THE day is breaking, and we the Gulf of Mexico,

Landa R

with the Moro Castle and Lighthouse looming through the ruddy dimness of the dawn, and casting its heavy, irregular shadow upon the deep blue waters which lie between us and it. There is not a breath of air. Not a ray of sunlight has gilded even the tops of those low, heavily undulating hills which bound the horizon landward, and which are all that we see of Cuba, and yet the dewy chillness with which the northern Aurora shivers across the sky is not here. Already the air is dry and warm, and sultriness sinks heavily upon us. In nautical phrase, we made the Moro light last evening about nine o'clock; but since then we have been "laying off and on " with just enough steam up to keep the paddles lazily plashing through the placid water, and steerage way upon the steamer; for the port is closed between sundown and sunrise; and any vessel, Spanish or foreign, which should attempt the passage of that narrow inlet which runs up between the Moro and that little low fort with the round towers, would be fired upon by the sentinel who did not wish to occupy a very small apartment on the lowest floor of one of those buildings.

Alares

We approach the ramparts; and while we are yet within their shadow there is a sudden lightening behind them; and all at once, the sun, in full glory, blazes upon

us.

The Spanish flag appears as if by magic upon one staff on the castle walls, and immediately afterward, from one of three others grouped together at a little distance, float signals which tell the Habaneros that an American steamer is off the harbor. The revolution of our paddles is quickened, our bows are turned towards the little inlet, and as we come abreast of the light-house we see that a small boat issues from its shadow to meet us. It contains our pilot. We stop to take him on board, for he is not so quick and so wide awake as the last man who left our deck when we were in sight of

HARBOR OF HAVANA.

He

Sandy Hook, and does not care to board us while we are under way. He ascends the side with gravity, and as he passes deliberately up to the wheel-house gives us time to remark that he is a solemn looking Spaniard, with close cut gray hair, and face shaved as clean as if he had just come from the hands of the factotum of Seville. He wears a low-crowned jipijapa hat, which we call a Panama, the rim of which is so narrow and so much curled, that it presents to our Northern eyes a ludicrous contrast to his solemn visage and ponderous manner. stands with serious aspect in the wheelhouse, not deigning to touch the wheel, and directs the steersman with a grave and peremptory motion of the hand, sometimes accompanied by a sonorous word. He may truly be at his ease, for his task is a sinecure. The entrance to the harbor of Havana is the plainest possible sailing; and were it an American or an English port, the offer to pilot a vessel into it would be regarded as a patent swindle. But a corps of pilots has been established by the Spanish government, and a neglect to employ one is sure to be

resented as a slight offered to the authorities. The Captain of the Port, an officer of dignity and influence, has absolute power over every vessel which enters it; which he exerts even to the assigning of a place where she shall lie at anchor. The vessel, therefore, which should enter the harbor unpiloted would be pretty sure to find herself ordered into the most inconvenient position which his ingneuity could possibly discover. If a steamer, for instance, she would be placed a mile away from the coal yards, which are all in one spot, and would be put to great expense in procuring the necessary fuel. Hence the superfluous services of a pilot are always accepted from motives of interest and economy.

The Moro, of which we have heard so much, towers above us upon a bluff, rocky promontory. It is a large work, of which we can but see two sides; one facing the Gulf, and one the narrow en

trance to the harbor; and at the angle of these stands the light-house. The castle is built of the straw-colored, calcareous atone, which abounds upon the island, and its sunny color somewhat softens the frown with which it looks down from its precipitous post. The light-house, which shoots up fifty or sixty feet above the ramparts, is built of the same material, and much after the model of the Eddystone. The light, which told us last night that we were near our haven, is one of the best in the world. It is a revolver, and in a clear night can be seen from the maintopmast head of a vessel thirty miles at sea. It was built not many years ago by a Frenchman, and is served by Frenchmen; for, as we shall have occasion to notice hereafter, Spaniards have not the mechanical skill to master such a mystery as the working, much more the contrivance and erection of even so simple a machine as a revolving light.

The position of the castle gives it absolute control of the passage to the harbor, which we now discover is but a few hundred yards wide, while, from the walls which look towards the Gulf, a strong arm could throw a stone into water too deep for anchorage. A gale of wind dashes huge ocean waves against the rocky base of the fort, flinging the spray up to the lantern of the light-house; yet so completely is the harbor locked within the land, that even at such times but a gentle rolling swell is felt within a cable's length of the entrance. Directly op

any bombshell ever sent from or against its gray, time-worn walls. Now, it is used only as a garrison or state prison. Its pepper-box turrets, antiquated form, and crumbling walls, are the first intimation which the visitor of Havana receives that he is approaching a city whose buildings are not of yesterday and have a history.

We pass the Punta and the Moro, and on our left, just behind the latter, is the Cabaños, an enormous work, to garrison which properly requires a small army. General Concha, when Viceroy, said to an American, that to take it, was the work of forty thousand men. The American was courteous and prudent enough not to reply, that that depended on who were the besiegers, and who the besieged. Like the Moro, the Cabaños is built of the pale yellow stone of the place; and so precipitous is its site, and so identical is its material with that of the spot upon which it stands, that it is almost impossible to discover where the rock ends, and the masonry begins. The huge fort seems to have been a natural formation; an inevitable and fitting termination of rock, which, from its inherent tendencies, has shot up into walls, bastions and escarpments. This work commands the Moro and the city; and it must be reduced before any force, however great, could hold either of those places for half an hour. The best view of the Cabaños is to be obtained on the city side of the harbor, from an unfinished building in course of erection behind the Intendencia,

near the Palace. This building, quite a small one, has been unfinished for nearly twenty years; the work never having been abandoned. Two or three men have, during that time, daily cut a while, not with chisels, but with broad, thin bladed axes, at the stone which has crept into its walls. It is not uncommon in Havana to see men at work at small buildings commenced so long ago that the stones yet to be built up have lain upon the ground until they have become green and mossy by exposure to the weather. There can be no doubt that there are now, and, should the tripartite treaty be made, will be twenty years hence, two sallow individuals in greasy jipijapa hats chipping away at two pieces of yellow stone for the unfinished building behind the Intendencia. Opposite to the Cabaños, upon our right, is the carcel, or principal prison of the place. It is a white building, between four and five hundred feet in length. From it Lopez was led into the wide square, of which it forms one side, to suffer death by the garote vil. We catch a glimpse of the Paseo Isabel II., and some large factories as we pass on, and in a few minutes are in the open harbor of Havana. It is of irregular shape; widening suddenly after its narrow entrance is passed, and being about two miles and a quarter in length, and a mile and three quarters across at its widest part. Into it the city curves in a semicircle of wharves, and public walks and buildings. It has no other communication with the Gulf than its entrance; and as the

tides will hardly turn a cock-boat, its waters are almost stagnant. Into them the drainage with the refuse of the city, and the alluvial wash of the surrounding country, constantly pour; and there they remain, decomposing in the sluggish reservoir. Even the surface is so undisturbed that the rain which falls upon it does not mingle thoroughly with the salt water below; so that in the wet season there is a stratum over the harbor, which is little more than brackish. Countless numbers of those slow-moving jellies, known to boys as stinging-galls, float lazily about it; and so filled is it with vegetable and animal matter, decomposed to a phosphorescent state, that at night the boatmen seem to be propelling their clumsy barks by flaming swords; so bright and continuous is the gleam of the oar as it passes through the water. And this is more than the phosphorescence of tropical climes; for a few minutes' vigorous pulling will take us into the Gulf, where a fitful flash breaks but now and then, like a smile upon the solemn azure of its surface. All through the glowing summer, pestilence broods upon the surface of this huge cesspool. Its vapor enshrouds the form of Death to those who were not born to breathe it, or who have not once fought and conquered the grim monarch in this guise. It is forbidden on all the national vessels stationed here, except those of Spain, to use the water of the harbor to wash the decks. Save in extreme necessity, no boat leaves them for the shore, or returns, after sundown; and when debilitating sickness makes its appearance among officers and crew, the first remedy sought, and the most effectual, is a cruise of two or three days in the open Gulf. So it must ever be, until another communication is opened with the Gulf, which might be easily done; and feeble as is the tide, its flow would then do much to purify the waters of what is now, under the summer's sun, but a foul and seething caldron, from which mortality steams up.

We at length come to anchor. A boat with the Spanish flag comes alongside, and our captain descends, and asks the privilege of landing his mails and passengers; giving to the deputy of the Captain of the Port, the passports of all whose destiny is Havana, or who wish to go on shore. A Spanish officer makes his appearance upon the deck, a pair of puny sentinels is placed at each companion way, and no communication is allowed with the shore, until the permission of the Captain of the Port is received. Our captain and certain privileged persons can then leave the boat; but the passengers must

wait until their passports have been examined, and a special permit is made out for each one like the following:

WARRANT OF DISEMBARKATION in favor of Don William Smith, a native of New-York, by profession a purser, who has arrived at this port this day, in the American steamer Cherokee, from New-York."

On the back of this are the following "Regulations":

"It is necessary to present this warrant at the Custom House to take out baggage or effects, and to the landlord of the house or establishment to which the bearer may go to dwell, that notice may be taken of it. To leave the city, a pass or travelling license is necessary. The pass may be obtained during the first month by mere exhibition of this warrant. The license, which is good for twelve months may be obtained by applying to the Commissary of Barriers, and the Captain of the District, and afterward to the Government office. These licenses will be given gratis to declared paupers, to lads under 16 who may come from Spain in search of work, to the shipwrecked, and to military men, or other functionaries sent by government upon some transient mission.

"Any person who arrives without a passport, or who neglects to comply with the above instructions, will be liable to a fine of at least ten dollars.

"No stranger can reside in the island more than three months without obtaining a letter of domicil, which he will apply for by memorial through the Consul of his nation.

"No position excuses any person, whatever may be his rank or nation, from the observance of the laws of the government or the existing police regulations."

This document bears the signatures of three officials, or it may be of none; for either may attach to it merely his rubrica, which an American school boy would call a flourish, and which is so important a matter among the Spaniards that it is a legal signature without a name, while a name without a rubrica would be looked at with suspicion, to say the least. For this permit the Spaniard pays one dollar; the foreigner two. We gladly pay the fee, and in our thankfulness to get on shore press a double gratuity upon our chamber-man, who with alacrity leans over the side and shouts "botero!"

Ere the permit had reached us, the sun was high in the heavens, and as we look down upon the boats which now swarm around the steamer, the water seems to glow and sear the eyeballs like molten iron. Every object looks yellow, and is surrounded by a quivering halo of heat. The stunted verdure upon the hills which shut in the harbor, has a jaundiced hue. It is not parched; for it is of the vegetable salamander species, and would not wilt were it transplanted to the well-known