revented from breaking out into any
overt demonstration of good-will. At last, emboldened by the brilliant
accounts of former tourists and the successes of your friends, you
suggest that you would like to see a plantation,--you only ask for
one,--would he give you a letter, etc., etc.? He assumes an abstracted
air, wonders if he knows anybody who has a plantation,--the fact being
that he scarcely knows any one who has not one. Finally, he will
try,--call again, and he will let you know. You call again,--"Next
week," he says. You call after that interval,--"Next week," again, is
all you get. Now, if you are a thoroughbred man, you can afford to
quarrel with your banker; so you say, "Next week,--why not next
year?"--make a very decided snatch at your hat, and wish him a very long
"good-morning." But if you are a snob, and afraid, you take his neglect
quietly enough, and will boast, when you go home, of his polite
attentions to yourself and family, when on the Island of Cuba.

_Our Consul_ is the next post in the weary journey of your hopes, and
to him, with such assurance as you have left, you now betake yourself.
Touching him personally I have nothing to say. I will only remark, in
general, that the traveller who can find, in any part of the world, an
American Consul not disabled from all service by ill-health, want of
means, ignorance of foreign languages, or unpleasant relations with the
representatives of foreign powers,--that traveller, we say, should go in
search of the sea-serpent, and the passage of the North Pole, for he
has proved himself able to find what, to every one but him, is
undiscoverable.

But who, setting these aside, is to show you any attention? Who will
lift you from the wayside, and set you upon his own horse, or in his
own _volante_, pouring oil and wine upon your wounded feelings? Ah! the
breed of the good Samaritan is never allowed to become extinct in this
world, where so much is left for it to do.

A kind and hospitable American family, long resident in Havana, takes us
up at last. They call upon us, and we lift up our heads a little; they
take us out in their carriage, and we step in with a little familiar
flounce, intended to show that we are used to such things; finally, they
invite us to a friendly cup of tea,--all the hotel knows it,--we have
tarried at home in the shade long enough. Now, people have begun to find
us out,--_we are going out to tea!_

How pleasant the tea-table was! ho