Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/205

Rh countries, and, upon their noble heathen foundation, erect a new temple, a new community which shall, in spirit and in truth, make them the highlands of the world.

I have beheld the countenance of the earth beneath the the sun's warmest beams, where they call forth palms and coffee-shrubs. I know the circumstances of every-day human life there, its pleasures and its miseries. I have comprehended this new page in the book of creation and the life of nature. I have enjoyed and been grateful. And after two weeks longer stay in Cuba, to see Madame C., and the paradisiacal regions of the Caffatal to the east of Havannah, I shall turn from the tropics and the palms once more towards the United States, and in the course of a few months hope to see again Sweden, you, and all my dear ones. Believe me, the home of the pine-tree is my home, dearer to me than the palm-groves here. Here I could not live after all!



&emsp; on an adventure in foreign lands, my dear heart, and for the moment not of the most agreeable kind; I am here, all alone, in a little Spanish posada or fonda (a third-rate public-house), as uncomfortable as possible, surrounded by people who do not understand me, and whom I do not understand either. I am here awaiting the arrival of a volante from Signora C., which is to take me to her plantation, about five English miles from this place. Possibly, however, she may not yet have received the letter which announced my arrival here, and the volante, in that case, may not come for a day or two, and I in the meantime shall have to stop here; but I am neither uneasy nor in want of food, for