nd self-mortification,
and should shine like a mirror in his conduct and words.

"When we had satiated our ears with the delicacy of music, our eyes
with the beauty of such rich stuffs of cotton, of silk, and of
feathers, then our reverend Prior directed us to take from his
dispensaries a prodigious quantity of every species of dainties to
allure the taste or satisfy the appetite. Truly we seemed in another
world, by being transported from Europe to America. Our senses had been
changed from what they had been the night and day before, while
listening to the hoarse sounds of the mariners, when the abyss of the
sea was at our feet, and when we drank fetid water, and inhaled the
stench of pitch. In the Prior's cell of the Convent of Vera Cruz, we
listened to a melodious voice accompanied with an harmonious
instrument, we saw treasures and riches, we ate exquisite
confectioneries, we breathed amber and musk, with which he had perfumed
his sirups and conserves. O, that delicious Prior!"

[1] Apuntes Historicos de Vera Cruz, p. 102.

[2] Esterior Comercio de Mexico. M. M. Lerdo de Tegido. Mexico,
1853.

[3] Apuntes Historicos de Vera Cruz, p. 129.

[4] Called, in the Spanish translation, "The most holy
Sacrament;" but in the English original, "The bread God."

[5] These missionary monks were on their way to Manilla and the
Spanish East Indies by the road across Mexico.

CHAPTER II.

An historical Sketch.--Truth seldom spoken of Santa Anna.--Santa Anna's
early Life.--Causes of the Revolution.--The Virgin Mary's Approval of
King Ferdinand.--The Inquisition imprisons the Vice-King.--Santa Anna
enters the King's Army.--The plan of Iguala.--The War of the two
Virgins.--Santa Anna pronounces for Independence.

Before commencing our journey to the interior, we must break the thread
of our narrative by a brief biographical sketch: for this town is the
birth-place, and here began the public career of that man whose life
has become the history of his country. With him the Mexican Republic
began, and with him it has been terminated. In 1822 he was first to
proclaim a Republic in the Plaza of Vera Cruz; and when I stood in the
Plaza of the city of Mexico, in the winter of 1854, I heard him
proclaimed absolute ruler of a state which had already ceased to be a
Republic. This was not the first time that he had been raised to
absolute authority in Mexico, but the third time t