On our return to the city, in crossing the Matanzas sound, so named probably from some sanguinary battle with the aborigines on its shores; we passed two Minorcans in a boat, taking home fuel from the island.  These people are a mild, harmless race, of civil manners and abstemious habits.  Mingled with them are many Greek families, with names that denote their origin, such as Geopoli, Cercopoli, &c., and with a cast of features equally expressive of their descent.  The Minorcan language, the dialect of Mahon, el Mahones, as they call it, is spoken by more than half of the inhabitants who remained here when the country was ceded to the United States, and all of them, I believe, speak Spanish besides.  Their children, however, are growing up in disuse of these languages, and in another generation the last traces of the majestic speech of Castile, will have been effaced from a country which the Spaniards held for more than two hundred years.

Some old customs which the Minorcans brought with them from their native country are still kept up.  On the evening before Easter Sunday, about eleven o’clock, I heard the sound of a serenade in the streets.  Going out, I found a party of young men, with instruments of music, grouped about the window of one of the dwellings, singing a hymn in honor of the Virgin in the Mahonese dialect.  They began, as I was told, with tapping on the shutter.  An answering knock within had told them that their visit was welcome, and they immediately began the serenade.  If no reply had been heard they would have passed on to another dwelling.  I give the hymn as it was kindly taken down for me in writing by a native of St. Augustine.  I presume this is the first time that it has been put in print, but I fear the copy has several corruptions, occasioned by the unskillfulness of the copyist.  The letter e, which I have put in italics, represents the guttural French e, or perhaps more nearly the sound of u in the word but.  The sh of our language is represented by sc followed by an i or an e; the g both hard and soft has the same sound as in our language.

  Disciarem lu dol,
  Cantarem anb’ alagria,
  Y n’arem a da
  Las pascuas a Maria. 
                O Maria!

Sant Grabiel,
Qui portaba la anbasciada;
Des nostre rey del cel
Estarau vos prenada. 
Ya omiliada,
Tu o vais aqui serventa,
Fia del Deu contenta,
Para fe lo que el vol. 

                        Disciarem lu dol, &c.

Y a milla nit,
Pariguero vos regina;
A un Deu infinit,
Dintra una establina. 
Y a millo dia,
Que los Angles van cantant
Pau y abondant
De la gloria de Deu sol. 

                        Disciarem lu dol, &c.

Y a Libalam,
Alla la terra santa,
Nu nat Jesus,
Anb’ alagria tanta. 
Infant petit
Que tot lu mon salvaria;
Y ningu y bastaria,
Nu mes un Deu tot sol. 

                        Disciarem lu dol, &c.