A Sojourn in Cuba 
scrambling among some low rocks gathering 
ferns and vines, when I was startled by finding 
my face close to a great snake, whose body was 
disposed carelessly like a castaway rope among 
the weeds and stones. After escaping and com- 
ing to my senses, I discovered that the snake 
was a member of the vegetable kingdom, ca- 
pable of no dangerous amount of locomotion, 
but possessed of many a fang, and prostrate 
as though under the curse of Eden, “Upon thy 
belly shalt thou go and dust shalt thou eat.” 
One day, after luxuriating in the riches of 
my Morro pasture, and pressing many new 
specimens, I went down to the bank of brilliant 
wave-washed shells to rest awhile in their 
beauty, and to watch the breakers that a power- 
ful norther was heaving in splendid rank along 
the coral boundary. I gathered pocketfuls of 
shells, mostly small but fine in color and form, 
and bits of rosy coral. Then I amused myself 
by noting the varying colors of the waves and 
the different forms of their curved and blossom- 
ing crests. While thus alone and free it was 
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