Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/73

Rh happy; I felt on the most familiar and affectionate terms with the waves and the great sea. I lay there like a child in its comfortable cradle; it could not hurt me.

The following morning we were in Havanna harbour.

The surf rose high, and broke with violence against the projecting rocky point on which stands the fortress of Morro, with its walls and towers, one of which is very lofty, to defend the narrow entrance of the harbour. But we lay tranquil in that beautiful almost circular harbour, as if in the stillest lake, and the sun shone upon a world of new objects around me.

There lay the large city, Havanna, along the shore to the right of the entrance to the harbour, with its low houses of all colours, blue, yellow, green, orange, like an immense mass of showy articles of porcelain and glass on a stall of fancy-wares; and no smoke, not the slightest column of smoke, to give any intimation of the atmosphere of a city with its cooking and manufacturing life, such as I had been accustomed to in the American cities. Groups of palm-trees rose up among the houses. One height to the left of us was covered by a great number of tall and extraordinary plants, resembling lofty, green candelabra, with many pairs of arms. Between the verdant hills which surrounded the harbour stood groups of country houses and groves of cocoa-palms and other palm-like trees, and over all this, rested the clearest, softest heaven, and the most delicious air. The water of the harbour seemed as clear as crystal, and, above all, atmosphere and colour seemed to be of the most diaphanous clearness and serenity. Among the objects which caught my sight were the fortress, in which the state prisoners are kept, a second prison, and a—gallows. But those beautiful waving palms, and those verdant hills, enchanted my eyes.

Small, half-covered boats, rowed by men with Spanish physiognomies, surrounded our vessel, to convey the passengers on shore. But the passengers could not go