Vic. We arrived here safe and sound ten days ago, and as I promised that I would rite you a discription of this place I begin. Well, you will think this a queer beginning for a body that as been so hill as mine; but then you know well is a London fashion of beginning an hepistle. You must excuse my spellin and the writin, nowing as you do that I never rites at hall somehow, for Peter whom you knows his my hemaneusius (a hard word to rite), which accounts for my want o practise. All I keeps is you know the ouse books, and them's bad enough, but I hope this will find you in good ealth and spirits in our dear ouse in Bishopsgate. We arrived out ere in 30 days. Did you ever? I'm sartin I ear you say, No, never! Well, but ere we are in the Awana, the capital of Kuba, and a wondrous place it is, tho' not so wonderful as our city-the wonderfullest in the nown globe.

As I said, this is a wonderous place, cuite different to London. Lor! Margery, I seed such sights-little nigger boys and girls, from two to eight years old, runnin start naked as wen they was born in the streets, just as if they was in their bed-rooms by themselves. Peter blushed cuite scarlet, he did, when he seed me looking at them. Where's the arm, Margery? bless your little art, it's all natur, it is; and then it is so hot, I almost wishes that I... I mean that you was ere to hexperience it. But that isn't christian feeling like, sure, and it's rong to hindulge such notions; but to tell you the truth, dear cousin, I wish I was once more in London; but what's the huse of wishin? for if wishes would bide, beggars would ride, and that would never do, as we should have nobody to vait upon us, and I was born to be vaited on.

This place is as ot as our baker's hoven. I could not sleep the first nights, I was so heten up with a hinsect they calls musketers; they must be of the same family as them nats we has in England; and they do kick up such a buzzen all night round my hears, makin just such a hum as our merchants does when assembled in the Royal Xchange, specially on post-days, when they buys their bills on foreign parts. Even now, though broad daylight, they keeps a flyin about me like mad, which drives me destracted cuite, and every moment I am forced to drop my pen to kill a musketer, or wipe my face and neck, for I am jist like a drippin-stone, one of them things you can see at James's in the Poultry, called a filterer; I can compare myself to nothin else, Margery-it's hawful ow one perspires ere; poets would call it ladies'

dew.

We ad a fine passage considerin the season, wich the captain said was the best; what must it be when it is the worst? Then we had squalls, and all sort of gales and such like, which would take too long to describe, as I want to picture the Awana. I have said nothin about the passengers, but there was some queer fish among 'em. There was a poet, Mr. M'G., whose pericrarum was stuffed as full of Shakspear and hother riters as a Mechilmas goose is with sage and time; and a fine time we should ave had of it, ad it not been for a nice young gent. who gave him a cuietus, as Peter calls it, whenever he puts down anything in London he don't like. You see, Margery, I don't comprimise myself by namin of names, it's dangerous. Then we ad a hoffieer, a regular

He

soldger, who I hope will soon go to Jamaica to lern manners. cuite spoiled my Dunstable, he did, when we started; but it's of no consequence, because ladies here don't wear bonnets, and go out au naturel, as the French has it, with nothing on their heads save a nosegay, and both Clarissa and I look well in them. Then there was a Hamerican gent.-they calls him a Yankee, because why I can't tell, who, did you ever? - spitted all the way from London to the Awana. It's a orrible bad abit, but there's no accountin for taste. The passingers were all in love with Clarissa, specially the young gent. who told me some marvellous tales, which I shall tell you of when we meet. He wanted to test my fidelity, which you know is as unshakeable as the Monument when it don't blow, and then it's movable. I am too much of a christian to be led away by sich Volturian principles (Volture, altho' the name of a bird o' pray, was the name of a fielosopher as never prayed, a French hatheist, worse than our Howen and such-like hinfidels). But it would take too long to describe all this on paper, besides it's too ot, so I shall merely give you an haccount of my himpressions.

What shall I begin with?—why the weather sure, for it's frying ot. If you want to have a notion of the heat, go to Standgate Glassworks, and sit down hopposite one of them furnices for alf an our, and then you may exclaim--" Lor bless my soul! this is the temperature of the Awana!" Now Margery, you can himmagine what I feel. Can you be surprised that the kreoles (them's the people born ere) are as brown as a berry, and look as if they had laid in a tan-pit a hole month, and that the niggers (them's the blacks) are as dingy as the hink I am riting with, tho' they want to make me believe that they come into the world as wite as ivory and turn black the moment the hair touches their hoily skin, which to me, tho' no fool, is quite incomprehensible; I really must look into this, it's so curious, ain't it? Now in London I suppose you are looking out for the fogs; here them wapours are not to be seen, and it's otter here than London is in July, but pleasanter, cos there is a everlasting breeze. Peter notes down the temperature, and yesterday it was 77° at 6 A. M.-83° at twelve, and 80° at 9 P.M. I don't know what the A. M.'s and the P. M.'s means, unless it is in the mornin and afternoon, tho' clergymen I know has an A. M. after their names, and members of parliment the P. M. reversed. They say we shall have fine weather now and no rain before the end of May, when it begins to fall gently, and pours buckets-full in June and July, when the thunder and lightnin is grand but hawful. It is then that fever rages like mad, and people die like sheep of the rot, which is orrible-thank God a mercy we shall be gone by that time, as I have no hinclination to have my body locked hup in a box and see Peter go hoff with the key in his pocket. Ah! Margery, you may laugh, but all the dead here are locked up; and if they are strangers in the land, the key and a lock of their air is sent home to their relatives. Well, it's a strange custom, but them keys may be turned to account, specially if they fit one of your locks;

and as to the air, wy I should be afraid to touch it was it my own dear child's, for fear o' catchin the womits, as they call it.

They say that the Awana is unholesome, because it is surrounded with marshes and fortifications. Well, there is no disputin this, and I believe it, because it hoften appens that people livin two or three miles in the country catch the fever if they come to the town in the rainy season. There is lots of swamps about this place, and the water turns cuite green and smells orrid. The town is a fine place, tho' not to be compared with our city, for there are few streets as wide as Moregate or King William Street, and the ouses for the most part are only one story igh. Only think, they have no pains of glass here, and no danger of their bein broken, so that iron blinds like them at Hapsely ouse, which hide the British akilles (akilles I suppose means mankiller, something in the solgering line no doubt)-them blinds, as I said, would be of no use whatsoever, as they has no plate-glass. The windows of the ouses are always thrown wide open, so that you can see from one end to the other when the breeze lifts up the striped curtain ung up to keep out the dust and the rays of the sun.

They has a rum custom here, and that is, for you'd never guess it, of turnin the drawing-room, for few ouses has alls, into a coachouse. Says I to Peter, "What's that for?"

"It's because they has no coachouse," said he.

"Lor," says I, "how funny! and I suppose they keeps the osses or the mules in their bedrooms?"

"Polly," says he, "don't talk such nonsense."

Well, Margery, I am certin I was justified in putting that question, and I cuite stared with wonder when I saw the stables. Bless your art! why Mrs. Nelson wouldn't put one of her bloods into one of them stables for a fifty-pound note-she'd be afeard of their catching their deaths o' cold, for the stables is nothin better than a shed fit for keepin pigs, that's all. I assure you, Margery, when I was in the room, I could smell the leather of the cab all over the ouse. You know the smell of a ackney-coach in summer: well, it's just like that, only

worse.

As for the furniture, it is of a miserable description, nothin to be compared to hours. The chairs are mostly covered with leather, and very ard; but the judges of them sorts of things say they are cool to sit upon. Osses' hair and welvet breeds moths, they say, which is unpleasant. Our kitchen chairs are andsomer than many I've seen, and you may tell cook with my compliments that she ought to bless her stars to ave 'em. Servants in England never knows when they are well off, ungrateful critturs! Then the walls of the rooms are wite, and I could see the mark where musketers had been killed, wich turned my blood, it did.

In some of the ouses, where the mistress is kind, the niggers are to be seen lolling about in all directions, some sittin under consuls, others a-snorin under the table; but as the furniture can't be spoilt, it's of no consecuence; the only hinconvenience is the smel-Lor! Margery, it

beats all understandin. People may talk of rabits-why a hentire warren is nothin as compared to them blacks, and the more they wash the worse they say it is. I wonder they washes at all, I do.

As to the beds, them's the oddest things I hever fell across. Couldn't for the life o' me sleep the first nights, what with the buz of them nats and the ardness of the beds, cateris (catre) as they call them. And what do you think they are like? Four-posted beds with twisted colums like them as was in Solomon's temple in the days of Mosesno, Margery, nothin like it at all. You have seen the bed our servantof-all-work sleeps upon: well, Sally's bed is a right royal bed as compared with the one her poor dear master and missus as to sleep on now. Our beds be like them folding stools they as on board of Margate steamers, only six foot long and three broad, with a plain deal eadpiece to keep it steady, and four laths, I cannot call 'em else, to support the musketero as they calls it, which is composed of fine gause purposedly to keep them nats out. These curtains are let down every night by the niggers, who bangs and beats all about the catre till she has driven away them fellers, when she drops the curtain. When I go to bed, I've to creep in at the foot just like a thief, and if I don't look sharp, one of them hinsects stings the calf of my leg afore I can sing out" oh!" Then if I scratch it hitches, and the more I scratches the more it hitches, so I must grin and bear it, which is martyrdom. I looks just like a canary in a cage, but I don't sing-it's the musketers as does then you know the female canarys never sing. They keeps buzzin round me hall night, thirsting arter my blood, for they're thirsty souls; but Peter says they sing him to sleep. Peter is very musical hinclined, he always was.

But if the musketers are worserer, cause they come in battalions, there are scorpions, centipedes, and spiders, which last are as big as your hand, and covered with brown air like a bear. Them spiders are ideous, and bites orrible. If you don't know what a scorpion is, jist look at one of them globes Peter as in his study, and you will find the brute in the sine of the Sodiac, I think that's what they call it. Why the hancients should have placed such a pisonous beast in heaven is more than I can comprehend, unless it was that they was not so venomous in them days. If they appens to sting you with their long tale, your hand swells like a toad; but the niggers has a curious way of curing their bites. They pops the brute into a bottle of hoil, shakes it well, and rub the bite with it, whereby it appears that the animal is the hantidote of his own venom.

Do

I wish, Margery, that some persons whose names must be mum could be popped into a cask of hoil: it might cure the pain inflicted by their mischevous tongues-it would, but that is neither ere nor there. I have as great a dread of them scorpions as you have of our London bugs, which you know I always said was of a very numerous breed. tell Sally to catch some and put them into the bottle of Rowland's Macassar hoil which I left alf empty on the mantlepiece, unless you ave used it hup. I should so like to try the hexperiment, for them London coves bites awful, specially in the dog days.

Talking of dogs, this country is cuite overrun with them. It's curious their sagacity, and how they knows a black man from a white one, and gentlefolks from beggars. Dogs always hate beggars, you know, but these Awana dogs beats our curs in that feeling. Sometimes the slaves play the truant, taking French leave, cutting their sticks in the woods and mountains, where they ide themselves. Now what do you think the stewart does when he misses them fellers? He takes a couple or more of them ounds into the slave's hut; rubs their noses with the clothes or whatsoever belongs to the slaves, until they snorts and sneezes over and over again; points out the prints of their feet; sets up a sort of halloo which the dogs hunderstand, for hoff they go at full trot like a hingin without a train, and traces 'em to their iding-places. The niggers are as afeard of them dogs as our poor are of the Union hoverseers-and they do what them tyrants can't do, which is, that they brings 'em back like so many black sheep to the fold, and then they get their reward, which is a taste of pussy-o'-nine-tails, just sich a thing as they flogs our soldgers with. Its orrid to see them beaten; but then they beats no worse here than our Field Marshalls or Court Marshalls, as they calls them at Windsor, Chatam, or Woolwich. There is, however, a great difference atween floggen a heducated soldger, who is a christian, and who can spell his own name, and a heathen slave, who actually knows nothen, which, as Peter says, makes all the difference, tho' Peter hates flogging, he does. Niggers are not like dogs who liks your hand when beaten; but that's 'o little consequence, for some people cares little for the love of what they call a nasty, dirtysmellin black feller, who'd rob a church, and even sell his grandfather's bones to the sugar refiner's, if he could do that with himpunity. Howe'er this is atween ourselves, as it won't do to let people in London know we had sich ideas here--but then London 's not the Awana, and as everybody here is against the hemancipation of slaves, tho' I find opposed to the trade, we do at Rome as Rome does, which is Peter's policy, and everybody's business is nobody's.

We purpose in a few days going to the interior of the hisland to see the plantation in which Peter has got a hinterest, a discription of all of which Clarissa shall give you some other time; meanwhile I will jist give you a discription of this town, which the Awanese think the finest on the erth. They say that London and Paris bear no comparison with this hingian town. Lor bless your little hart! they hain't got a palace like our Mansion ouse; and as to their so-much-talked-of prison, el carcero Tacon, it's nothing when compared to our model prison at Millbank, which looks like a citadel, and might defend the West end if ever hattacked by the French, and such things may happen, Margery, but I hope not in our days, tho' Johnwille talks of paying us a visit some fine day, tho' I rather think he'd prefer a foggy one. Well, I hates warfare, which is bad fare at the best of times, and I hope if Mounseer de Froggy comes, that the Lord Mare will order some of his great guns to be placed in them square windows, and blaze away at them French toads. What a pepperin they would get! This prison,

I don't mean Millbank, but the carcero, was built. by a famous captin