Page:Our Neighbor-Mexico.djvu/45

Rh As we go to the cars, I measure the leaves of lilies growing wild along the track. From the central joint to the tip, I could lay my arm from the elbow to the tip of the finger—just a cubit, or a foot and a half. The whole leaf was over two feet in length, and of corresponding breadth. This was the size of nearly all of them. An Indian and his wife were gathering oranges. Huge fruit, as big as small pumpkins, hung from bushes not unlike the quince. Such is this land; are you not home-sick for it? If so, let me make you contented to stay where you are, by trying to describe that indescribable horror which you must or may encounter to get here.

I had heard of simoons and cyclones, and hurricanes and Hatteras storms, but till I touched this Gulf steamer I had never heard of a "Norther." I began to hear hints about its possibility, and how, when it raged, no ship could leave Havana or land at Vera Cruz; that it occurred about every four or five days this season of the year, and that every seaman disliked and even dreaded it.

Our vessel had pushed on a swift and even keel to the last day but one. I was about concluding that the semi-qualmish state would not develop any more violent stages, and was even getting ready to follow Byron, and stroke the mane of this wild beast of the world, that rages and devours from shore to shore —even as a scared child, holding firmly to the parental arms and legs, may rub its tiny hand on the neck of the huge dog that has frightened it—when, lo! at five o'clock in the morning, after leaving Progresso, I was slung violently up and down, clinging in desperation to the door of the room, which was, fortunately, fastened back to my berth. The ship seemed on its beam-ends. Up and down she flung herself in a rage of fear or madness. Up and down we followed, sick and scared.

After much ground and lofty tumbling, the berth is abandoned, with great reeling and sickness, for the deck. Perched among the shrouds that lash the base of the mast, or reeling along the side of the drunken vessel, I enjoy the Norther. The sea is capped with