South and North - Civil War Author:John Abbott Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: OHAPTEE III. CUBA. Tuesday, Dec. 6.—At a little past twelve o'clock this morning, Captain B. very kindly came to my berth, which is on deck in a room almos... more »t adjoining his office, and informed me that we had just made the light-house on the Great Isaac. We had crossed the Matenilla reef, and passed the western point of the Great Bahama, without seeing it, as it was night, though the distance was not such but that we might have seen it by day. The revolving light, on a rock just emerging from the sea, shone with a long golden gleam over the mirrored water, and the stars glittered in these clear tropical skies with a brilliance which I have never seen surpassed. For two hours we paced the deck, and they were hours of rich enjoyment. The whole day has been one of the most lovely that ever dawned upon the tropics, and it has passed like a dream of beauty and joy. The deck was crowded with happy faces; the sea was smooth and bright and sparkling; we passed several ships under full sail, and were interested in watching the innumerable keys or mounds of rock, emerging from the sea, by which we were rapidly gliding. About five o'clock in the afternoon we caught a glimpse of the hills of Cuba, in the vicinity of Matanzas. But darkness came before we arrived near enough to the land to discern objects on the shore. Wednesday, Dec. 7.—The night has been sultry—oppressively so. I found it difficult to sleep even with the door and windows of our cabin open. I rose at four o'clock in the morning and went upon deck. There in the bright moonlight, at hardly a stone's cast from our steamer, lay the island Cuba, the queen of the Antilles. A light-house, shining with a very brilliant light, rose from the frowning towersand bastions of the Moro Castle at the entrance of the harbor, and t...« less