Your banker, of course, stands first upon the list,—­and to him accordingly, with a beaming countenance, you present yourself.  For him you have a special letter of recommendation, and, however others may fail, you consider him as sure as the trump of the deal at whist.  But why, alas, should people, who have gone through the necessary disappointments of life, prepare for themselves others, which may be avoided?  Listen and learn.  At the first visit, your banker is tolerably glad to see you,—­he discounts your modest letter of credit, and pockets his two and a half per cent. with the best grace imaginable.  If he wishes to be very civil, he offers you a seat, offers you a cigar, and mumbles in an indistinct tone that he will be happy to serve you in any way.  You call again and again, keeping yourself before his favorable remembrance,—­always the same seat, the same cigar, the same desire to serve you, carefully repressed, and prevented from breaking out into any overt demonstration of good-will.  At last, emboldened by the brilliant accounts of former tourists and the successes of your friends, you suggest that you would like to see a plantation,—­you only ask for one,—­would he give you a letter, etc., etc.?  He assumes an abstracted air, wonders if he knows anybody who has a plantation,—­the fact being that he scarcely knows any one who has not one.  Finally, he will try,—­call again, and he will let you know.  You call again,—­“Next week,” he says.  You call after that interval,—­“Next week,” again, is all you get.  Now, if you are a thoroughbred man, you can afford to quarrel with your banker; so you say, “Next week,—­why not next year?”—­make a very decided snatch at your hat, and wish him a very long “good-morning.”  But if you are a snob, and afraid, you take his neglect quietly enough, and will boast, when you go home, of his polite attentions to yourself and family, when on the Island of Cuba.

Our Consul is the next post in the weary journey of your hopes, and to him, with such assurance as you have left, you now betake yourself.  Touching him personally I have nothing to say.  I will only remark, in general, that the traveller who can find, in any part of the world, an American Consul not disabled from all service by ill-health, want of means, ignorance of foreign languages, or unpleasant relations with the representatives of foreign powers,—­that traveller, we say, should go in search of the sea-serpent, and the passage of the North Pole, for he has proved himself able to find what, to every one but him, is undiscoverable.

But who, setting these aside, is to show you any attention?  Who will lift you from the wayside, and set you upon his own horse, or in his own volante, pouring oil and wine upon your wounded feelings?  Ah! the breed of the good Samaritan is never allowed to become extinct in this world, where so much is left for it to do.