to death. The fatal day came, he walked to the place of execution with as much calmness as if it had been to an ordinary resort of pleasure. His manly and heroic bearing excited the sympathy and admiration of all who saw him. As he arrived at the fatal spot, he began reciting the hymn, which he had written in his cell the previous night.
"Almighty God; whose goodness knows no bound,
To Thee I flee in my severe distress;
O, let Thy potent arm my wrongs redress,
And rend the odious veil by slander wound
About my brow. The base world's arm confound,
Who on my front would now the seal of shame impress."
The free blacks in Cuba form an important element in her population, and these people are found in all the professions and trades. The first dentists are Blake and Coopat, mulattoes; the first musician, Joseito White, a mulatto; one of the best young ladies' academies at present existing at Havana is personally conducted by an accomplished negro woman, Maria de Serra, to whom many a lady of high rank owes her social and intellectual accomplishments. The only Cuban who has distinguished herself as an actress on foreign stages is Dacoste, a mulatto; Covarrubias, the great comedian and lively writer, for many years the star of the Cuban stage, was also a mulatto; Francisco Manzano, the poet, was a negro slave.
The prompter of the theatre of St. John, of Porto Rico, is Bartolo Antique, a negro, so intelligent that the dramatic companies that come from Spain prefer him to their own prompters. The engineer of the only steamboat in Porto Rico is a colored man. The only artist worthy to be mentioned, in the same Island,
