FOOTNOTES:
[38] Lit., poniard.
[39] The street in Mexico where I lived.
Captain Don Blas and the Silver Convoy.
CHAPTER I.
Threatened Insurrection in Mexico.—Stealthy Movements of Troops.—General Don Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.
The day was approaching on which I was to leave Mexico for Vera Cruz, to embark for Europe. For several years before this a Yankee company had established a line of diligences which ran between several of the largest towns; wagons, also, for the conveyance of heavy goods, competed with the picturesque caravans of the arrieros on all the principal roads. Ought I to give up my habit of solitary traveling for no other reason than the quickness of transit between Mexico and Vera Cruz? I must then renounce the hospitality of the venta, so pleasant after a long ride—the siesta under the shade of a tree—the friendly connection of horse and rider, and all the enlivening contingencies of solitary travel. I must confess that I could not look upon this innovation, due to the foreigner who had brought Vera Cruz within four days' journey of Mexico, without some degree of abhorrence. I felt that, under the influence of more rapid communication, the ancient appearance of Mexico was beginning to alter. I groaned and chafed like an antiquarian who sees rude hands defacing some rare and ancient medal. The establishment of this new kind of conveyance in Mexico had been attended with annoyances of a most dangerous character. Well-organized bands of robbers turned the innovation to account, and not a diligence passed without being pillaged. The remembrances of my ancient relations with the Mexican salteadores, ordinarily so courteous to every traveler unencumbered with baggage, rendered the prospect of a similar humiliation very disagreeable. The pillaging part of the business was not a thing at all to my mind; besides, the idea of passing several days in a close carriage, drawn by four swift steeds, and bounding over a Mexican road rutted by heavy rains, and covered with large pieces of rock, was a mode of traveling not at all in accordance with my habits and tastes.