re, and were differently engaged.
At this moment a sergeant ran into the square, exclaiming, "el
Commandante!" The military guard fell into their ranks at the tap of the
drum, the idlers and boys took up a strong position in one corner, the
jackasses were cudgelled into a retreat, while the dogs, like the pigs
in New York, being free of the city, provided for themselves. A moment
or two elapsed after these preparations had been made, when a party of
mounted officers dashed into the square at full gallop, as the South
Americans always ride. The guard presented arms, the dogs barked their
congratulations, and the party, having lighted fresh segars, walked down
to the quay, directly opposite which lay an old dismantled Spanish
frigate, and moored alongside her was a schooner, whose formidable
length of main boom, and raking masts, announced her both a clipper and
a Yankee. She was indeed an American schooner, that had been taken
"flagrante delicto," in the very act of smuggling, for which she was
condemned, and her crew sent to the mines. Such was the jealousy of the
"authorities," that they unshipped the rudder, and unrove the running
rigging, for fear she might go to sea of her own accord, and resume her
smuggling voyage without the assistance of human agency.

The party whom we have left smoking on the wharf, consisted of the
military commandant, or governor, of St. Blas, Don Gaspar de Luna, Don
Diego Pinto, the commander of a guarda-costa of eighteen guns, that lay
in the offing, and which, to the most unpractised eye, bore about the
same resemblance to an English or American man of war of the same class,
as an old, worn-out jackass does to a handsome, high spirited, well
groomed race-horse. The rest of the group was made up of young officers
"of no mark or likelihood," and with whom we have nothing to do, with
the exception of Don Gregorio Nunez, a dashing young cavalry officer,
related to the viceroy, report said his natural son, and report said too
that he was soon to marry the lovely niece of the governor; but the
destinies were altogether of a different way of thinking. His character
may be despatched in a few words--he was a vain coxcomb, his whole soul
lay in his gorgeous uniform, and he had a mortal antipathy to any thing
like duty.

Don Gaspar de Luna, the redoubted governor of St. Blas and its
"dependencies," bore the rank of colonel in the Spanish army. He had
seen some service, having been present at the m