A Trip to Cuba and the Southern States, No. 5. LLUSION has already been made to an American boarding-house in the country. A few days passed there, realized to our party the blessings of the English language; most of us were lamentably deficient in Spanish, and though one or two professed to translate to the others the small amount of information contained in the Havana papers (which are mostly filled with long love stories, and give, for foreign news, the price of sugar and the rate of exchange, to the exclusion, almost, of everything which would inform the inhabitants of how the world wags beyond the Gulf of Mexico), it was a relief to find landlord, major domo, chambermaid, and a fine boy who brought us our daily baskets of oranges, &c., all speaking undisguised English. Their information regarding the trees was rarely such as would do to print, for they confounded pines and dates with bread fruit, and so on; but we had to confess that a common language was a great bond of good fellowship. This house is on a plantation of four hundred acres, once devoted to the cultivation of coffee, but the owner dying, it has been rented to Mr. Monson. The dwelling is a hybrid, meant to embody indulgences for some of our habits, while it conformed to the climate. It bears no resemblance to the generality of houses on the island, which are more like Mrs. Almy's (before inserted), and only of one low story. Framed in the United States, Mr. Monson's house has glass windows, and somewhat of an American air, and visitors may here feel quite at home, and make pedestrian, railroad, or equestrian excursions to the fine scenery and the sugar and coffee plantations with great satisfaction. There are a few other places where English is spoken; among them is Mrs. Lawrence's, at Guines, where some comfort is to be had, but if you ask the hotel keepers in Havana for such places, they will sometimes flatly deny their existence, in the hope of keeping you within their own grasping charges. From this point, an expedition was got up to procure some air-plants for sending home. A black was hired to climb trees, and a white man for guide. The laziness of both was characteristic of the climate. The black was about to ascend a tree, when his master wanted to smoke a cigar; no matches being found on any of the party, the lazy fellow left us all in the heat, while he went away for half an hour, to get a light for his master; after which, he concluded that particular tree was utterly inaccessible, and a new search near the house where he procured fire, had to be undertaken! Truly, it is difficult, with such tools, to get along, or accomplish much. Fortunately, there are men in existence, in every age, who depend upon themselves, and who take the exertion necessary into their own hands. The name of Professor PHILIP POEY is well known to all men of science. He resides in Havana, and is attached to the College, all his leisure being devoted to natural history. With so wide a field for research, and with true enthusiasm, it may be well imagined that his correspondence with the learned societies of other countries is of the most valuable kind. JOHN GUNDLACH is a name also well known to European and American naturalists, his collections being found in the best museums wherever science is cultiHis great topic is ornithology, but he does not confine himself exclusively to birds. He starts out with a meagre scrip and wallet, and traversing the island like a true devotee of science, reminds one of the votaries who have sacrificed health, time, and talents, to the acquisition of knowledge and the benefit of their fellow-men, without other reward than fame and a sense of their own usefulness. A few friends of science subscribe for his support, and he returns from his excursions and hard fare loaded with treasures for distribution where they can be further studied and enjoyed. Mr. Gundlach has been known to follow and watch a single pair of birds for a week, till he had become fully acquainted with their habits. The Academy of Natural Sciences, at Philadelphia, has been greatly enriched by his devotion; it now possesses, beyond question, the finest ornithological collection in the world-a hint that we throw out for the benefit of visitors to our city, which many will be thankful to remember. Among the members of the Academy, the names of Francisco A. Sauvalle, Professor Philip Poey, and John Gundlach, are much better known than that of Walker the fillibuster, so often of latter times repeated in newspapers, and so very different in regard to useful works. Mr. Gundlach is a native of Baden. The former owner of the Carolina House had some ideas of embellishment; his planting of avenues of palms, and his long approach to the house through orange-trees and some rarer kinds, will gratify the visitor extremely. In the neighborhood are good specimens of coffee and sugar estates, pine-apple fields, yucca and aloe hedges, and some of the best scenery; from the tops of the high hills very fine views are obtained of Matanzas, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea. You have only to wish, and a cocoa-nut full of milk is poured into your tumbler; give little "Charley" a basket, and he brings you it filled with oranges; walk into the garden, and you may help yourself to ripe bananas; and if your taste has come round to the sapote and the mammea apple, with their sickly sweets, they, and very many other fruits, can be had for the asking, including tamarinds, &c., and nuts that you never heard of or saw represented. If Mr. Monson should be encouraged to persevere in making his establishment what it ought to be, it will be filled every winter with respectable boarders. The very last sugar-mill worked by oxen, is within walking distance, affording a strong contrast to the more modern steam operations now so universal. The labor and lungs employed to keep the animals up to their slow circular motion, are a caution to work whenever it is possible with lifeless materials. Two blacks, and a son of the proprietor to watch operations, were required to keep the sluggish animals in a very slow walk, to say nothing of the goads replenished at short intervals, and applied with loud yells and screams from all three in regular turn. This gentleman makes syrup only, and, it is thought, would have to give up his melancholy team but for the present high prices. On this small estate there are some very fine shady avenues of fruit and other trees which we saw nowhere else. The crow of the game-cock may be heard at all the Havana hotels and the plantations; several wealthy proprietors have cock-pits of their own, and of course betting is rife and fashionable. We heard a good story of a party near Trinidad, who were carrying to the town some fifteen hundred dollars won at a pit, when they were attacked and robbed by the losers, though the Governor of Trinidad was close behind their volante. Stories of robbers are not so rare that one becomes utterly careless of his safety, or inclined to make long excursions alone. The police are not to be found at every turn, and it is true that marauders discharged from the army, or let loose from prisons, roam about, mostly at night, and waylay the unarmed. Caution is recommended, but Mr. Monson assures us he has ridden for years unarmed, by day and night, without the slightest molestation. A rather amusing rural scene, showing the love of the fighting cock, was exhibited on our ride to the Carolina House. A family from Havana was in the |