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 Legnminoscz. 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 1 
