From flag to flag

A spacious mansion, with deep verandas supported by fluted columns, so closely following the architectural features of the historic Lee homestead on the Potomac as to give the n...

Basking in the sunshine of prosperity during the stirring events that crowded one after another through the winter of 1860-’61, buoyed up by the hope and belief that a peaceful...

The rapidly rising river was another element of danger menacing us. It is a fearful sight to see the relentless flood plunging by, bearing great trees and logs of drift-wood on...

Taxes had to be paid on plantations in Mississippi. Federal gunboats cut off the usual means of communication. From New Orleans to Baton Rouge, and from Cairo to Vicksburg, they...

The next morning, at the first blush of dawn, firing was distinctly heard from the direction of the town. Now, while the town was distant four miles by the road winding with the...

No one, who has not had the experience, knows what a litter and indescribable confusion of dirt and _débris_ is left after twenty-four hours’ occupancy of a house and grounds by...

The weather was warm for the season, a thick fog hung over the river, obscuring objects only a few yards distant. As I stood by the window, in the early morning, completing my t...

The whole plantation field-work was done with mules, and I really believe Willy was the only person on the place, capable of driving, who had never managed a team of four. He mo...

We were going to Texas, the great State that opened its hospitable doors to hundreds of refugees fleeing like ourselves from their own homes. We were going to Texas for many rea...

Once in Texas, we moved around with our fast-vanishing _lares et penates_ as business or convenience required. The dear baby succumbed to the first illness he ever had, and one...

On the fourth day at noon we camped amid sand and prickly-pear, to brush up and make ourselves presentable to appear before strangers. An hour afterward we drove into the scatte...

We made a final trip to Mexico, the following September, and had almost our first experience in camping during stormy weather. From San Antonio to Laredo everything was soaked....

No pencil can give an adequate picture of Havana as one enters its harbor. It is the loveliest gem of the ocean. To us, who had so long dealt with the rough realities of life, i...

The new, unfamiliar, and ever-varying street sights were an unfailing source of entertainment. The bulk of commercial business is transacted in the early morning. Clattering _vo...

Henry went to a little school a few doors off, kept by a Danish woman, who conversed readily in their native tongue with the French, German, Russian, Italian, and English consul...

At last my husband found a sugar-plantation for sale--“positively to be sold.” It would be hard to tell how many he went to inspect, and found the titles imperfect. This one was...

Summer on a sugar-plantation is what is known in common parlance as the “dead season.” The days are long and hot. Work begins before the dawn, pauses at midday, and ends when it...

The first year crept slowly by. We fought a brave fight against odds; sometimes sick at heart and almost discouraged, as petty annoyances rose here and there, thick about us. Ou...

In a few days Lamo returned, bringing Zell, whom he summoned to Havana to interpret from English into Spanish; and Ramon, a Chinese, whose term of service on the plantation was...

From that band of Chinese, one with a good countenance and neat appearance was selected for a cook. It is surprising how quickly and accurately the Chinese imitate. Before Ciria...

The old _cura_ (priest) in the village had the spiritual surveillance of all the inhabitants of his _partido_ (district); and we were often notified to discharge certain duties...

Although the draught cattle on the island are large and well-proportioned, the cows are poor milkers, partially from the fact that the cane-tops on which they are fed in winter...

I returned from a flying visit of six weeks to New York, to find Lamo harassed by the exactions of the military almost beyond endurance. The insurrection in a remote southern pa...

My husband, who never knew the meaning of the word _fear_, rode bravely about our own domain, sometimes alone, but more frequently accompanied by an interpreter, whose services...

Our merchant in Havana was a leper. Poor Don Anastasio had had the disease in increasing loathsomeness for fifteen years before we knew him--a native, I believe, of Central Amer...

During the sugar-making time in winter all was excitement and confusion on the plantations, suddenly, as if by magic, awakened from the summer’s sleepy quiet. Owners, who had ci...

Cuba is a paradise for those who are too lazy to do anything but exist, as one can live there without labor. The tall, straight palm-tree, of which the poorer houses are built,...

Generation after generation of thriftless Cubans cultivated the same fields, with but slight diminution in the harvests; and the belief in the inexhaustibility of the soil was s...

We rode to Don Francisco Ruano’s coffee estate, hoping to hire a few hands from him to tide over the unexpected rush of work. The Don, with his octogenarian mother, had lived ma...

Henry delighted in repairing to the bench under the zapote-trees in the garden with his lesson-books, pretending that the quiet of that retreat was conducive to mental applicati...

October was upon us. The summer rains had ceased, the air was full of the odor of fruit and fruit-blossoms by day, and overpowering, when the shades of evening fell, with the fr...

A Cuban life is intolerably monotonous to one who has always known activity and enterprise. In the cities there are amusements and distractions, though of a very insipid and lan...