o enjoy
themselves upon his bounty.

Early in the evening a battalion of an hundred marines left the
garrison, but had barely been gone an hour, when a lot of frightened old
women rushed to the Cuartel, and swore that a large body of troops were
landing from the estero, for the purpose of sacking the town. Rub-a-dub,
rolled the drums--the walls were manned--and rockets went fizzing and
bursting in the air, for assistance from the ships. Meanwhile, I was
despatched, with a small party, to inquire into the truth of the rumor.
After making a thorough examination along the river, and scaring the
last breath out of a poor fisherman, dying with fever, we were convinced
the report was merely a ruse, a sort of counter-irritant, attempted by
the town's people to alarm the troops outside, and call back our men.
The marines had marched by the beach; and at midnight, with thirty
muskets, I took the main route, and lay in ambush at the cross of the
Culiacan and Presidio roads, for the purpose of intercepting the enemy's
retreat, in case they fled towards headquarters at San Sebastian. For
nine hours we were nearly flayed alive by muskitoes, and only
recompensed for the torture by detaining some hundreds of people and
their beasts. It was quite diverting to observe a simple pedestrian,
stepping jauntily along, whistling blithely away--as the natives always
do when travelling alone by night--when a look-out, perched high upon an
overhanging branch, would utter a sharp _hist!_ the traveller would
falter, and perhaps thinking his fears had misled him, again pass on,
and while faintly resuming his chirrup, another energetic summons would
quite startle him, and ten to one but down he would fall, crossing his
breast, and ejaculating a pious _ave purisima_! A tap on the shoulder
would direct them in the thickets, where, squatting on the ground, they
never thought of moving until permission was granted. Just at daylight,
a stout brown _muchacha_ came tripping by, and unconscious of our close
proximity, seated herself on a rock, and unfolding a little bundle,
began to comb her locks and attire in a gala dress, either for the
Sunday mass, or to create a sensation upon entering the port. After
carefully arranging the _camiseta_, and whilst in the act of throwing,
as a woman only can do, her _basquina_,--a worsted petticoat--over the
shoulders, one of my ungallant scamps hit her a smart rap with a pebble.
Giving one terrified scream, and utterin