Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/37

Rh The forests all around abound with game, quail, deer, wild turkeys, pheasants, partridges of two varieties, &c., &c. It is a paradise for a hunter, and the waters of the bay abound with fish of all kinds.

The rain came pouring down in torrents for two days in succession, so that leaving for Colima was out of the question. Meantime we had nothing to do but go around and see the sights, such as they are. The beautiful white coffee of Colima, which is superior to the best Mocha, and sells here for a little less than thirty-three cents per pound, was carefully examined. Then the delicate-flavored and almost pure white-sugar of Jalisco, which sells at ten cents per pound, was duly sampled and pronounced excellent and cheap. Tropical fruits, oranges, lemons, limes, sweet lemons, pomegranates, melons, bananas, and various others, nuts, etc., are abundant and cheap. In the court-yard of one of our hosts, Mr. Dieckman, we found trees loaded with oranges and zapotes, and at the lower end of the town, a cocoa palm tree, covered with nuts of all sizes.

We found cigars equal to a fair Havana, made a Tepic, selling for two dollars per one hundred, neatly put up in boxes. The temptation to smuggle a few of them into San Francisco, if we had been going that way, would have been almost irresistible. Half a million of silver dollars came down here from Guadalajara, in September, by one train or conducta, and were sent to San Francisco by the Golden City, which steamer brought them immediately back, on the way to New York or Europe, via Panama. They were on board when we came down the coast. Even the poorest people appear to have some small change, and there is far more money in the country, apparently, than our people, who form