One alleviation of the tedium of hotel-life in the city is the almost daily visit of the young man from the dry-goods’ shop, who brings samples of lawns, misses’ linen dresses, pina handkerchiefs, and fans of all prices, from two to seventy-five dollars.  The ladies cluster like bees around these flowery goods, and, after some hours of bargaining, disputing, and purchasing, the vendor pockets the golden honey, and marches off.  As dress-makers in Havana are scarce, dear, and bad, our fair friends at the hotel make up these dresses mostly themselves, and astonish their little world every day by appearing in new attire.  “How extravagant!” you say.  They reply, “Oh! it cost nothing for the making; I made it myself.”  But we remember to have heard somewhere that “Time is Money.”  At four in the afternoon, a negress visits in turn every bedroom, sweeps out the mosquitoes from the curtains with a feather-brush, and lets down the mosquito-net, which she tucks in around the bed.  After this, do not meddle with your bed until it is time to get into it; then put the light away, open the net cautiously, enter with a dexterous swing, and close up immediately, leaving no smallest opening to help them after.  In this mosquito-net you live, move, and have your being until morning; and should you venture to pull it aside, even for an hour, you will appall your friends, next morning, with a face which suggests the early stages of small-pox, or the spotted fever.

The valuable information I have now communicated is the sum of what I learned in that one day at Mrs. Almy’s; and though our party speedily removed thither, I doubt whether I shall be able to add to it anything of importance.

HAVANA.  YOUR BANKER.  OUR CONSUL.  THE FRIENDLY CUP OF TEA.

One is apt to arrive in Havana with a heart elated by the prospect of such kindnesses and hospitalities as are poetically supposed to be the perquisite of travellers.  You count over your letters as so many treasures; you regard the unknown houses you pass as places of deposit for the new acquaintances and delightful friendships which await you.  In England, say you, each of these letters would represent a pleasant family-mansion thrown open to your view,—­a social breakfast,—­a dinner of London wits,—­a box at the opera,—­or the visit of a lord, whose perfect carriage and livery astonish the quiet street in which you lodge, and whose good taste and good manners should, one thinks, prove contagious, at once soothing and shaming the fretful Yankee conceit.  But your Cuban letters, like fairy money, soon turn to withered leaves in your possession, and, having delivered two or three of them, you employ the others more advantageously, as shaving-paper, or for the lighting of cigars, or any other useful purpose.