of so yielding a texture, that with a sickle you | hospitable mansion of a planter from the United might entirely sever the largest of them at a States about fifteen miles from Matanzas. The single stroke. How such an array of succulent house stands on an eminence, once embowered in plants could find nourishment on what seemed to trees, which the hurricanes have levelled, overlookthe eye little else than barren rock, I could noting a broad valley, where palms were scattered in imagine. every direction; for the estate had formerly been a coffee plantation. In the huge buildings, containing the machinery and other apparatus for

The day after arriving at Matanzas we made an excursion on horseback to the summit of the hill immediately overlooking the town, called the Cum-making sugar, which stood at the foot of the emibre. Light, hardy horses of the country were brought us, with high pommels to the saddles, which are also raised behind in a manner making it difficult to throw the rider from his seat. A negro fitted a spur to my right heel, and mounting by the short stirrups, I crossed the river Yumuri with my companions, and began to climb the Cumbre. They boast at Matanzas of the perpetual coolness of temperature enjoyed upon the broad summit of this hill, where many of the opulent merchants of the town have their country houses, to which the musquitoes and the intermittents which infest the town below, never come, and where, as one of them told me, you may play at billiards in August without any inconvenient perspiration.

From the Cumbre you behold the entire extent of the harbor; the town lies below you with its thicket of masts, and its dusty pasco, where rows of the Cuba pine stand rooted in the red soil. On the opposite shore your eye is directed to a chasm between high rocks, where the river Canimar comes forth through banks of romantic beauty-so they are described to me-and mingles with the sea. But the view to the west was much finer; there lay the valley of the Yumuri, and a sight of it is worth a voyage to the island. In regard to this my expectations suffered no disappointment.

nence, the power of steam, which had been toiling all the week, was now at rest. As the hour of sunset approached, a smoke was seen issuing from its chimney, presently puffs of vapor issued from the engine, its motion began to be heard, and the negroes, men and women, were summoned to begin the work of the week. Some fed the fire under the boiler with coal; others were seen rushing to the mill with their arms full of the stalks of the cane, freshly cut, which they took from a huge pile near the building; others lighted fires under a row of huge caldrons, with the long stalks of cane from which the juice had been crushed by the mill. It was a spectacle of activity such as I had not seen in Cuba.

The sound of the engine was heard all night, for the work of grinding the cane, once begun, proceeds day and night, with the exception of Sundays and some other holidays. I was early next morning at the mill. A current of cane juice was flowing from the mill in a long trunk to a vat in which it was clarified with lime, it was then made to pass successively from one caldron to another, as it obtained a thicker consistence by boiling. The negroes, with huge ladles turning on pivots, swept it from caldron to caldron, and finally passed it into a trunk, which conveyed Before me lay a deep valley, surrounded on all it to shallow tanks in another apartment, where it sides by hills and mountains, with the little river cooled into sugar. From these another set of Yumuri twining at the bottom. Smooth round workmen scooped it up in moist masses, carried hillocks rose from the side next to me, covered it in buckets up a low flight of stairs, and poured with clusters of palms, and the steeps of the south-it into rows of hogsheads pierced with holes at eastern corner of the valley were clothed with a the bottom. These are placed over a large tank, wood of intense green, where I could almost see the leaves glisten in the sunshine. The broad fields below were waving with cane and maize, and cottages of the monteros were scattered among them, each with its tuft of bamboos and its little grove of plantains. In some parts the cliffs almost seemed to impend over the valley; but to the west, in a soft golden haze, rose summit behind summit, and over them all, loftiest and most remote, towered the mountain called the Pan de Matanzas.

into which the moisture dripping from the hogsheads is collected and forms molasses.

This is the method of making the sugar called Muscovado. It is drained a few days, and then the railways take it to Matanzas or to Havana. We visited afterwards a plantation in the neighborhood, in which clayed sugar is made. Our host furnished us with horses to make the excursion, and we took a winding road, over hill and valley, by plantations and forests, till we stopped We stopped for a few moments at a country seat at the gate of an extensive pasture ground. An on the top of the Cumbre, where this beautiful old negro, whose hut was at hand, opened it for view lay ever before the eye. Round it, in a us, and bowed low as we passed. A ride of half garden, were cultivated the most showy plants of a mile further brought us in sight of the cane the tropics, but my attention was attracted to a fields of the plantation called Saratoga, belonging little plantation of damask roses blooming profusely. to the house of Drake & Company, of Havana, They were scentless; the climate which supplies and reputed one of the finest of the island. It the orange blossom with intense odors exhausts had a different aspect from any plantation we had the fragrance of the rose. At nightfall-the night seen. Trees and shrubs there were none, but the falls suddenly in this latitude—we were again at canes, except where they had been newly cropped our hotel. for the mill, clothed the slopes and hollows with their

We passed our Sunday on a sugar estate at the light green blades, like the herbage of a prairie.

We were kindly received by the administrator to wet the under as well as the upper surface of

1. Dog-breaking. By Lieut.-Col. W. N. HUTCH- | based on compulsion; he watches willingly over INSON, (20th Regiment.) London. 12mo. our couch by night, and wakes the cheerful companion of our walks by day; the chances of time

1848.

2. Stable-Talk and Table-Talk. By HARRY HIE

1846.

OVER. The 2d Edition. 2 vols. 8vo. 3. The Pocket and the Stud. By HARRY HIEOVER. London. 12mo. 1848.

4. Field Sports in the United States and the British Provinces of America. By FRANK FORESTER. London. 2 vols. 8vo.

1848.

or place, the changes of fortunes for better or
worse, effect no alteration in his free full love;
with a fidelity above suspicion-

His honest heart is still his master's own :
He labors, fights, lives, breathes for him alone.
But although poets-Burns and Byron-have done

like us, must blush at their non-appreciation by the world at large. The turbaned infidel Asiatic agrees with his antipodes, the hatted and hated Christian European, in using the poor dog worse than one, in holding him dog-cheap, and giving him a bad name, insomuch that, whatever the sex to which the name is applied, whatever the metaphor to which it is adapted, it is anything but

We need no apology to our readers for coup-justice to these dog-like excellences, prose-writers, ling hounds with horses; destined for each other, they have run lovingly together from time immemorial and will keep company to the end of the chapter; the connection is natural, and we fancy-the chase being mimic war-few will think it strange that military men, in these piping dog-days of peace, should take first and foremost rank in the nice conduct of perdricide and vulpicide campaigns, or that those who mould their complimentary. sabres into steel-pens, should feel themselves fully A portion of our provincial readers must parcommissioned to teach the young idea both how don the suspicion that they imperfectly understand to shoot and be in at the death-the end of coun- the philosophy of sport, the physiology of the dog, try life. Nor is there anything new in such and his psychology, so to speak, for we admit the change of pursuits; Colonel Hutchinson and Cap- words are somewhat hard; test however the amount tain Hieover do but follow where Generals Xeno- of information possessed on these points, by disphon and Arrian led before; the former, unri-cussing them postprandially at most of the tables valled as a retreater and retriever, consoled him- of forty out of the fifty-two counties:-let the self when on half-pay by composing Hippies and deipnosophists be of good gaudet equis canibusque Cynegetics in choice Greek, which no private breed, born to inherit broad acres, to consume cefamily in Melton should be without; the latter borrowed his name and richly supplemented him by a classical treatise on coursing, for which task he states himself to be not unfit, from having been ἀμφι ταύτα ἀπὸ νεου ἐσπουδακῶς, κυνηγέσιαν, και στρατηγίαν, και ΣΟΦΙΑΝ. Meanwhile, as to "hark back" is always a bore, we recommend the volumes before us, as coverts which may be drawn during a hard frost without fear of a blank day.

reals, and deprive feræ naturæ of a share in na ture's banquet :-how jejune their chase reasonings-how rarely do any two disputants coincide in opinions, but each, swearing by his own system, votes all beyond it leather and prunella ! We would fain hope that the Hutchinsonian duodecimo will prove useful to many of these good lords of the soil. This serious and earnest treatise elevates dog-breaking to the dignity of a science; notwithstanding the modest statement of its Our colonel and captain have many kindred opening paragraph, that, so far from being a myscharacteristics, common, we are proud to say, to tery, it is an art easily acquired, when commenced British officers both alike advocate drill, disci- on rational principles, and continued by instructors pline, order, and obedience; both denounce un- possessed of temper, judgment, and consistency; necessary flogging and extravagance; and assur-moral desiderata, be it said at starting, scarcely edly mercy, a quality of the brave, and economy, anywhere so plentiful as blackberries. Much, the soul of efficient armies, ought also to animate well-regulated stables and kennels. The former is favorably known in the military world by the publication of his " Standing Orders, issued to the two Battalions of the 20th Regiment;" which may be safely pronounced an encyclopædia of duty and good soldiership, from the drummer-boy to the officer in command. The author, during pro-to the Athenæum; in either alternative we agree longed services in every quarter of the globe, with Lord Chesterfield, that, if a thing be worth made sporting his healthful recreation, and took doing at all, it is worth doing well, and we also his hound for a hobby. "Love me, love my quite agree with our gallant colonel, however undog," has been his motto, whether his stanch fashionable the opinion, that more than half the comrade kept him company over the burning plains pleasure of the chase consists in watching the of India or the frozen regions of Canada; and we hunting of well-broken dogs, and that it is nearly shall not pronounce these warm affections mis-doubled if they chance to be of one's own breakplaced. Man, says Burns, is the god of the dog; ing the better the dog, the better the sport; for to worship him is his happiness, to serve him his when neither temper nor nerves are ruffled by bad freedom; his allegiance is neither divided nor behavior, the shooting is calm and killing. The

however, depends, according to our considerate author, on the degree of finish required in educating a four-footed recruit; whether, for instance, he is to be drilled to perfect manoeuvring in the field, and to veteran steadiness under fire, or trained to only such a respectable mediocrity as satisfies those whose best beat is from Albemarle street

:

It will be as well, however, to say here, in limine, that it is not our intention to reopen the interminable cases of Pointer versus Partridge, or of Yoicks versus Reynard; we have in some former numbers pretty well exhausted the Chase, the Turf, and the Road; our present argument will be directed to instructional and pecuniary points, in the hope of showing how these pastimes may be pursued with the least pressure on the pocketa view of the question which must interest all who deem

colonel actually asserts that he would sooner put wants and wishes-love, honor, and, above all, up with water for his sole beverage than shoot obey. Under all circumstances spare the rod; over a bad dog; a biped beater is better-al- break the self-will of your young dogs, but never though we totally condemn the battue imported their courage and temper. If their moral qualifrom Germany since the peace, as a base, brutal, ties be destroyed, your scholar, says the grave bloody, and most unsportsman-like butchery. Buffon, becomes " a gloomy egotist, instead of an honest courtier." Occasional flogging certainly does good to inattentive idlers; but, however Moslem masters may hold the bastinado a special boon from the prophet to true believers, the specific is not infallible with Christian dogs. Could learning be thus fundamentally inoculated, few of them, says the kind colonel, would be found unbroken in England and Scotland, and none in the Emerald Isle, where a conciliation kennel-not hall-is the thing wanted; and we might quote the equally observant Hieover to the same salutary tune. Send, therefore, your boys to Eton, to Winchester if you will; and we say this, although six lustra have neither blotted from our memories the awful writing on school-wall"Aut disce aut discede, manet sors tertia cædi” -nor effaced the cicatrized interpretations of Dr. Send your Goddard, "Plagossimus Orbilius.” pachydermatous sons there, we repeat, but "take heartily and earnestly to educate your tender dogs yourself," counsels the colonel; bring them up and out at home, like your daughters; begin with your puppies in their seventh month to teach them self-respect, and inculcate a moral feeling that they are destined for higher game than a life of play and barking. Finally, as a poetical sportsman sang in long-past days

The inflammation of their weekly bills
The consummation of all earthly ills.

Be it remembered at the onset, that the intelligence of a dog is second only to that of man. His powers of smell are incalculably superior; and though he shares in his master's prerogative of going mad, he never joins him in getting drunk. What pastor better minds his flock?—what patriot more vigorously agitates his tail? Even "honest John" never went truer to win. "You may bet on your greyhound boldly," says Hieover, "for he carries no jockey." Again, dogs are not laughing hyænas, or untamable; no amount of instruction is thrown away on them—(what would not Dr. Kay Shuttleworth give for such raw materials?)-their capability of acquiring knowledge grows with its acquisition, until they play at dominoes and point fish. A time-honored friend of ours in Dorsetshire has so perfected the education of a well-bred house-dog, who previously had waged war, from sheer goodness of nature, against beggars and suspicious-looking characters, that his conservative Cerberus now noses a radi-sociates, becomes incapable of learning anything cal, freetrader or freebooter, be he dressed even as a gentleman, and gives tongue 'ware wolf in sheep's clothing, and "bristles" ere either can darken his doorway. Hutchinson, Hieover, and all true and loyal Englishmen, will, we are confident, thank us for making known this important discovery. This good beast is, it is to be hoped, destined to found a numerous family; for Dr. Prichard has demonstrated, in his luculent treatise on our own species, that the race of dogs has an irresistible turn" an instinctive hereditary propensity" to do, untaught, whatever the parents have learned. Thus canine talents are trans

Keep them cautiously from curs, For early habits stick like burrs. Dogs degenerate in bad society; thus the coachdog, from living with stablemen, is deficient in sagacity, and only fit to follow "the rumbling of the wheels;" while a bulldog, from his brutal as

beyond fighting and ferocity. The unhappy dogs who once have contracted these radical defects are tabooed by all their fellow-creatures who have been better bred and brought up. Honest Launce, whose canine lectures are familiar to more than two gentlemen in and out of Verona, found how soon his retrograded Crab was nosed and cut when he fell into the company of "two or three gentlemanlike dogs" at the duke's.

That the spouses of bachelors were the best managed we already knew, and we now learn that their dogs are the soonest broken.

mitted from father to son, which by no means ob-ried, you can make a companion of your dog withSo long (savs the colonel) as you are unmar

tains in the human race divine.

out incurring the danger of his being spoiled by your wife and children. The more, by the bye, he is your own companion and nobody else's, the better; all his initiatory lessons can be, and can best be, inculcated in your own breakfast-room.Hutchinson, p. 12.

If teachers of dogs will only make their pupils clearly understand what is wanted, they willingly and pleasantly will perform all that nature has given them power to do, and the instinct to comprehend. Their memories are excellent; and if they seldom forget ill-usage, they never fail to He must never be taken out until perfectly remember kindness; let them once learn to asso- master of the sixteen words of command which ciate the idea of holiday with your presence, they constitute his drill; and these are enumerated and will become the partners of your joys-anticipate explained by the colonel with such perspicuity,

:

(pp. 42, 46,) that neither dogs nor men can hence- | whippers-in well know at St. Stephen's, and else forward misunderstand them. One or two extracts where. Jew and Gentile, Christian and infidel, will suffice to put our readers in possession of the hound and shooting-pony succumb to this reasonprinciple of this private preparatory schooling:- ing. The object in regard to the latter, says the Let no one be present to distract the dog's atten-colonel, is to prove not only that the sound of a tion; call him to you by the whistle you propose gun won't kill him, but be of great bodily comalways using in the field; tie a slight cord, a few fort. The patient is to be argued into loving it yards long, to his collar; throw him a small piece after this process. Commence gradually, burn a of toast or meat; do this several times, chucking it little powder, snap a copper cap, and at last fire into different parts of the room, and let him eat what in his presence, always turning your back upon he finds; then throw a piece-as you do so, say him, as if he were not a party concerned, for he Dead-and the moment he gets close to it check him by pulling the cord, at the same time say- must not even suspect you are thinking of him; ing Toho, (but not very loud,) and lift up your right at every report give him a bit of carrot; his arm almost perpendicularly. By pressing the cord greedy ears will soon connect sounds with slices. with your foot, you can restrain him as long as you as a groom's do dinner-bell with beef, be he ever so please. Do not let him take it until you give him deaf to its tintinnabular summons to family prayer; the encouraging word On, accompanied by a for- both animals soon join in chorus, and in encoring ward movement of the right arm and hand, similar to the swing of an underhand bowler at cricket. At the sweet strains, which appeal to their digestive other times let him take the bread the moment you reason through their accoustic organs. By persethrow it, that his eagerness to rush forward and vering in similar arguments a pony will delight seize it may be continued, only to be instantly to stand stock-still whenever the reins are thrown restrained at your command.-Ibid, pp. 13, 14. on his neck, a double-barrel discharged, and carcharms, coupled with gentleness, patience, and rots the consequence. It is by these vegetable perseverance, that horses at Astley's and poodles and horsewhips, as grandpapa squires, who still at Paris are taught to dance, and not by hot plates stick to the port, and their gamekeepers imagine. Accordingly, by practising this artful and amiable discipline, the last word of command, “seek dead,” is made easy and agreeable to canine capacities. Toast or meat is to be concealed under carpets or should there be no wife-sofa-cushions,

The magic word Toho will soon suggest agreeable emotions, and that of the final Drop unpleasant ones. Nevertheless, implicit, unhesitating, immediate obedience being the triumph of your art, there must be no compromise; you must never in the least relax either then or for the future; for, as Mrs. Jameson has detailed in her "Sacred Art," if one moment's weakness in even an anchorite (see her delectable legend of Saint Shitano Boccadoro and the King's Daughter) can cancel the virtue of a long life, how shall a poor frail dog resist temptation? Until, therefore, this obedience to a given signal becomes a second nature, hemp is your only help, and the sudden jerk of the cord must be repeated; should the culprit be overfrightened, make much of him, and particularly by the aforesaid toast or meat. Never forget that, in dealing with animal natures, eating may be always advantageously combined with education, provided care be taken (however legitimate the connection betweeen gastronomy and literature)

that the meat be not overdone.

and the pupil bid to find it; his eager inexperience is to be aided by particular waves of the hand. This manual exercise is an axiom, and silent signals must always supersede sounds; the the voice of a man—the natural enemy of game; report of a gun does not scare birds so much as therefore first-rate sportsmen never speak when electric-telegraph system always manœuvres as if they expect to find. A dog educated on this the eye of the commander-in-chief were on him. He constantly is looking out for the signal, and when the right one is hoisted, a Junot does his duty as well as Nelson.

It is of paramount necessity, whatever the code of signals you use, that they should invariably be the same; like the laws of the Medes and Persians, they must never change; false indications are fatal; the animal gets perplexed and palters; the master loses temper, uses violence, and the poor beast becomes and dies a misanthrope. Colonel Hutchinson, from feeling the folly and unfairness of this, has often contemplated a new sporting vocabulary, in order that a dog may never hear a word used in giving commands on any

Fat paunches have lean pates; and dainty bits Make the ribs fat, but bankrupt quite the wits. Ignenii largitor venter, says Juvenal; and as an empty stomach, argues the colonel-and it will not be disputed at Guildhall-sharpens the reasoning faculties, a little fasting may be tried with the pupil who evinces squeamish appetites for learning, and these initiatory principles may be discussed before feeding-time-impranso, as Horace proposed. Hunger gives a relish to dry bread, the reward of labor and learning-which Soyer's last reform sauce never will; hence the quintessence of mortal bliss is centred with poor dogs other than its specific occasion. and men in eating; nor do the highest intellects If space permitted, we could confirm the imdisown the savory impeachment. The whole se-portance of true indications from the excellent cret of diplomacy lies in the kitchen, by which the" Hints on Horsemanship" of Colonel Greenwood, most ponderous protocols are lubricated; and a than whom few men ever rode better. "When," liberal loaves-and-fishes logic makes more converts says he, "you go to the right, pull the right rein than Bacon or Plato, who reasoned well-as stronger than the left; when you go to the left,