Page:The Rambler in Mexico.djvu/13



I my correspondence with you, and herewith send you a few sheets containing a chronicle of my vernal rambles in New Spain.

The present recital introduces you to the same principal dramatis personæ, and opens, where my last closed—on board the goelette Halcyon, in the gulf of Mexico; somewhere about latitude 28º north, longitude 92º west, or within a hundred miles, more or less, of the tropic of Cancer. It was the fifteenth of January, 1834; wind from the eastward, light but steady; sky serene, and every prospect of a fair and fortunate voyage. The distance from the Balize lighthouse at the entrance of the Mississippi, to the bar of Tampico, towards which the head of our little vessel was directed, is about six hundred miles.

From this date, up to the fourth day at noon—so favourable were the auspices under which our voyage was continued, always excepting the confined position, sea-sickness, and the bad company on board—we never shifted a sail. They may really be said to have been halcyon days. We were then, by computation, a little more than forty miles from our port. Towards evening it fell calm; and during the succeeding night, the stars, and the moon in her second quarter, glistened upon the deck, as it swam with the heavy dews of the tropics.

But that you may better enter into the state of our