Page:Mexico in 1827 Vol 2.djvu/273

Rh render so ordinary a transaction that it will be little more thought of than the passage from Dover to Calais. Our party was an uncomfortably large one, considering the size of the vessel, as, in addition to Mrs. Ward, Mr. Ball, and Dr. Wilson, who, with myself, formed the Mexican passengers, there were Colonel Campbell and two other gentlemen belonging to the Mission in Columbia, whom the Egeria was directed to land at Carthagena, on their way to Bŏgŏtā. It was only by dint of great good humour, and kindness on the part of Captain Roberts, and a spirit of mutual accommodation amongst all the other members of the party, that we were enabled to stow ourselves away at all, and when we got into the warmer latitudes, we suffered not a little from the effects of being so crowded.

We had some very bad weather on first sailing, but left it behind us, with the Bay of Biscay, and reached Madeira on the eighth morning after our departure from Devonport. There we remained only twenty-four hours. From Funchal we had a run of twenty-one days to Barbadoes, where there is little novelty, or beauty to describe; for although the grove of Cocoa-nuts on the beach is rather picturesque, the effect is destroyed, on approaching the town, by the intermixture of the very worst style of English houses, with the productions of a climate, to which they are particularly ill adapted. Nothing can be more uncomfortable, on a sultry day, than the small boarded rooms, sash windows, and narrow