Page:Our Neighbor-Mexico.djvu/30

 26 city after which it is named. This city is twenty miles from the shore, in the peninsula of Yucatan. It has sixty thousand inhabitants, and is the centre of a vast hemp-producing country. This hemp finds a ready market in New York. Hence the pause at this spot; hence the name of our vessel. It is to land stores for the big city, and to take hemp for the bigger country.

The steamer lies four miles from shore. Wearied with its close confinement, three passengers, two of whom are General Palmer, president of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad, who, with General Rosecrans, is seeking the extension of that system in Mexico, and Mr. Parish, their European financial representative, propose to spend on shore the day in which we are to remain here. We are met with protestations from various quarters. We are told that we will be sun-struck; will get the calentura, or fever; that the fleas will take possession of us; that a Norther will arise, and we can not get back to the steamer; and thus hobgoblins dire are piled on our path. The American minister, returning home, grand and genial, adds his preventive persuasions. But none of these things move us. We go. The captain of the boat which is rowing us ashore enlivens our depressed spirits with encouraging stories about the abundance of monkeys and parrots, of lions and tigers, and deer and wild boars, and every such terror and delight—none of which we see.

We land at a wharf covered with bales of hemp, and brown-skinned natives in their white suits. On it stands a small, pale-faced gentleman, whom we find to be Mr. Tappan, of Boston, the consular agent, and grandson of the minister who wrote the plaintive and pretty verses beginning,

It is almost always fortunate for an American abroad if the United States official be an American. He knows his language, the first important consideration, and he knows what the visitor wants to know, the second and not less important consideration. Our Boston friend is expert in these two excellences. He takes us across