The squadron sailed, and I was ordered to embark in a fine old
store-ship, to cross the Sea of Cortez. The lumbering craft went urging
her lazy length through the water, her sails now and then giving a
gentle flapping, as if to convince herself they were not asleep, but
napping, unlike the indolent sailors beneath their shade. "Blessed be he
who first invented sleep, for it covereth a man all over like a mantle."
When eyelids have fallen with very grief or weariness, how we may retire
within a shell, to live a new peaceful existence, shut out from all the
toils and cares of everyday life.

We arrived in the broad bay of La Paz. Circling hills and mountains
arose red, parched and arid, enclosing on three sides a vast sheet of
water--like an inland gulf--thirty miles in length and fifteen wide.

Vegetation appears to have forgotten this portion of the Peninsula
entirely, at least to deck it in that delightful greenish hue that
attracts the gaze when beheld from a distance--creeping up narrow
valleys, or reposing, like an emerald carpet, on the sloping plains.
Here Nature looks as if baked in an oven, until she had been thoroughly
done too! A mile from the anchorage, at the head of the bay, another
large lake extends beyond, and near by is the little town of La Paz--the
ancient Santa Cruz of Cortez. The place has nothing to recommend it,
except the fig-groves and vineyards of a Portuguese, named Manuel, and a
tank of fresh water, where one may have a morning dip, before the vines
are irrigated. There were a score or more senoritas, who danced with us
all night, and washed our clothes all day, and very well they performed
both accomplishments, being withal intelligent, and, to a certain degree
educated; also two or three billiard-tables; a monte bank, of course;
millions of cat-fish; plenty of fleas, dust, and heat; and about an
hundred of Yankee Volunteers--charming follows they were, as was
remarked, "for a small tea-party without spoons." I think this is a
correct summary of all the diversions and societies of La Paz, in the
which we soon became contented and domesticated.

No civilized beings excepting those unkillable gentry, yclept
salamanders, could by any chance endure the noontide heat on shore; no
one ever had energy to consult the mercury, but we presumed it was very
high--say three or four hundred. We never left the ship until after the
land wind came from the lofty heights to apprize us, perhaps, that we
mig