Before dawn, we fled to our staterooms, but by sunrise we were glad to
dress and escape from their suffocating heat and go on deck again.
Black coffee and hard-tack were sent up, and this sustained us until the
nine-o'clock breakfast, which was elaborate, but not good. There was no
milk, of course, except the heavily sweetened sort, which I could not
use: it was the old-time condensed and canned milk; the meats were
beyond everything, except the poor, tough, fresh beef we had seen
hoisted over the side, at Cape St. Lucas. The butter, poor at the
best, began to pour like oil. Black coffee and bread, and a baked sweet
potato, seemed the only things that I could swallow.

The heat in the Gulf of California was intense. Our trunks were brought
up from the vessel's hold, and we took out summer clothing. But how
inadequate and inappropriate it was for that climate! Our faces burned
and blistered; even the parting on the head burned, under the awnings
which were kept spread. The ice-supply decreased alarmingly, the meats
turned green, and when the steward went down into the refrigerator,
which was somewhere below the quarter-deck, to get provisions for the
day, every woman held a bottle of salts to her nose, and the officers
fled to the forward part of the ship. The odor which ascended from
that refrigerator was indescribable: it lingered and would not go. It
followed us to the table, and when we tasted the food we tasted the
odor. We bribed the steward for ice. Finally, I could not go below at
all, but had a baked sweet potato brought on deck, and lived several
days upon that diet.

On the 14th of August we anchored off Mazatlan, a picturesque and
ancient adobe town in old Mexico. The approach to this port was
strikingly beautiful. Great rocks, cut by the surf into arches and
caverns, guarded the entrance to the harbor. We anchored two miles out.
A customs and a Wells-Fargo boat boarded us, and many natives came along
side, bringing fresh cocoanuts, bananas, and limes. Some Mexicans bound
for Guaymas came on board, and a troupe of Japanese jugglers.

While we were unloading cargo, some officers and their wives went on
shore in one of the ship's boats, and found it a most interesting place.
It was garrisoned by Mexican troops, uniformed in white cotton shirts
and trousers. They visited the old hotel, the amphitheatre where the
bull-fights were held, and the old fort. They told also about the
cock-pits--and about the refre