"Another Flora here, of bolder hues
And richer sweets."

ONTINUING our notes as they present themselves for
extract, the reader will find them to partake of the ram-
bling character of our visit, during which, every oppor-
tunity which health permitted, was employed in examin-
ing the novelties presented in every direction. We could
but think that Europe has become somewhat stale to
travellers who have frequently seen it. Like a dutiful
son, the American's first visits have been paid to the
ancestral roofs; that accomplished, and all which could
be taught him there having been scanned, he may now
turn his wings to another point of the compass, and con-
verse with the land of the sun, so long in the exclusive
possession of the unappreciative Spaniard.

Mrs. Almy's Hotel (where Dr. Kane expired) forms one of the illustrations of this number. The windows are grated with iron, and having no glass whatever, and only a curtain, they are protected from the entrance of robbers in this manner. Nearly all the houses are thus secured, and the rooms may be left without fastening. Being mostly of one story, air is thus freely admitted during the night to the sleepers.

In the picture, the street scene represents the volante, erroneous in two particulars the shafts are quite too short, and the central young lady usually sits the most forward of the party when three ride together, which is usual. The horse is rarely so fat as represented, but the figure of the calisero is excellent; his hat, perfect; even the best dressed liveried coachman! has his legs, as high up as above the knee, encased in jack-boots, and the heel is ornamented with a silver spur; he exhibits at the junction of the shoe and the boot leg, very much what would look at a distance like a silk stocking, but is really black skin. The most fashionable drive two horses to the volante, when the calisero rides the second outside the shaft, and this horse is fastened near the step; he is only for ornament, and for the postilion to display himself on, with his awkward jog-trot. Mrs. Almy's was on the bay, and Wolcott's (a two-storied house) on the opposite corner. Both could be known in the dark by the number of orange-skins thrown out by eager American boarders. The door at the corner was the entrance to a cigar shop; the wall at the opposite end was the inclosure of the miserable, small, old operahouse, unroofed by a hurricane, and superseded by the more superb Tacon Theatre outside the walls.

The names of streets are sometimes significant and striking to strangers; this house is at the corner of the Street of Light, Caillé de Lutz, and the official street, Caillé des Officios, in which the Post-Office and Custom House are, and appear to have been immemorially. Other streets are Caillé del Sol (Street of the Sun), de la Habana, Havana Street, &c.

Sugar, &c.-The high price of sugar has had much to do with the present state of prosperity, as it is called, which induces extravagance and absurd luxury, evidenced by such things as the sale of fans ornamented with original paintings and jewels, at six and seven hundred dollars each. We were assured that half a million of dollars had been made, the past season, by some extensive sugar growers, and that those who made sixty and seventy thousand could be counted by hundreds. The whole profits of the island, this year, from sugar, were estimated by

those who ought to be able to form a judgment, at fifteen millions of our money. It was a season of drought, but the high prices, and increased saccharine matter in the smaller canes, had much more than made up for the deficiency. The Cuban planters have this advantage over those of Louisiana, that the cane-roots survive from year to year. In our country, planting is necessary every season; this is expensive, and the young plant sometimes "catches a cold," as a Cuban termed it when descanting on this fact.

The attention of most visitors is much given to the processes of making sugar, in which vast improvements and economy have latterly been introduced. The ear becomes soon familiar with the words representing new air-tight condensers, and with the names of the most celebrated estates, in which the Brothers Arietta make a prominent figure, their estates being understood to present the best culture and the best boiling, &c., no less than the most successful employment of the Chinese workmen. A very handsome folio volume has lately been published in Havana, descriptive of the best sugar estates; the plates (if we remember, there are fifty-four, well lithographed and colored) are sold together or separately, so that each visitor can bring away characteristic scenes. The whole cost of the book exceeds fifty dollars; it was purchased by one of the party, for deposit, probably, in one of our best public libraries. It is of course in Spanish.

Logwood is a product of the island, and the tree is used for hedges, the trimmings being more or less employed for domestic dyes. Food from the roots of the Yucca and other productions, is prepared on the plantations, but the banana and plantain have superseded the use of the Bread fruit, which was at one period extensively introduced, and is now found growing in gardens, but its product not greatly esteemed or employed.

In many private gardens, it is usual to see the large citron growing rampantly, bent over arbors, and the fruit hanging down, of an enormous size. We were allowed to pick one that weighed four pounds and six ounces, and this was by no means the largest. Limes, lemons, and, in short, all the tribe, grow with wonderful rapidity, and come into bearing very young; but there is little commercial demand for the fruit, and it is sparsely cultivated. But what glorious effects might be produced by the possession of such ornamental trees and shrubs, in connection with Euphorbias, the Cactus, and a thousand things we value so highly! As to attempts at ornament in this way, they are the exception, and more rare than is credible. You may see more Camellias in a small northern greenhouse at home, than will greet your eye during your whole visit to Cuba, where they would grow to a great size, and need no more care than anything else; but there it is so much more easily procured, that what we esteem so highly, is here neglected.

The best fruits of the country find a good market at the conserve factories, the most resorted to being Dominica's, the proprietor of the fashionable ice cream, or, rather, ice water shop. He is extensively in the business, and his wares are so toothsome and excellent, that it is a universal thing for American visitors to invest from a hundred dollars, downwards, in the guava and other jellies and conserves, dried and candied fruit, &c.; these, and domestic manufactures of the same kind, are also much consumed by the Islanders, who seem to live upon fruit, conserves, and vegetables. Dominica's restaurant is more crowded than any we have ever seen.

Commercial Gardens.-There are very few of these; we could hear of but two, one kept by a Frenchman, on the Paséo, who has but little to show, the owner being in poor health. Pedrigal's, however, exhibits a good appearance; the proprietor speaks Spanish only, and he knows only the Spanish names for his plants. This difficulty meets you everywhere, and all being new, the information.

wwwww

you can pick up may be said to be the "pursuit of knowledge under difficulties." Here we found a number of beautiful plants unknown to our green or hothouses, many of which, with a whole cargo of air-plants, were preparing to be, and have since been, shipped to our townsman, James Dundas, Esq., under direction of his enthusiastic relative, Mr. J. Lippincott, Jr., who intelligently explored chapparals, climbed mountains, and underwent every kind of fatigue, and sometimes native opposition, to fill Mr. Dundas's noble houses with the best things that could be procured. Among them is one plant that will be new to a vast portion of our cultivaMr. Pedrigal calls it Camellia arborea, and it is about the size of a healthy young Camellia of three years' growth; its peculiarity is, that when set above a stream of water, at a height, as we saw it, of eight or ten feet, it sends down to the water a tube, round and elastic, looking as if made of thread or soft leather; at the end of this are a few little roots, and through these nourishment is sucked, and sent in the hose! to the plant.*

Mr. Pedrigal supplies a vast many native plants, to European gardens, and to this end, propagates and collects the best air-plants and epiphytes. Every small and large tree in his garden, is the bearer of numerous specimens, so that the place has quite an air-plant air, quite novel and amusing. On a Mamon-tree will be seen air-plants bearing the flowers resembling a monkey, a spider, and a butterfly, proceeding apparently from the same roots which have been grown together from the same starting-point. His verbenas attain the height of six feet! and have concluded to become ascending runners, in compliment to the climate. Then there are trees covered with such novel flowers and fruit, of which we had no previous knowledge, that a year instead of a few days would be required to give them reality to our readers. We must, however, name, in Spanish fashion, the Pinon real (of which we obtained a fine drawing for publication in our last number) and La Carolina (of the Bombaceae family), two of the most gorgeous things imaginable. A running vine here attracted all eyes. In Spanish, it is the Flore de Cinco meses (five months flower), most superb and novel; but all our specimens were taken from under pressure of a trunk by a wicked Spanish chamber-maid, and thrown into her slop-bucket! which will account for our want of success in naming many articles that were highly interesting and novel.

Mr. Pedrigal has some fine specimens of Araucaria Braziliensis, and sells at reasonable prices. Mr. Lippincott very much reduced his varied stock, and we are happy to know they have all arrived in Philadelphia in excellent condition.

We saw at this garden one of the most valuable woods known to the world: the Hibiscus tiliacæ, a Malvacea; its fibre is used extensively for making ropes, and its wood is of that durable and elastic quality which gives the long and very strong and elastic shaft-poles of the volante, and which is indispensable, in the absence of hickory, to the manufacture of that universal vehicle.

Roses are about as good as our own; great attention is now being paid to this long-neglected flower, which it was thought would not succeed here; but the Paradise and Persia of roses is in the vicinity of Natches, which we shall attempt to describe hereafter.

* This proves, on nearer examination, to be one of the Clusias, the rosea or syphon plant, mentioned as enveloping the trees and palms, and named in Mr. Sauvalle's letter in our last number along with Clusia alba. The species are trees abounding in a tenacious glutinous juice, of a balsamic flavor, whence the English name Balsam tree. C. rosea has handsome flowers; the fruit is green and of the size of a middling apple, with eight lines running like the meridians of a globe from the stalk to the crown of it. When it ripens it opens at these lines, and divides into eight parts, disclosing many mucilaginous scarlet seeds, resembling those of the pomegranate. See the former description of the alba.

While on the subject of gardens, we must not omit that of one of our friends, N. J. Gomez, Esq., on the Cerro Road, near the town. Mr. Gomez is an enthusiastic horticulturist, and is likely to do much where so much is wanted to introduce a taste for the best kinds of fruit; he works alone, but with knowledge. At his premises, we had the pleasure of tasting the cherimoyer, the apple banana, and various others, and of feasting our eyes on roses and " queer things" in the way of vegetation, so numerous that we were quite discouraged, and put by our pencil in despair! What a pity the island has no Horticulturist, nor a single print that gives any attention to the topic.

The Banana and Plantain.-Indifferent observers will scarcely detect a difference between the banana and plantain, except in the fruit, and here the likeness is great; but the plantain bears a longer fruit, somewhat differently shaped. This splendid and valuable genus, Musa, consists of species which have perennial, roundish, solid, watery bulbs, with biennial, and sometimes longer enduring stems. The stems are straight, erect, varying from five to twenty-five feet in height, simple, thick, round, smooth, fungous, watery, and lamellated. The leaves are oblong, and, till split with the winds, entire, from three to ten feet in length, and under two feet in width. The flowers are in large terminating racemes, without a calyx or perianthium, generally whitish, the fertile flowers occupying the lower, and the barren the upper part of the raceme. They are cultivated in great perfection by Mr. Dundas in his noble palm-house in Philadelphia, and succeed tolerably well in sheltered situations in New Orleans.

In the plant most cultivated in the West Indies and Cuba, the herbaceous stalk is fifteen or twenty feet high, with leaves often more than six feet long, and two broad. When the fruit is cut, the stalk is also destroyed, and new sprouts soon appear, one or two only being allowed to grow, and thus a continuous supply is afforded. The skin of the fruit is tough, and within is a soft pulp, of a luscious, sweet flavor that it is very easy to become fond of. The spikes of fruit are often so large as to weigh upwards of forty pounds. Gerarde, and other old authors, name it Adam's Apple, from a notion that it was the forbidden fruit of Eden; whilst others supposed it to be the grapes brought out of the promised land by the spies of Moses. It is certainly one of the most useful fruits in the world, and seems to have migrated with mankind into all the climates in which it can be cultivated; some or other of the plants are bearing most parts of the year, and their fruit is often the whole food of a family. The plantain is roasted, boiled, and fried, when just full grown; it is also eaten boiled with salt meat or fish, and, when ripe, it is made into tarts, or dried as a sweetmeat. A fermented liquor is made from them, and, in some places, a cloth from the fibres of the trunk; the leaves make excellent mats, or serve for stuffing mattresses. Its value may be judged of by the fact that three dozen plantains are sufficient to serve one man for a week instead of bread, and will support him much longer.

Mr. Sauvalle, the botanist of the island, assured us that in the banana would be found the long sought substitute for rags in paper making, and we have but little doubt respecting this. The amount of fibre contained in the stalk is very great— certainly not less than forty per cent.-and this is easily reduced to pulp. So confident is Mr. S. respecting this (and his opinion will have great weight with all who know him), that he would be willing to enter into arrangements with a practical paper-maker to establish the manufacture, for which the greatest abundance of material, now wasted or thrown away, could be had. From Mr. Sauvalle's position and wealth, this is a feasible project. He does not doubt that the premium offered, in London, of a thousand pounds sterling, for a substitute for the materials at present so scarce, could be obtained after a fair experiment.