On the evening of the eighth day we steam into the far-famed Bay of Acapulco.
It is sunset, and from the Captain's bridge we watch the headlands taking bolder shape against the brilliant sky, the lighthouse flushing pink in the reflection. We see the long, low red-roofed Lazaretto set peacefully among the hills, and away to the right the straggling town of Acapulco, fringed with cocoa palms and guarded on the other side by an old and primitive fort.
A wonderful land-locked harbour is Acapulco, and the bold hills circling it seemed that night to shut it out from all the rest of the world.
"That town is more like old Spain than Spain herself," I hear a gentleman from Madrid say to Mrs. Steele. "It has remained since Cortes' day, with no other land communication than an occasional mule train affords; and the manners and customs and speech of Cortes' followers are preserved there to-day."
"Can't we go ashore?" I ask the Captain, pleadingly.
"Well, you can't stay long," is the gruff answer. "We must get away early to-morrow morning."
But Baron de Bach, overhearing, says:
"I tell Madame Steele ve can haf supper in dthe town. Vill you come, Señorita?"
"Thanks, with pleasure, if Mrs. Steele agrees," and my spirits rise high at the prospect.
The great red sun rests one splendid moment on the wooded heights and dyes the waters of Acapulco's bay in dusky carmine, and it throws into bolder silhouette the black hull of the disabled man-of-war Alaska, anchored after many storms in this fair and quiet haven. The health commissioners are long in coming, and it is late before Mrs. Steele, the Baron and I are pushed off from the San Miguel and headed towards the town. It is dark when we reach the wharf, and Baron de Bach gives us each an arm, saying: