Tuesday, April 10th.—Last night arrived a young Bostonian, who, like ourselves, has been adventuring in the interior. He tells us he knows well the young man who gave a well-known author on Cuba all the facts in his book except the few the author learned personally. He says the person is a great practical joker, and plumes himself on the humbugging he achieved.
The day has passed in farewell sight-seeings and shoppings, the latter consisting mostly of the purchase of Spanish fans and linen dresses. And now I am ready to part from Cuba with scarcely a regret, yet carrying with me only fresh experiences and smiling memories. The sun in this social as well as material firmament has been cloudless, or with only rare veils to brighten its brightness.
I have, it may be, hung on the walls of my life some new pictures, which will help to keep it from the ravages of time, somewhat as the paintings of Protogones saved the city of Rhodes from the destruction of its enemies.
I do not yet recover from the impression that I have committed a kind of theft upon nature, or the almanacs, or the thermometers—or all of them; for I have stolen and luxuriated in an extra summer; so that this twice-flowered year is likely to be for me the impendingly pious
“Next year after never,
When two Sundays come together”
