Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/187

Rh business in that ancient city; yet it goes on the same, in spite of the dead and dying. A friend just up from the coast tells me that he saw eight bodies carried out the morning he arrived. Yet the residents there treat the matter lightly. The late American Consul, Dr. Trowbridge, who has had a successor appointed, after twelve years of service, retires in health, and laughing at the reports of fever. He is waiting for his successor. If I were that man I should let him wait,—at least till cooler weather came. Dr. Trowbridge and his family had yellow fever the first week they came to Vera Cruz, while his predecessor, who had held the office many years, and had resigned, died before he could leave the city. It is strange, yet I hear there were hundreds of applicants for that precarious consulship at Vera Cruz, where an escape from the clutches of 'Yellow Jack' is an exception. Are offices, then, so scarce up North? "

A week later the paper quoted from above contained this item:—

"Hon. E. H. Rogers, of Nebraska, who was recently appointed Consul at Vera Cruz, died last Monday from the fatal effects of the climate.

"Mr. Rogers had but just arrived, and had not entered upon the discharge of his duties when his death occurred. Much sorrow is felt in this city over the sad news. The funeral rites of the deceased were observed at the Evangelical Church of Vera Cruz."

I was in the city of Mexico when the news of the appointment of the new Consul reached us there, and remember that we all speculated as to the probable length of his stay, expecting he would soon be taken with the vomito, but little dreaming of such a fatal termination. Again, in returning through Vera Cruz in September, on my way back to the United States, I experienced the welcome hospitality of the Trowbridges, and under date of that visit find the following entry in my notebook:—

"At the United States consulate, all the old family who have been there so long, and have made Americans so welcome, were residing, except Dr. Trowbridge, the head of it, who was absent in the United States. The sad ending of the recent attempt to replace him, by the death of his successor after but thirteen days' residence, should read a lesson to those in office in Washington, who appoint men to foreign stations for which they are not qualified nor acclimated. The twelve years'