The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 04, No. 22, August, 1859: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
Religion
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 04, No. 22, August, 1859: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
Mrs. L----, always on the watch for arrivals, comes out to receive us.
We are very welcome, she hints, as far as we go; but why are there not
more of us? The smallest favors should be thankfully received, but she
hears that Havana is full of strangers, and she wonders, for her part,
why people will stay in that hot place, and roast, and stew, and have
the yellow fever, when she could make them so comfortable in San
Antonio. This want of custom she continues, during our whole visit, to
complain of. Would it be uncharitable for us to aver that we found other
wants in her establishment which caused us more astonishment, and which
went some way towards accounting for the deficiency complained of? wants
of breakfast, wants of dinner, wants of something good for tea, wants of
towels, wants of candles, wants of ice, or, at least, of the cooling
jars used in the country. Charges exorbitant,--the same as in Havana,
where rents are an ounce a week, and upwards; _volantes_
difficult,--Mrs. L. having made an agreement with the one livery-stable
that they shall always be furnished at most unreasonable prices, of
which she, supposably, pockets half. On the other hand, the village is
really cool, healthy, and pretty; there are pleasant drives over
dreadful roads, if one makes up one's mind to the _volante_, and
delightful river-baths, shaded by roofs of palm-tree thatch. One of the
best of these is at the foot of Mrs. L.'s inclosure, and its use is
included in the privileges of the house. The water is nearly tepid,
clear, and green, and the little fish float hither and thither in
it,--though men of active minds are sometimes reduced to angle for them,
with crooked pins, for amusement. At the hour of one, daily, the ladies
of the house betake themselves to this refreshment; and there is
laughing, and splashing, and holding of hands, and simulation of all the
Venuses that ever were, from the crouching one of the bath, to the
triumphant Cytherea, springing for the first time from the wave.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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