Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/67

CH. IV.] Whoever has read Anson's voyage will remember the delight which his poor sailors experienced when they could, at length, put their foot a-shore: they are described as reviving at every step they took upon terra firma. The delight they experienced in leaving the sea for the dry land could not have been greater than that which I felt in leaving the land to plunge into the sea. I never enjoyed a bath so much in my life, but I was, accidentally, inconvenienced in the operation, in a manner which I could not have foreseen. I had hung my shirt on a Nopal shrub on the beech, which was in a flowering state, and emitted from its buds myriads of little prickles, the whole of which were transferred to my body. My agony, added to the intense heat of the climate, was excruciating; it was in vain to attempt to pick them out, for even if I had had the patience to do so, the thing was impracticable, for they had adhesion enough to keep their hold, whilst the slightest attempt to withdraw them