solid food, and at least a week
elapses before Don Francisco approves of Don Benigno's proposal to
recruit his patient's health at the sea-side.

Now that the crisis is over, I learn that the greatest fears had been
entertained for my recovery; that six out of the seven doctors, who had
considered my case, had pronounced it hopeless. I was an Englishman,
they said, and my countrymen had the reputation for indulging rather
freely in stimulants--above all in malt liquors, and these stimulants
were fatal to a constitution when attacked by yellow fever. But Don
Francisco, who had carefully interrogated me on my past, which he found
greatly belied his brother practitioners' conjectures, was more sanguine
of the cure, and now that I am free from danger, he pronounces me
'acclimatised,' and as unlikely to experience another attack of the same
epidemic as the natives of Cuba themselves. He, however, warns me of
'tercianas' or intermittent fevers which occasionally succeed yellow
fever, and which are consequent on intemperate habits and undue exposure
to the sun.

Accepting Don Benigno's generous invitation to pass a few weeks with
him, his family and a few friends at a watering place, I take leave of
Nicasio for the firs