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The children talk to one another more by gestures than by words, and I shall never forget how one of them, Palmyra, described a bullfight she had seen at Barcelona and the horror of it, lowering her head between her shoulders and looking out with gleaming eyes to imitate the bull, jumping to indicate terror and assault, putting her little hand before her eyes at the thought of the disemboweling of the horses, and showing with a horrified twinkling of her fingers the impression of the flowing of the blood. Bullfights are forbidden in Cuba, but these children had been to Spain on a holiday and so had seen the national and traditional festival for the first time.

In fifteen days on a little ship with two dozen passengers one naturally learns a great deal. An English person is a rarity on such a ship, and every one sought to engage me in conversation. They were as much interested in Cristobal Colon and Ponce de Leon and Nuñez de Balboa as I was, and had pictures of Columbus in their pocketbooks, and thought how greatly he'd have been struck to be traveling on such a boat as ours.