Having engaged passage to New Orleans, we found time only for a short visit to Matanzas. Understanding that the accommodations of the hotels were desperate, we took pains to find out the best, and as everybody agreed that the Ciervo de Oro (the Golden Stag) took precedence, on arrival by rail, our party drove to it; externally, it was of respectable proportions, with its name displayed in huge letters, over a Moorish arch. The bar was rather prepossessing at first entrance, but no booking of names was needed, and the landlord appeared quite indifferent to his customers, though we constituted his entire stock of that important hotel article. At last, more by signs than understood words, we were shown to our rooms, and such we hope never to be placed in again. To say that they were dirty, is mild language; in fact, they had evidently never been scrubbed or cleaned with anything better than a whisk. The rough floors were grimy beyond endurance. Very soon we all decided to depart by first opportunity, for no sleep could possibly be had in such beds. On inquiry, it was found that a steamboat in good repute would depart for Havana in the evening.

It was difficult to ascertain at what hour, for Matanzas that evening rejoiced in an opera, and the boat was to leave when the opera broke up! which would be at eleven or twelve o'clock. We concluded to get some dinner, look at the town and the celebrated valley of the Yumuri, and be ready at the earliest hour named.

The cook's department was unfortunately prominently in view, and it soon appeared that the Golden Stag was a restaurant to supply the families of Matanzas who kept no cooks. Fine fish were prepared for the fire, to be ready at the shortest ■ notice; as soon as this was accomplished, they were set on a table in the hollow sqnare below our windows, in the fall blazing snn, to await orders. The flies immediately covered every part, leaving no pleasant prospects for American tastes; other viands, including meats, shared the same fate. The dinner, notwithstanding, looked well on the table, and thongh basted with sweet oil and garlic by the old blackman cook, and charged very unreasonably, was not unacceptable to hungry travellers. The town is situated on a bay more noble in its dimensions than that of Havana, and bore evidences, in the shipping in port, of an extensive commerce; but it was a dull sort of place, with a handsome Paseo well planted with the Cuban Cedar, but nobody riding on it.

The air of a capital so evident in Havana, was entirely wanting; and after a ride to see everything of interest, we were glad to desert our poor quarters, and row off to the steamer.

About twelve o'clock, the opera performers and many of their audience, were fraternizing on board; the paddles moved, we were off to sea, on a fine, warm, starlight night, passed the Moro again, at daylight, and breakfasted with an appetite somewhat sharpened by short commons in the interior.

The Cathedral containing the ashes of Columbus, is of course one of the sights that attract all visitors; the much vaunted monument is a mural tablet of small size, with an effigy of the discoverer, representing him as a yonng man; it is entirely unworthy the subject. The so-called military mass in the Cathedral and the other churches, much sought for by strangers, is totally uninteresting. The soldiers are marched in in clean linen dresses, and stand perfectly still, but with eyes wandering, to inspect the assembled strangers, while the priest goes through the Catholic service, when they are marched out again. As to the soldiers (who are all from old Spain), we should say they were taller men than those composing the French army, and really very good-looking fellows, especially in Sunday garb. The Sabbath is about as much kept as in Paris; bull-baits and cock-fights, and the negroes, by imprescriptible custom, dancing outside the walls - street watering with an awkward machine with a long tail, held by ropes in the hands of two opposite pullers, who water the passengers in the street without mercy - volante driving on the Paseo - open shops and markets till after noon - comprise the employments of the inhabitants.

The churches are better attended in the morning than on other days, but mainly by women. The rich arrive in their volantes; a servant spreads a gay house-rug on the marble floor, and the ladies kneel a short time, and depart. In several instances, their servants in attendance were Chinamen, who looked very much at home in these religious premises. The poor who had no rugs, either spread an old handkerchief, or kneeled on the cold floor.

Many, indeed most of the streets in Havana, are so narrow, that in those devoted to shopping an awning is spread (overhead) from one side to the other. Vehicles, by law, all go one way; so that you have to go roundabout to get into the current. The shops are extremely shallow; the goods are brought out to the female shoppers, who sit in their volantes to make bargains. The only shops that bore a strong resemblance to our own, were the silversmiths, who carry on, apparently, a thriving trade, and make a good display of their wares. The apothecary is perhaps the next approach to our mode, but his medicines are kept in vessels and gallipots of novel construction. You never conld find a doctor or a lawyer without minute directions, as nobody (not even the bankers or merchants) ever puts up a sign of any kind; you must find them by some other process. The shopkeepers likewise conceal their names, but adopt a sign, either poetical or fanciful; one is La Bomba, El Sol, La Vergen, La Grand Signora, California, the Oranges, Ac.

Everybody has heard, no doubt, of the curious custom of keeping the volante in the entry, but no one who first encounters the carriage in that position, can do so without an involuntary surprise. The first day we dined out, the entry communicated with the dining-room, and there was but just space enough for the Chinese waiters to pass between the back of the chair and the wheel of the bedizened coach, which, we heard afterwards, had a thousand dollars' worth of real silver for its mountings.

One of the novel sights to a stranger, is the mode of supplying corn-stalks for horse feed from the rural districts to the town consumers. Hay, unless imported, is out of the question; corn-stalks are substituted, and these are supplied daily, in a fresh state, brought on the backs and sides of small horses, with the same regularity as milk is distributed in our cities. All the approaches to Havana as well as all its streets exhibit strings of horses in single file, those in the rear tied to the tails of those in advance, and all of them literally thatched over with green stalks, nothing being visible but the muzzled head and the small feet The arrieros come in from a distance of six, and even ten miles, and proceed to serve their customers, dropping a half-dollar bundle at successive houses, for the day's supply. The poor little horses carry enormous weights in this way, and look, on a larger scale, like the insects which pack themselves away in green leaves for winter quarters. As they stand patiently to be gradually unloaded, it is amusing to see their quiet but vain attempts to snap at a branch of the corn, with an expression which plainly says: "I want it badly, but know I can't get it!" These arrieros come to town in the same style, with loads of various produce, the horses always in this single file, just as they came in the days of Don Quixote, and with most awkward baskets and panniers swung on the horses' or mules' backs.

Everything seemed to go in a pannier; a keg of molasses or a demijohn, is pushed into a pannier, and is carried in or out of town in this most awkward way.. The Palm leaves are worked into the sides and tops of wagons, when these are employed for heavy goods like sugar hogsheads, and the whole arrangements seem to speak of the middle ages. The horse requires a daily bath in such a warm climate, and they are fastened heads to tails, and swim about in shallow parts of the bay, in a circle; happy the little Spanish boy when he can throw himself on one of their backs, and get a ride and a swim at the same time.

We were sitting one evening with a Spanish gentleman, in Havana, in a well-lighted room, paved with marble tiles, when a scorpion ran across the floor very near us; a little boy put his shoe upon it, and crushed it at once. The circumstance was pronounced very unusual, and led to the assertion of several natives, that the Cuban scorpion is, to most, harmless; its sting inflicts about as much injury, and of the same duration, as the sting of a bee. Both, however, affect different persons differently; some more, and some less, but neither are dangerous.

We have alluded to the Royal Tacon Paseo, and as this drive and the Cathedral furnish illustrations* for our present number, we may say of it that in its original outlines it has great merit. The view represents the beginning just outside the walls, where the arch in the wall opens an entrance to this rural drive. It is well planted, and is statued with Carlos and Christinas in marble; but these royal effigies and other emblematical devices are mounted on stuccoed columns in a state of dilapidation. The fountains represented seemed to be in decay, and were never played, water being scarce. Altogether it presents a truly Spanish scene - a combination of civilization and pretension, surrounded with meanness and constant evidences of semi-barbaric neglect.

*For several of our previous illustrations we have been Indebted to the able pencil of our friend Ledyard Lincklaen, Esq., of Cazenovia, New York, who preceded us by a few weeks only. In the December number these sketches of Cuba will be concluded, and a few remarks on the Southern States will be commenced in our next volume.