A Sojourn in Cuba 



fringed, jagged, and one-sided, like those of 

 Adiantum. Hundreds of the most gorgeous- 

 flowered plants, some of them large trees, be 

 longing to the Leguminosce. Compared with 

 what I have before seen in artificial flower-gar 

 dens, this is past comparison the grandest. It is 

 a perfect metropolis of the brightest and most 

 exuberant of garden plants, watered by hand 

 some fountains, while graveled and finely bor 

 dered walks slant and curve in all directions, 

 and in all kinds of fanciful playground styles, 

 more like the fairy gardens of the Arabian 

 Nights than any ordinary man-made pleasure- 

 ground. 



In Havana I saw the strongest and the ugliest 

 negroes that I have met in my whole walk. The 

 stevedores of the Havana wharf are muscled 

 in true giant style, enabling them to tumble 

 and toss ponderous casks and boxes of sugar 

 weighing hundreds of pounds as if they were 

 empty. I heard our own brawny sailors, after 

 watching them at work a few minutes, ex 

 press unbounded admiration of their strength, 

 [ 167] 



