Pensacola musings--Its early settlement and capacious harbor--Origin of the name--The soil contains clay for brick and pottery--Casa Blanca--The city conquered by the Spaniards--Causes for its not competing with other Gulf cities--Description of Fort Barrancas--It is supposed to contain a dungeon--Fort Pickens--Fort St. Michael and Fort St. Bernard--Ten dollars offered for the scalps of colonists--General movements of General Andrew Jackson--Governor Callavea in the calaboose--Description of the old plaza--Present appearance of Pensacola--It contains no fabled fountains--A plank walk on which sailors reel like drunken elephants--Prosperity of the place dependent on the demand for lumber--Commotion on the arrival of a ship--Resinous wood and its light accompaniments--The Indians hated to leave it--Ferdinand Park and its rural scenery--The market-house--The singing fishermen--The proud fishermen with their big fish--An ox-horn announces the sales--Fresh-water wells--Drawers of water lose their vocation--Porpoises--Tropical fruit-culture not very successful here--The washing bayou and its water-nymphs--Florida hunters--The fleet-footed fawn a past record--The yellow-fever visitor--Perdido, or Lost Bay--Escambia Bay--The alligator: her nest, and her young--Churches--Free schools--Catholic schools--Episcopal school, and its founder, Mrs. Dr. Scott.
Leaving Pensacola--Contentment in our moving habitation--A calm--_Physalia utriculus_--A genuine nor'-wester and its accompaniments--A moment of terror--Morning at last--Isle of Pines and its products--Pirates--Water-spouts--Early history of Cuba--The Spaniards burn an Indian--Cienfuegos--The fort on the bay--Cuban houses--Clothing of the children--Cruelty to northern seamen--Mother Carey and her unlucky chickens--The fate of the insurgents, and their numerical strength--"La Purisima Conception"--Neglect of ceremonial duties--The church inside--Its lady-attendants furnish their seats--The slave receives a gentle admonition--The largest plaza on the island--The beautiful señoritas and the band-music.
Distances from Cienfuegos to Havana--Railroads--Three classes of passenger-cars--Smoking--Rain-drops--Harvest--Lo! the poor ox--Goads--Sugar-cane in bloom--Cattle-herders--The war--Arabian stock of horses--Devastations by the insurgents--Vegetation and variety--Depots and drinking--Flowers--Fences from vegetation--Royal palm and its uses--Slaves gathering palm-fruit--Great variety of growth--Cactus family--Sugar and sugar-makers--Negro slaves and coolies--Their miserable quarters--Chicken-fighting--Inhuman treatment of the poor fowls--Matanzas--A Pentecostal illustration--"English and French spoken"--Dinner and its condiments--Matanzas Bay at night--The tough old tars--Their families on shore--The phosphorescent lights on the water--The plaza and hotel--Our French _valet de chambre_--_Siesta_--My _café_--_El volante_--Up the mountain-side--_El Cueva de Bellamar_, being a remarkable subterranean temple--Stalactites and stalagmites--Names given to the different formations inside the cave--Return to Matanzas.