JUANITA A ROMANCE OF REAL LIFE IN CUBA FIFTY YEARS AGO. ..........Is a beautiful valley on the border of a river, about fifty miles from the western coast of Africa, a party of natixies had assembled under the sharle of a copse of trees to celebrate a rustic wedding. The valley was nearly closed in by a circle of low hills. From one of these summits a stream dashed tlown ant1 wound its way like a silver serpent, glis- tening in the suns rays, through meadows, and 11. bosquets of plumed bamboos and heavily latlen mango-trees. The feathery, acacia-like foliage of a clump of tamarind-trees shaded the group of figures as they reclined on the bank of the stream, waiting for the decline of the burning tropical sun before they consunlmated their simple ceremony, which was to be folloed by a festive dance, for, like other savage nations, the Africans consecrate all national ant1 social observances by the dance. War and rapine hacl never invacletl this little valley of peace. It was separated from any other 7 tribe by the hills that surrounded it, and the wants of its unsophisticated inhabitants were amply supplied by the procluctions of nature arouncl them. The plantain, the fig banana, the orange, and the bread-fruit tree, the mamkas or tree-melons, the yam, ancl innumerable other fruits and vegetables the delicate fish of the rushing stream, that shot through the valley with the first impulse from the hills that had given it birth the light game fouild in the woods, ancl the birds that inacle the air alive with nlusic, furnished them with all the necessaries of life. Two varieties of dwellings stood in the valley light bamboo structures, interlaced with cocoa-leaves and more solid structures, formed of mud and pebbles, which the sun sooil baked, and which were designecl for shelter in the rainy season. In these, abunclant stores were laid by for future use. The Ayetans, for so we will call them, froill the name of their river, Ayete, had heard stories of invading white men vho stole their clark brethren from their homes and bore the111 away on the backs of great birds, with snowy wings and, not a great inany years before the time of our story, some young men, more enterprising than the rest, had ventured be-oncl tlie hills, and were never heard of again. A narrow opening, ivhich the kidnappers had never espied, vound into the valley between two hills, and the native curiosity of man had led them to explore it. But the Ayetans had by their seclusion escaped the common fate of the tribes of veste ern Africa thus far. On this clay, with the native taste which characterizes the African, they had chosen the prettiest ...