Sinopsis

THE ISLE OF PINES
In the spring of 1856, I met with Mr. Christy accidentally in an omnibus at
Havana. He had been in Cuba for some months, leading an adventurous life,
visiting sugar-plantations, copper-mines, and coffee-estates, descending into
caves, and botanizing in tropical jungles, cruising for a fortnight in an open
boat among the coral-reefs, hunting turtles and manatis, and visiting all sorts
of people from whom information was to be had, from foreign consuls and
Lazarist missionaries down to retired slave-dealers and assassins.
As for myself, I had been travelling for the best part of a year in the United
States, and had but a short time since left the live-oak forests ...