Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/78

72 four dollars—deserved his fate. Then she fell insensible to the pavement.

When the sympathizing women had restored her to consciousness, she rushed to the house of Señor Huarte, and fell on her knees before one of our party, mistaking him for Mr. Seward. She was taken away by the police before she could see him, and so he was saved the useless pain of meeting her. Gov. Cueva, being told that the prisoner was apparently insane, sent two physicians to examine him, but they reported him thoroughly sound in mind; and as he had no power to pardon him, that being reserved to the State Legislature and the President, while a reprieve would be no mercy, he ordered, as a mark of respect to Mr. Seward, that the execution be delayed until we were out of the city. Our coaches had hardly rolled off the last pavement of Colima, before there was a sharp rattle of musketry from the river's bank, a puff of blue smoke curled up above the house-tops, and drifted away in the clear morning air, and the story of a life was told.

A few miles out of Colima the character of the country begins to change from ultra-tropical to semi-tropical. We drove over execrable roads, between wide fields of rice, now half-grown and richly green, beautiful castor-beans, and Indian corn. The cocoa-palms decreased in number, and finally, at twenty miles north-east of Colima, entirely disappeared, while the bananas grew less thriftily and abundant. The land, where not cultivated, was everywhere covered with rich, nutritious grasses, and cattle and sheep abounded. We have no grass, properly speaking, in California, the wild oat out there taking its place, and these green, grassy fields appeared more beautiful to me from the fact that I had not