At
One Of These We Always Stayed For The Night, Sleeping In
Grass Hammocks Suspended Between The Posts Of The Verandah.
The only travellers we fell in with were a party of four
Americans, returning to the Eastern States from California
with the gold they had won there.
They had come in our
steamer to Acapulco, and had left it a few hours before we
did. As the villages were so far apart we necessarily had to
stop at night in the same one. The second time this happened
they, having arrived first, had quartered themselves on the
Alcalde or principal personage of the place. Our guide took
us to the same house; and although His Worship, who had a
better supply of maize for the horses, and a few more
chickens to sell than the other natives, was anxious to
accommodate us, the four Americans, a very rough-looking lot
and armed to the teeth, wouldn't hear of it, but peremptorily
bade us put up elsewhere. Our own American, who was much
afraid of them, obeyed their commands without more ado. It
made not the slightest difference to us, for one grass
hammock is as soft as another, and the Alcalde's chickens
were as tough as ours.
Before the morning start, two of the diggers, rifles in hand,
came over to us and plainly told us they objected to our
company. Fred, with perfect good humour, assured them we had
no thought of robbing them, and that as the villages were so
far apart we had no choice in the matter.
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