The Senoritas who leave us at Panama are splendid creatures. They learned me Spanish, and in the soft moonlight we walked on deck and talked of the land of Pizarro. (You know old Piz. conquered Peru! and although he was not educated at West Point, he had still some military talent.) I feel as though I had lost all my relations, including my grandmother and the cooking stove when these gay young Senoritas go away.
They do not go to Peru on a Peruvian bark, but on an English steamer. Off to Acapulco.
4.3. MEXICO.
We make Acapulco, a Mexican coast town of some importance, in a few days, and all go ashore.
The pretty peasant girls peddle necklaces made of shells and oranges, in the streets of Acapulco, on steamer days. They are quite naive about it. Handing you a necklace they will say, "Me give you pres-ENT, Senor," and then retire with a low curtsey. Returning, however, in a few moments, they say quite sweetly, "You give me pres-ENT, Senor, of quarter dollar!" which you at once do unless you have a heart of stone.
Acapulco was shelled by the French a year or so before our arrival there, and they effected a landing. But the gay and gallant Mexicans peppered them so persisently and effectually from the mountains near by that they concluded to sell out and leave.
Napoleon has no right in Mexico. Mexico may deserve a licking. That is possible enough. Most people do. But nobody has any right to lick Mexico except the United States. We have a right, I flatter myself, to lick this entire continent, including ourselves, any time we want to.
The signal gun is fired at 11, and we go off to the steamer in small boats.
In our boat is an inebriated United States official, who flings his spectacles overboard, and sings a flippant and absurd song about his grandmother's spotted calf, with his ri-fol-lol-tiddery-i-do. After which he crumbles, in an incomprehensible manner, into the bottom of the boat, and howls dismally.
We reach Manzanillo, another coast place, twenty-four hours after leaving Acapulco. Manzanillo is a little Mexican village, and looked very wretched indeed, sweltering away there on the hot sands. But it is a port of some importance, nevertheless, because a great deal of merchandise finds its way to the interior from there. The white and green flag of Mexico floats from a red steam-tug (the navy of Mexico, by the way, consists of two tugs, a disabled raft, and a basswood life-preserver), and the Captain of the Port comes off to us in his small boat, climbs up the side of the St. Louis, and folds the healthy form of Captain Hudson to his breast. There is no wharf here, and we have to anchor off the town.