"It was hard indeed to part with Roger, and not before he again promised to visit me within a year did I say farewell; then we were again sailing out on our homeward voyage. We tarried but a short time on the Isthmus of Panama; for, in fact, I had but an indifferent opinion of that little neck of land, made up, it seemed, of snakes, centipedes, and bad smells. Whew! it makes me faint, even yet, to remember how those nasty, vile, old swamps radiated their bad odors! There had just been an earthquake to roil up the concentrated filth which was packed away in those slimy bayous, and as every whiff of wind came loaded with its own peculiar stench, the variety became so wearying that I grew at length tired of the 'nasal panorama,' and vainly yearned for the friendly precincts of a glue factory.
"It always seemed to me that Nature had aimed to make a sea of the isthmus, but had taken the flux or cholera, and left her work but half completed."
"Our ship touched at Havana, and in company with several other passengers, who lived in the Mississippi Valley, I decided to stop here until a vessel sailed for New Orleans, which would not occur for ten days yet; but years might be passed in that beautiful city of enchantment, the 'Queen of the Antilles,' and we found our stay one round of perpetual delight.
"A day was devoted to a sail around the sunlit harbor, environed by mansions, castles, and palm-decked hills--the sapphire sky bounded only by the purple mountains or pale-green sea. Then we visited Old Moro Castle, its portcullis, donjon-keep, and 'sounding barbacan,' its gloomy grandeur of turret and tower--
'Its loop-holed grates, where captives weep,'--
all recalling the feudal days of Scotland and Spain. Next we drove through the Prado of San Isabel, with its triumphal arches of snowy marble, its rose-decked alamedas lined with palm, cypress, and magnolia, its clear fountains foaming amid thickets of acacia and blooming oleander; and then on to the great theater of Tacon, where the evening was passed as if in fairy-land.
"Christmas-day we drove out to visit a coffee-plantation a dozen miles from the city walls. The dew was still glittering on the foliage as we whirled rapidly along in our easy volantas, and the air was rich with the odor of orange-blossoms and a myriad of other tropic flowers. We halted at the Bishop's Gardens for an hour, and I can but faintly describe their gorgeous floral wealth. These gardens are centuries old, dating back to the days of Charles V., when the Spanish banner of crimson and gold waved around the world.