Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/521

Rh castle. They have been used in some places to make a breakwater, with the reef in which the castle is built, and are all now utterly worthless save for old iron; they will soon be worthless even for that purpose. Many old Spanish guns of the finest metal, thrown into the sea years ago, are still lying in the shallow water around the castle, and might be converted into ploughshares and pruning-hooks to the benefit of the country, but probably never will be.

I have spoken more freely of the castle of San Juan de Ulloa, and what I saw there, from the fact that I visited it independent of Mr. Seward, who did not go over until some days later; but it is not a pleasant subject to me under any circumstances. I am heartily glad that I went there, and thankful for the attention and courtesy which enabled me to inspect it throughout, but I am glad that I shall not look upon it, nor on its like, again.

In every life there is a question unanswered, a doubt unsolved, a mystery unexplained, which becomes more and more a subject of irritation and annoyance as age progresses. A positive insult may be forgiven, and time cicatrizes the wound inflicted by the fang of slander, or the physical assassin's weapon. But the doubt is worse than the reality.

What old bachelor, tottering down the hill of life alone, would not feel a sense of inexpressible relief, could he but know, to a certainty, that Jane Smith, on whom he was so spooney at twenty-one, would have refused him, out and out, had he dared to ask her the momentous question? He did not ask the question, and to day is in doubt whether, after all, she might not have said yes, instead of no, and so changed the whole