“We arrived on Thursday morning and remained until Monday morning, Edward having engaged a Long Island schooner, which happened to be in port, to take us to Arroyo.  At four o’clock the Governor sent his official barge, under the charge of the captain of the port, a most excellent, intelligent, scientific gentleman, who had breakfasted with us at the Governor’s in the morning, and in a few minutes we were rowed alongside of the schooner Estelle, and before dark were under way and out of the harbor.  Our quarters were very small and close, but not so uncomfortable.

“At daylight in the morning of Tuesday we were sailing along the shores of Porto Rico, and at sunrise we found we were in sight of Guyama and Arroyo, and with our glasses we saw at a distance the buildings on Edward’s estate.  Susan had been advised of our coming and a flag was flying on the house in answer to the signal we made from the vessel.  In two or three hours we got to the shore, as near as was safe for the vessel, and then in the doctor’s boat, which had paid us an official visit to see that we did not bring yellow fever or other infectious disease, the kind doctor, an Irishman educated in America, took us ashore at a little temporary landing-place to avoid the surf.  On the shore there were some handkerchiefs shaking, and in a crowd we saw Susan and Leila, and Charlie [his grandson] who were waiting for us in carriages, and in a few moments we embraced them all.  The sun was hot upon us, but, after a ride of two or three miles, we came to the Henrietta, my dear Edward and Susan’s residence, and were soon under the roof of a spacious, elegant and most commodious mansion.  And here we are with midsummer temperature and vegetation, but a tropical vegetation, all around us.

“Well, we always knew that Edward was a prince of a man, but we did not know, or rather appreciate, that he has a princely estate and in as fine order as any in the island.  When I say ‘fine order,’ I do not mean that it is laid out like the Bois de Boulogne, nor is there quite as much picturesqueness in a level plain of sugar canes as in the trees and shrubbery of the gardens of Versailles; but it is a rich and well-cultivated estate of some fourteen hundred acres, gradually rising for two or three miles from the sea-shore to the mountains, including some of them, and stretching into the valleys between them.”

His visit to Porto Rico was a most delightful one to him in many ways, and I shall have more to say of it further on, but I digress for a moment to speak of two events which occurred just at this time, and which showed him that, even in this land of dolce far niente, he could not escape the griefs and cares which are common to all mankind.

Mr. Kendall, in a letter of February 20, announces the death of one of his early associates:  “I presume you will have heard before this reaches you of the death of Alfred Vail.  He had sold most of his telegraph stocks and told me when I last saw him that it was with difficulty he could procure the means of comfort for his family.”