“Only a few coasting craft like the _Alice_ there; you’ll get no news, neither letters nor papers, till I bring them to you six weeks from now; not even a telegram; there’s no cable!” This gave our adventure a delightful tinge of aloofness. We slept on board that night, and the next morning watched our belongings carried ashore,--trunks, band-boxes, tables, chairs, beds, mosquito nettings, and a grand piano. My father did not love music, but it was part of the family creed that Mama could not exist without a piano. “She shall have music wherever she goes!” Our arrival had a quasi-official character; we were the guests of the President, who had lent my father one of the presidential palaces for our residence. The palace was built Spanish fashion around a patio. A wide corridor surrounded the court on the second story, from which opened our living rooms. A guard of honor, half a dozen ragged soldiers and their horses, were lodged on the ground floor. I still remember the strong impressions of this, my first day in a foreign country. I can see the picturesque streets of the oldest European city in the new world, for many years the most important place in the Western hemisphere. Its character and language are Spanish, its people of mixed blood are of every shade of complexion, their manners truly Spanish, courtly, grave, and kindly. We landed on the morning of the twenty-second of February; that evening we celebrated Washington’s Birthday by a dinner at the hotel. There were speeches, red fire, toasts, and a general jollification. The _Tybee’s_ officers and passengers were all present, as well as the few Americans established at Santo Domingo, among whom were a Mr. and Mrs. Shumacher and a couple by the name of Gabb. The men all wore white linen, the women white muslin. The two months that followed were among the most delightful of my life. We enjoyed a series of calm summer days, only broken by an occasional violent thunder shower in the afternoon. Very quickly the old palace became homelike with flowers, birds, and friendly visitors at every hour of the day and evening. Grave men, like Don Leonardo Delmonto, the land agent, Señor Gauthier, the Secretary of State, Curriel, the Minister of War, who came to consult with Papa; lonely men, exiles from every corner of the world, who came to talk with Mama, and a shoal of girls and boys who came to play and dance with “las muchachas” (the girls)!