Some have selected the caster as the most prominent point for reconnoitering, where they are still taking observations. These are all soon brushed away by the waiter without ceremony, and then comes the repast. The cooking is on the French restaurant order. The savory odor of onions and garlic exhales from soup and meat on every side--chickens cooked in all styles that a connoisseur could invent--beef, mutton, Irish potatoes, tomatoes, and squashes, besides other vegetables of all kinds. After having our plate changed ten times, the meats are all removed for dessert, which consists of cheese, guava jelly, cocoa-nut grated and cooked in sirup--the meal concluding with a cup of _café noir_. The Cubans laugh at the Americans for mixing flour and sugar into pies and sweet-cakes. After dinner we went to visit some friends on the bark Adelaide, anchored in Matanzas Bay. The process of being pulled on board from a small boat would be a hazardous experiment for those whose arms were not well fastened. It makes a consequential person feel very diminutive, as though he were about the same size and importance as any other fish, dangling at the end of a line, previous to being taken in and served up for chowder. Over eighty vessels are anchored in the bay--all waiting for cargoes of sugar and molasses. The captains are complaining on account of the low bids made for freights. Every day fifty of them can be seen in the consigning-office of Mr. Sanchez. They all have an anxious, care-worn look, and some of them so old, seasoned, and toughened, by hardships and exposure, that, if they were to fall overboard, the shark that would have the temerity or skill to seize them, would never survive a similar experiment, unless a Jonah miracle were wrought in him. Each captain, as he arrives, gives the morning salutation by asking his companions in turn, "Is your vessel entered?" "Are you chartered?" "Where you going to sail for?" Most of the vessels are from Maine and Massachusetts. Strange as it may appear, many of these captains have their entire families with them. The ladies, while in port, extract some sweets, despite the rough life they lead, in making calls, visits, and even giving dinners and concerts--all the invitations being limited to their maritime acquaintances from the four quarters of the globe. Then they take little excursions, in their long-boats, up the beautiful and historic valley of Yumori, or walk to the city in crowds of fifteen or twenty, accompanied by all the children who are not too small to go with them. Batteries of black eyes are leveled at them, as they pass, from every side. No hippodrome, in making its grand entree, was ever scrutinized more closely. Clerks leave their counters to gaze at them; servants forget their business; pack-mules endanger the wares of their owners; coolies drop their cakes of ice in the river when unloading vessels, as the foreigners cross the bridge, while idle boys and girls follow them, to