A TRIl' Til CIHA AND THE 80UTUERN STATES. 



health, time, and talents, to the acquisition of knowledge and the benefit of their 

 fi'liow-nioii, without otlicr rewanl than fame and a sense of their own usefulness. 

 A few friends of seienec subseribe for his su|)))ort, and he returns from his excur- 

 sions and hard fare loaded with treasures for distrii)Ution where they can be further 

 studied and enjoyed. Mr. (iundlaeh has Ijeeu known to follow and wateh a siiif>le 

 pair of birds for a week, till he had become fully acquainted with their hal/its. 

 The Academy of Natural Sciences, at Philadelphia, has been greatly enriched by 

 his devotion ; it now possesses, beyond question, the finest ornithological collec- 

 tion in the world — a hint that we throw out for the benefit of visitors to our city, 

 which many will be thankful to remember. Among the members of the Academy, 

 the names of Francisco A. Sauvalle, Professor Philip Poey, and John Gundlach, 

 are much better known than that of Walker the fillibuster, so often of latter times 

 repeated in newspapers, and so very differeut in regard to useful works. Mr. 

 Gundlach is a native of IJaden. 



The former owner of the Carolina ITouse had some ideas of embellishment ; 

 his planting of avenues of palms, and his long approach to the house through 

 orange-trees and some rarer kinds, will gratify the visitor extremely. In the 

 neighborhood are good specimens of coffee and sugar estates, pine-apple fields, 

 yucca and aloe hedges, and some of the best scenery ; from the tops of the high 

 hills very fine views are obtained of Matanzas, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Carib- 

 bean Sea. 



You have only to wish, and a cocoa-nut full of milk is poured into your tum- 

 bler ; give little " Charley" a basket, and he brings you it filled with oranges; 

 walk into the garden, and you may help yourself to ripe bananas ; and if your 

 taste has come round to the sapote and the raammea apple, with their sickly 

 sweets, they, and very many other fruits, can be had for the asking, including 

 tamarinds, &c., and "nuts that you never heard of or saw represented. If Mr. 

 Monson should be encouraged to persevere in making his establishment what it 

 ought to be, it will be filled every winter with respecta1)le boarders. The very 

 last sugar-mill worked by oxen, is within walking distance, affording a strong 

 contrast to the more modern steam operations now«BO universal. The labor and 

 lungs employed to keep the animals up to their slow circular motion, are a caution 

 to work whenever it is possible with lifeless materials. Two blacks, and a son of 

 the proprietor to watch o[)erations, were required to keep the sluggish animals 

 in a very slow walk, to say nothing of the goads replenished at short intervals, 

 and applied with loud yells and screams from all three in regular turn. This 

 gentleman makes syrup only, and, it is thought, would have to give up his melan- 

 choly team but for the present high prices. On this small estate there are some 

 very fine shady avenues of fruit and other trees which we saw nowhere else. 



The crow of the game-cock may be heard at all the Ilavana hotels and the 

 plantations ; several wealthy proprietors have cock-pits of their own, and of 

 course betting is rife and fashionable. We heard a good story of a party near 

 Trinidad, who were carrying to the town some fifteen hundred dollars won at a 

 pit, when they were attacked and robbed by the losers, though the Governor of 

 Trinidad was close behind their volante. Stories of robbers are not so rare that 

 one becomes utterly careless of his safety, or inclined to make long excursions 

 alone. The police are not to be found at every turn, and it is true that marauders 

 discharged from the army, or let loose from prisons, roam about, mostly at night, 

 and waylay the unai'med. Caution is recommended, but Mr. Monson assures us he 

 has ridden for years unarmed, by day and night, without the slightest molestation. 



A rather amusing rural scene, showing the love of the fighting cock, was 

 hibited on our ride to the Carolina House. A family from Havana was in 



