All this chapter of strange incidents occurred within the short space of twenty-four hours: for before a second sun had set, I was once more at the head of my troop, en route for Jalapa; while the beautiful Jarocha, with her honour still intact, but her heart, as I hoped, sweetly affected towards her preserver, was on her way, this time with a safer escort, to her native rancheria.
We did not part without a mutual promise to meet again. Need I say, that the promise was kept.
End of the Guerilla Chief.
Story 2, Chapter I.
Despard, the Sportsman.
A City of Duellists.
Among the cities of America, New Orleans enjoys a special reputation. The important position it holds as the key to the great valley of the Mississippi, of whose commerce it is the natural entrepôt as well as décharge—its late rapid growth and aggrandisement—all combine to render the “Crescent City” one of the most interesting places in the world, and by far the most interesting in the United States.
A variety of other circumstances have contributed to invest New Orleans with a peculiar character in the eyes of the American people. The romantic history of its early settlement—the sub-tropical stamp of its vegetation, and the truly tropical character of its climate—the repeated changing of its early owners; the influx and commingling of the most varied and opposite nationalities; and the bizarrerie of manners and customs resulting therefrom, could not otherwise than produce a community of a peculiar kind.