Lola San Carlos is in light gray—the mourning one wears for a brother-in- law is not heavy in this warm country. She has invited us to a card-party for tomorrow; card-parties are evidently not gay enough to interfere with tears.
CUBA, February.
DEAR MAMA,—Well, we are really going to return! As usual, I have no more clothes, and I certainly will not be bothered to have anything made here. My black tulle dress has become brown and gray in its efforts to keep up to the mark; and as for Laura's white lace, it has become gray and brown, so you see we must go home.
We went to Lola's card-party. There was the bereaved brother, looking very chirpy, and the Dean, and the Abbé. They kindly proposed to teach me their favorite game of tresillo. They took a lively interest in my ignorance. They told me the rules and the names of the extraordinary cards; for instance, hearts were represented by coins, for clubs there were clubs, while trees and swords served for diamonds and spades. Every card is something else than what you have called it before. The value of each is changed according to the trump. What you have considered always as a low card, such as the two of spades, suddenly becomes the best card in the pack.
All the cards have Spanish names—Spadilla, Manilla, Basta, Ponto, and Matadores—which sound very romantic. A simple seven of hearts becomes suddenly top card and is called Manilla, which is the second best when hearts are trumps, and then the two of clubs, which was miles high the last hand, is at the tail of all the other cards now. It is a dreadful game. I thought that I should have brain fever while learning it. They went on playing it for hours; there never seemed any end to it; they counted in the weirdest way, making ciphers and tit-tat-toes on the green baize table with chalk, and wiped out with a little brush. Every trick of the adversary was deducted, and all the heads met over the chalk-marks to find out mistakes.
CUBA.
DEAR M.,—A dance was given at the Captain-General's, where all the officers of the German and Spanish men of war were present. It was a very brilliant sight, and we made many delightful acquaintances. Commodore Werner of the German Friedrich Wilhelm, Commodore Livonius of the Elizabeth, besides many other charming officers, as well as many Spanish officers from the Gerona. The Germans danced with more energy than the Cubans are accustomed to, and they stared at the unusual vigor displayed, and accounted for it, saying it was because they were new- comers. In fact, the officers, in their trim uniforms, looked very hot and wilted at the end of the evening. Commodore Werner was a most gallant gentleman, and as we did not dance, he had the leisure to tell me all about his family, his literary tastes, and his admiration for pretty ladies; and he finished by asking if we would do him the honor to lunch on his ship the next day. A handsome young lieutenant (Tirpitz) came to ask me to dance, but Commodore Werner gave him what in other less tropical countries might be called a freezing look, remarking that no one ought to dance in such heat as this. The young lieutenant left us quite subdued; but the heat did not prevent his dancing with many ladies, if not with me.
The next day we went to lunch on the Friedrich Wilhelm, and it was with delight that we sat on the awning-covered deck. The Commodore asked me to give him an idea for some occupation for the sailors, who had so much time on their hands, and, as I happened to know how to plait straw, I proposed showing them how to do it.
The Commodore sent a launch to Havana to get the straw, and we passed the afternoon dividing the time between listening to the music of the ship's band and tasting different beverages and eating German pretzels and teaching the sailors how to plait.
At five o'clock we were rowed ashore, and welcomed a little fresh breeze which had sprung up.