Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/32

26 Wednesday morning found us crossing the mouth of the Gulf of California, or the Mar de Cortez, as the Spaniards termed it, rain pouring down, the sea rough, and many on board sick, the writer among the number. Accursed be the memory of the man who found the ocean first! At 2, we passed Cape Corrientes, and when night came down with an almost impenetrable pall of darkness on the heaving waste of waters, we were within seventy-five miles of the entrance of the Bay of Manzanillo.

Slowly the great steamer crept along the rock-bound, dangerous coast, feeling her way cautiously as she went, and at 2 o'clock on Thursday morning, almost a week from our leaving San Francisco, we felt that we were once more in smooth water, and the loud report of the steamer's gun conveyed to us the glad tidings that we had entered the harbor of Manzanillo, and finished that portion of our journey comprised in the voyage down the Pacific. The Custom-House officials, Governor Cuerva and staff, and other officers and citizens, came on board at once to receive Mr. Seward, congratulated him on his arrival, and tendered him in behalf of the Republic and its citizens, the hospitalities of the country.

At day-break our baggage was sent ashore and passed at once, unopened, through the Custom House, and the party were then conveyed to the beach in boats carried through the surf to the shore on men's backs to the solid land. "We stood at last on the soil of Mexico, saw the steamer sail away through the storm and disappear in the distance, then turned our faces eastward and looked about upon the strange land to which we had come, and the strange scenes and strange faces which surrounded us.