delightful a scene for the theatre, where we arrived in time to hear La
Pantanelli sing an aria, dressed in helmet and Theatre of Tacon tunic, and
to see La Jota Arragonesa danced by two handsome Spanish girls in good
style.

One evening we went to the theatre of Tacon, to the Captain-General's box.
It is certainly a splendid house, large, airy, and handsome. The play was
the "Campanero de San Pablo," which, though generally liked, appears to me
a complicated and unnatural composition, with one or two interesting
scenes. The best actor was he who represented the blind man. The chief
actress is an overgrown dame, all fat and dimples, who kept up a constant
sobbing and heaving of her chest, yet never getting rid of an eternal smirk
upon her face. A bolero, danced afterwards by two Spanish damsels in black
and silver, was very refreshing.

23rd.--To-morrow we sail in the Jason, should the wind not prove contrary.
Visits, dinners, and parties have so occupied our time, that to write has
been next to impossible. Of the country we have, from the same reason, seen
little, and the people we are only acquainted with in full dress, which is
not the way to judge of them truly. One morning, indeed, we dedicated to
viewing the works of the Yntendente, the railroad, and the water-filterers.
He and the Countess, and a party of friends, accompanied us.

The country through which the railroad passes is flat and rather
monotonous; nevertheless, the quantity of wild flowers, which appeared for
the most part of the convolvulus species, as we glanced past them--the
orange-trees, the clumps of palm and cocoa, the plantain with its gigantic
leaves, the fresh green coffee-plant, the fields of sugar-cane of a still
brighter green, the half-naked negroes, the low wooden huts, and, still
more, the scorching sun in the month of November,--all was new to us, and