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day's sail from land is not thought much of by the sea-tossed traveler. The stage-tossed may feel equally comforted. Though the stage is to be my companion more days than the one, still this oceanic stretch in its voyaging will come to a prosperous issue, God willing and working, to-morrow at the heat of the day, which is not noon, but three in the afternoon, in this burning sky.

I was warned last night, at my dismal quarters at Ceral, that this night would be far more miserable. So I fortified myself with big gingerbread swine—their ginger-snaps hereabouts take no other shape—with a French roll, a Bologna sausage that has done duty heretofore as a pistol, its tinfoil covering making it look like a shining silvered barrel, and all the more terrible, as it peeped from my breast-pocket, to the non-appearing robbers. So fearful was I that this would protect me, that it was hidden away in my valise, and is now to be agreeably eaten. That is more than turning swords into pruning-hooks, even pistols into meat. For dulces I had oranges, bananas, and pea-nuts. But the pea-nuts are not baked, and the bananas are hard and horrid, so that I have to fall back on the oranges, and sour they are.

The rancho food thus being provided for, the rest of its accompaniments are easily accepted. On a big log, resting on a white