ights sacred.

While the clouds were becoming darker and more portentous, we were
preparing for our departure from the country. A vessel was then at
Sisal ready to sail. It was one which we had hoped never to be on board
of again, being the old Alexandre, in which we made our former unlucky
voyage, but we had now no alternative, being advised that if we lost
that opportunity, it was entirely uncertain when another would present
itself. At the request of the governor, we delayed our departure a few
days, that he might communicate with a relative in Campeachy, who
wished a surgical operation performed by Doctor Cabot, and had passed
two months in Merida awaiting our return. In the mean time the governor
procured the detention of the vessel.

On Sunday, the sixteenth of May, early in the morning, we sent off our
luggage for the port, and in the afternoon we joined for the last time
in a paseo. All day we had received intimations that an outbreak was
apprehended; a volcano was burning and heaving with inward fires, but
there was the same cheerfulness, gayety, and prettiness as before,
producing on our minds the same pleasing impression, making us hope
that these scenes might be long continued, and, above all, that they
might not be transformed into scenes of blood. Alas! before these pages
were concluded, that country which we had looked upon as a picture of
peace, and in which we had met with so much kindness, was torn and
distracted by internal dissensions, the blast of civil war was sounding
through its borders, and an exasperated, hostile army had landed upon
its shores.

In the evening we rode to the house of Dona Joaquina Peon, said
farewell to our first, last, and best friends in Merida, and at ten
o'clock started for the port.

On Tuesday, the eighteenth, we embarked for Havana. The old Alexandre
had been altered and improved in her sailing, but not in her
accommodations. In fact, having on board eleven passengers, among whom
were three women and two children, these could not well have been
worse, and at one time our voyage threatened to be as long as the other
of unfortunate memory, but the captain, a surviver of the battle of
Trafalgar, was the same excellent fellow as before. On the second of
June we anchored under the walls of the Moro Castle. Before obtaining
passports to land, a barque entered, which we immediately recognised as
an American, and on landing, learned that she was the Ann Louisa,
Captain Cli