Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/535

Rh That evening our steamer sailed away for Havana, and as the sun went down in the west I sat on the deck smoking my last cigarrito, wrapped in smoke and thought, and saw the palm-fringed shore of Mexico slowly sink down in the horizon and fade away from sight. From sight, but not from memory! Beautiful, unfortunate Mexico; in all my after years, what visions of thee and thine will haunt me day and night!

Again shall I see the gay flotilla moving up the Laguna de Cayutlan, the wooded hills and tropical valley of La Calera; Colima—the beloved of the sun—with her gardens, ruins, and palm groves, and her great smoking volcano for a back ground, will be before me. Again shall I see the gallant cavalcade and the flashing arms of the Guard of Jalisco, filing through the great Barranca de Beltran, or moving by torchlight over the hills of San Marcos. I shall see the full, round moon rise over beautiful Guadalajara, and hear the soft love song and notes of the light guitar, or watch the beauties of Mexico's cities floating through the voluptuous mazes of the danza. Again I shall see the blaze, and listen to the roar of the fire-balls, as they come crashing down into the dark depths of the earth, in the mines of Guanajuato. Again shall I tread your bloodstained battle fields, on which the problem of free government in America was decided; again stand by the little mound of stones and the three black crosses which mark an epoch in the world's history, amid the waving corn-fields at the foot of the lone Cerro de Las Campanas. Again, and yet again, shall I tread the deserted halls of Chapultepec, and look down on the fair valley and city of Mexico, and up to mighty Popocatapetl crowned with eternal snow. Again shall I stand where