Page:Life in Mexico vol 1.djvu/56



 Distant View of Vera Cruz — Pilots — Boat from the City — Mutual Salutes — Approach to Vera Cruz — Crowd on the wharf — House of Don Dionisio V o — Guard of Honor — German Piano — Supper — Madonna — Aspect of the City — Sopilotes — Deliberations — General Guadalupe Victoria — Two-headed Eagle — Dilapidated Saint — Harp — Theatre — Doña Inocencia Martinez — Invitation from General Santa Anna.

18th.

morning, the sanguine hoped and the desponding feared, for the wind, though inclining to la brisa, seemed unlikely to prove sufficiently strong to enable us to reach Vera Cruz—this being the twenty-fifth day since we left Havana; a voyage that, with a steamer, might be performed in three days, and with a sailing vessel and a fair wind, is made in six or seven. About noon, the aspect of things became more favorable. The breeze grew stronger, and with it our hopes.

At last appeared in view, faintly, certain spires beside the low sandy land, which for some time we had anxiously watched, and at length we could distinguish houses and churches, and the fort of San Juan de Ulua, of warlike memory. By slow but sure degrees, we neared the shore, until Vera Cruz, in all its ugliness, became visible to our much-wearied eyes. We had brought a pilot from Havana to guide