sly answer, "Oh yes, many times." We were then
taken to the custom-house, where we mailed some hastily scribbled
letters for the sake of using a Mexican stamp,--some preferred it
stamped on a handkerchief. And near by is the curio store, where you
find the same things which are seen everywhere, and where you will
doubtless buy a lot of stuff and be sorry for it. But whatever other
folly you may be led into, let me implore you to wholly abstain from
that deadly concoction, the Mexican _tamale_. Ugh! I can taste mine now.

A _tamale_ is a curious and dubious combination of chicken hash, meal,
olives, red pepper, and I know not what, enclosed in a corn-husk,
steamed until furiously hot, and then offered for sale by Mexicans in
such a sweet, appealing way that few can resist the novelty. It has a
more uncertain pedigree than the sausage, and its effects are serious.

A friend of mine tasted a small portion of one late at night. It was
later before she could sleep, and then terrible nightmares intruded upon
her slumber. Next morning she looked so ill and enfeebled, so unlike her
rosy self, that we begged to know the cause. The tale was thrilling. She
thought a civil war had broken out and she could not telegraph to her
distant spouse. The agony was intense. She must go to him with her five
children, and at once. They climbed mountains, tumbled into canons, were
arrested in their progress by cataracts and wild storms, and even the
hostile Indian appeared in full war-paint at a point above. This awoke
her, only to fall into another horrible situation. An old lover suddenly
returned, tried to approach her; she screamed, "I am now a married
woman!"--he lifted his revolver, and once again she returned to
consciousness and the _tamale_, and brandy, and Brown's Jamaica ginger.
If she had eaten half the _tamale_ the pistol would doubtless have
completed its deadly work. A kind old gentleman of our party bought a
dozen to treat us all. We were obliged to refuse, and it was amusing to
watch him in his endeavor to get rid of them. At last he made several
journeys to the car door, throwing out a few each trip in a solemn way.
He didn't want to hurt the feelings of the natives by casting them all
out at once.

Sweet Water Dam is a triumph of engineering, one of the largest dams in
the world, holding six million gallons of water, used for irrigating
ranches in Sweet Water Valley; and at La Jolla you will find pretty
shells and clamber d