Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/162

Rh gathered; these contain the coffee-beans. The harvest is, therefore, continually going on during three or four months of the year.

The coffee plantation which I visited was in full bloom, and the appearance was as of a shower of snow over the green shrubs. The coffee shrub has beautiful rich green, smooth laurel-like leaves, the flowers resemble those of the single white hyacinth, and have a delicate, agreeable scent. This coffee plantation was remarkably lovely, with beautiful avenues of alternate orange-trees and sago-palms; the pine-apple grew there, and there were avenues and groves of bananas. The trees were full of blossom and fruit. The people who lived here had never noticed the peculiar blossoming of the banana; people live amid the richest treasures of nature without paying attention to them.

Among the beautiful objects on this plantation, I must mention its proprietor, and her lovely young daughters especially. They presented me with flowers and fruit, and I have sketched a blossoming branch of the coffee-shrub for mamma.

The second object of interest to me was a little zoological garden, or museum, which a German collected in the neighbourhood of Cardinas, of the birds and other animals of Cuba. Among the latter were a crocodile and an alligator together in the same tank. They were so alike, that to my ignorant eyes they seemed entirely so; but I was shown various distinctive markings. Their owner had made vain attempts to tame them. They seem to be the most devoid of intellect, as well as the ugliest of all animals, at least, to my taste. Neither alligators nor crocodiles, however, are found in the rivers of Cuba; these have been brought hither as curiosities from America and Africa.

March 21st.—There stands in the court into which my room looks, a large hencoop containing many kinds of