h has caused anxiety to
his friends lest his weakened frame should no longer support the strong
intellectual machinery, as before. He finds Havana too hot, and will
leave for Santa Cruz by the first opportunity. Dr. Howe likes the warm
weather. It is a comfort to see him--a benefactor of his race, and one
of the few heroes we have left to us, since Kane died.

The Bishop of Havana has been in delicate health, and is out of town, at
Jesus del Monte, and Miss M---- is not at home, and the Senoras F---- I
failed to see this morning; but I find a Boston young lady, whose
friends were desirous I should see her, and who was glad enough to meet
one so lately from her home. A clergyman to whom, also, I had letters,
is gone into the country, without much hope of improving his health.
Stepping into a little shop to buy a plan of Havana, my name is called,
and there is my hero's wife, the accomplished author and
conversationist, whom it is an exhilaration to meet anywhere, much more
in a land of strangers. Dr. and Mrs. Howe and Mr. Parker are at the
Cerro, a pretty and cool place in the suburbs, but are coming in to Mrs.
Almy's boarding-house, for the convenience of being in the city, and for
nearness to friends, and the comforts of something like American or
English housekeeping.

In the latter part of the afternoon, from three o'clock, our parties are
taking dinner at Le Grand's. The little tables are again full, with a
fair complement of ladies. The afternoon breeze is so strong that the
draught of air, though it is hot air, is to be avoided. The passers-by
almost put their faces into the room, and the women and children of the
poorer order look wistfully in upon the luxurious guests, the colored
glasses, the red wines, and the golden fruits. The Opera troupe is here,
both the singers and the ballet; and we have Gazzaniga, Lamoureux, Max
Maretzek and his sister, and others, in this house, and Adelaide
Phillips at the next door, and the benefit of a rehearsal, at nearly all
hours of the day, of operas that the Habaneros are to rave over at
night.

I yield to no one in my admiration of the Spanish as a spoken language,
whether in its rich, sonorous, musical, and lofty style, in the mouth of
a man who knows its uses, or in the soft, indolent, languid tones of a
woman, broken by an occasional birdlike trill--

"_With wanton heed, and giddy cunning,_
_The melting voice through mazes running_"--

but I do not like it as