I was fortunate in making friends with a famous Cuban belle under whose protection I caught some glimpses of the _beau monde_ of Havana. In the afternoon I drove with her in a _volante_ on the fashionable _paseo_; in the evening we drove again through the gaily lighted plaza, the center of the city’s social life. The _volante_ would draw up outside one of the chief _cafés_; here ices were served to us as we sat in the carriage, which was quickly surrounded by a group of young men. A certain handsome officer, named Antonio Sarabria, paid us distant and respectful court in true Spanish fashion. For several afternoons and evenings he followed our carriage in a cab, and when we stopped for ices sent us each a bouquet of gardenias with his compliments. We visited a Spanish warship, the _Saragossa_, lying in the harbor near the Moro Castle. Though the officers were friendly and hospitable, the visit proved a disappointment, for I had vainly hoped to find Antonio Sarabria on board! The same afternoon we were made welcome on a Prussian man-of-war, where a pompous young German officer did the honors. He spoke English fairly well but had an irritating habit of answering every remark with, “Why, of course they are,” or “Why, of course it is!” I remember a visit to our fair friend at her own house. She received us in a perfumed boudoir where the toilet apparatus, basin, pitchers, mugs, as well as combs and brushes, were of handsome wrought silver. The Cuban beauties, with their _mate_ skins and languorous eyes, dressed in the latest Paris fashion except on Sundays, when at mass the mantilla took the place of the bonnet. The only religion tolerated by the government was the Roman Catholic. With my friend I visited the cathedral, where for a second time I stood beside a tomb of Columbus; this mausoleum really contained the Great Adventurer’s dust, brought here from Santo Domingo in the year 1796. In Havana I saw my first convent, where the nuns showed me a _crêche_, and explained the working of the cradle, which at night was turned outward into the street to receive the little foundlings committed to their care. My father meanwhile was making a thorough study of the work of the newly formed _Sociedad Economica_, whose object was the improvement of public education and popular industry. I remember his saying that not a tenth part, even of the children of free parents, received any education whatever. Current literature can hardly be said to have existed in Cuba at this time. There were a few daily and weekly papers, rigidly censured, and as far as we saw, little other reading matter.