We Were Thus Provided With Many
Advantages For 'sight-Seeing' In And About The City, And Also
For More Distant Excursions Through Credentials From The
Mexican Authorities.
Under these auspices we visited the
silver mines at Guadalajara, Potosi, and Guanajuata.
The life in Mexico city was delightful, after a year's tramp.
The hotel, as I have said, was to us luxurious. My room
under the verandah opened on to a large and beautiful garden
partially enclosed on two sides. As I lay in bed of a
morning reading Prescott's 'History of Mexico,' or watching
the brilliant humming birds as they darted from flower to
flower, and listened to the gentle plash of the fountain, my
cup of enjoyment and romance was brimming over.
Just before I left, an old friend of mine arrived from
England. This was Mr. Joseph Clissold. He was a
schoolfellow of mine at Sheen. He had pulled in the
Cambridge boat, and played in the Cambridge eleven. He
afterwards became a magistrate either in Australia or New
Zealand. He was the best type of the good-natured, level-
headed, hard-hitting Englishman. Curiously enough, as it
turned out, the greater part of the only conversation we had
(I was leaving the day after he came) was about the
brigandage on the road between Mexico and Vera Cruz. He told
me the passengers in the diligence which had brought him up
had been warned at Jalapa that the road was infested by
robbers; and should the coach be stopped they were on no
account to offer resistance, for the robbers would certainly
shoot them if they did.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 266 of 404
Words from 69841 to 70111
of 106633
