another to whom my heart
still yearns, and no time can ever banish the love I bear him. He was
the beau-ideal of a John Bull--burly, surly, brave, obstinate, and
strong in his likings or dislikings. We met at first, neither in a
pleasant mood; I was the aggrieved person, for he permitted me to
mistake him for a Mexican, and talk bad Spanish half an hour, when he
coolly broke ground in Anglo-Saxon. But time removed first impressions,
and in his little cottage by the shore, at his generous board, and in
fact in very many ways he loaded me with favors and hospitalities, which
I shall always recur to as among my brightest recollections of the past.
And truly it is not in great cities, or teeming ports, where merchants
are seen to social advantage; it is in out-of-the-way spots--far, far
away--when least expected, that the traveller finds warm hearts and firm
friends--and none more so than in Mazatlan.

I was a daily guest of Don Guillermo's, at the cottage. Dinner over, and
a rubber at whist, I usually strolled about the town--peeped in at the
fandangos--perhaps a shy at monte--thence to arrack--music, jolly
Hausen, and so home to my quarters. Though a sort of vaut-rien
existence, still it was one quite in consonance with my tastes, and
since I am not at all competent for a clerkship, if any of my former
friends can employ me as a smuggler, or in any other nautical and honest
pursuit, I shall be most happy to comply with their terms.

For a short period, these my amusements were unpleasantly interrupted,
and came within an ace of being finally closed in eternity. Sitting one
night, in a moralizing mood, by my friend, Mr. Mitch, during a pause in
conversation, we were startled by the long rolling sound of the drums,
beating the alarm from the Cuartel. The sentries shouted from the walls,
for the men to get under arms, and snatching up hat and pistols, we
rushed out. The night was quite dark, with thick fog; besides, I was
nearly blinded from a lighted room; and mistaking the stairs by a few
inches, I walked off the piazza--a height of fourteen feet--falling,
most fortunately, between three men coming out from below, with fixed
bayonets, and escaped being impaled, by a slight wound in the wrist. I
was picked up insensible, and my companion thought even burnt brandy
would prove unavailing. However, on coming to, and being duly jerked
about the legs and arms, no bones being fractured, I was found whole,
with the exception of s