oduce the reader into the
business part of the story.

It was between ten and eleven o'clock in the forenoon, the land breeze
had done blowing, and the usual interregnum of calm, previous to the
commencement of the sea-breeze, had taken place--the broad bay lay like
a huge mirror, varied indeed by the long and regular undulations of the
swell from the main ocean, which, though perhaps sufficient to
discompose a landman's stomach, would not affect that of a sailor, who
would probably testify under oath, that the water was "just as smooth as
a mill-pond." The pelican, that grave and contemplative bird, sat on the
rocks near the water's edge, with his neck coiled up and stowed away in
some recess in his capacious crop, the fish forgetting, or sailed on
lazy wings across the bay, to seek some sequestered spot to doze away
the time, and digest his huge breakfast--the graceful white crane of
Mexico was wading about, flapping her wings, to drive the small fish
into shoaler water, where she might pick them up at her leisure--the
gaudy Spanish ensign, resembling three flannel petticoats, two red and
one yellow, hung lifeless by its staff, as though said petticoats had
just got through a hard day's washing--a soldier, with a paper segar in
his mouth, was lounging backwards and forwards on that part of the
parapet of the battery next the sea, while another, his counterpart, was
"doing military duty" in the same soldierly manner on the quay opposite.

I may as well explain to the reader now as at a future time, that every
collection of houses in South America, however small, has an open space
in the centre, called the Plaza; and an American Spaniard could no more
conceive of a town or village without such plaza, than he could form one
of Mr. Locke's abstract ideas of a horse, which ceases to be an abstract
idea the moment it becomes invested with a body, head, legs, mane, tail,
saddle, bridle, belly-band, or crupper.

In the plaza of the Porte before mentioned was a multifarious
assemblage: the barrack for a captain's guard, with the arms of the
guard piled in front of it, formed one side, and the others were bounded
by the quay or different buildings; a detachment of idlers were sunning
themselves, and engaged in relieving each other from certain troublesome
companions, that _invariably_ infest the clothes and hair of all
Spaniards and Russians, from the king to the beggar; jackasses, boys,
and dogs occupied the rest of the squa