were plenty of pretty Spanish girls
for partners, and these and our boys made up an interesting party. The
girls did not seem at all bashful or afraid of the boys, and though they
could not talk together very much they got along with the sign language,
and the ladies seemed very fond of the _Americanos_.

There was a fort here, a regular moss-backed old concern, and the
soldiers were bare footed and did not need much clothing.

The cattle that were taken on board here were made to swim out to the
ship, and then, with a rope around their horns, hoisted on deck, a
distance of perhaps forty feet above the water. The maddened brutes were
put into a secure stall ready for the ship's butcher. The small boys
came around the ship in canoes, and begged the passengers to throw them
out a dime, and when the coin struck the water they would dive for it,
never losing a single one. One man dropped a bright bullet and the boy
who dove for it was so enraged that he called him a d----d Gringo
(Englishman.) None of these boys wore any clothes.

This town, like all Spanish towns, was composed of one-story houses,
with dry mud, fire-proof walls. The country around looked very
mountainous and barren, and comfortably warm.

After two days we were called on board, and soon set sail for sea again;
and now, as we approached the equator, it became uncomfortably warm and
an awning was put over the upper deck. All heavy clothing was laid
aside, and anyone who had any amount of money on his person was unable
to conceal it; but no one seemed to have any fear of theft, for a thief
could not conceal anything he should steal, and no one reported anything
lost. There was occasionally a dead body to be consigned to a watery
grave.

A few days out from here and we were again mustered as before to show
our tickets, which were carefully examined.

It seemed strange to me that the water was the poorest fare we had. It
was sickish tasting stuff, and so warm it would do very well for
dish-water.

There were many interesting things to see. Sometimes it would be
spouting whales; sometimes great black masses rolling on the water,
looking like a ship bottom upward, which some said were black-fish. Some
fish seemed to be at play, and would jump ten feet or more out of the
water. The flying fish would skim over the waves as the ship's wheels
seemed to frighten them; and we went through a hundred acres of
porpoises, all going the same way. The ship plowed rig