There was a wharf, but the enterprising Mexican peasantry, who subsist by poling merchandise ashore in dug-outs, indignantly tore it up. We take on here some young Mexicans, from Colima, who are going to California. They are of the better class, and one young man (who was educated in Madrid) speaks English rather better than I write it. Be careful not to admire any article of an educated Mexican's dress, because if you do he will take it right off and give it to you, and sometimes this might be awkward.
I said: "What a beautiful cravat you wear!"
"It is yours!" he exclaimed, quickly unbuckling it; and I could not induce him to take it back again.
I am glad I did not tell his sister, who was with him and with whom I was lucky enough to get acquainted, what a beautiful white hand she had. She might have given it to me on the spot; and that, as she had soft eyes, a queenly form, and a half million or so in her own right, would have made me feel bad.
Reports reach us here of high-handed robberies by the banditti all along the road to the City of Mexico. They steal clothes as well as coin. A few days since the mail coach entered the city with all the passengers stark-naked! They must have felt mortified.
4.4. CALIFORNIA.
We reach San Francisco one Sunday afternoon. I am driven to the Occidental Hotel by a kind-hearted hackman, who states that inasmuch as I have come out there to amuse people, he will only charge me five dollars. I pay it in gold, of course, because greenbacks are not current on the Pacific coast.
Many of the citizens of San Francisco remember the Sabbath day to keep it jolly; and the theatres, the circus, the minstrels, and the music halls are all in full blast to-night.
I "compromise," and go to the Chinese theatre, thinking perhaps there can be no great harm in listening to worldly sentiments when expressed in a language I don't understand.
The Chinaman at the door takes my ticket with the remark, "Ki hi-hi ki! Shoolah!"