1832.] Women are the Devil! 635 



and which my vanity obliges me to translate thus, " I am highly de- 

 lighted." 



In the course of half an hour La Senhora Dolorcitta -for that was her 

 name and myself were as well acquainted as if we had known each other 

 from childhood. When I recollected that I should enjoy the society of 

 this fair creature for eighteen or twenty days, imagination revelled in the 

 thought, and forthwith raised an aerial structure of hope a structure 

 not destined to last long -, for I had not once calculated on the number 

 of days that sea-sickness might possibly abstract her from my society. 

 Scarcely had the ship passed the bar of the harbour, than this frightful 

 possibility flashed across my mind with dismaying certainty. Her clear 

 pale complexion suddenly assumed the yellow greenish hue of the lime ; 

 but even then she was beautiful. " Santa madre de Jesus yo me muero, 

 cavallero," she exclaimed, as I applied some restoratives to her nostrils, 

 and carried her to the side of the vessel. " Ah ! dios mio," she ex- 

 claimed, " pareceme que esta me saliendo el alma por la boca," and 

 from what followed this dolorous exclamation, I really began to imagine 

 it possible " for the soul to escape through the mouth." In a state of the 

 most helpless insensibility we carried her to her cabin ; to which, to my 

 great chagrin and disappointment, she was confined for fourteen days, 

 during which time, as the only person on board acquainted with the 

 Spanish language, I was obliged to officiate as nurse. 



All the usual remedies on such occasions were offered to the fair Monte 

 Videan, but steadily refused, to the consternation of the captain, who 

 pronounced such a diet to be fatal; and I must own I had my own mis- 

 givings on the subject. She would take nothing but hard boiled eggs 

 and port wine, alleging that the vacuum produced in the system by con- 

 tinual sea-sickness required to be filled up by something solid and 

 nourishing in its nature. I should like to have the opinion of the West- 

 minster Medical Society on this subject : the result certainly proved the 

 captain to be in the wrong, and the Senhoritta in the right ; for the fif- 

 teenth day of the passage saw the vessel becalmed beneath the headland 

 of Cape Frio, and the fair Senoritta perfectly recovered. Sheltered from 

 the burning rays of a tropical sun by the wide-spreading awning on the 

 poop of the vessel, and looking beautiful as Cleopatra when she sailed 

 down the Cydnus to meet her Roman lover beautiful exceedingly she 

 looked, reclining on an Indian mat, her slender form half concealed by 

 the graceful mantilla ; at her feet lay her guitar ornamented with green 

 and yellow ribbons, the colours of the new empire; while her two black 

 slaves, with their crimson turbans and picturesque costume, formed a 

 beautiful background to the picture. 



I know not how it is, but with a Spanish woman the current of our 

 thoughts invariably runs on love. The Senhoritta's ideas were exattes 

 She dwelt on the inconstancy of men, and the vengeance that should fol- 

 low unrequited love. " Her husband," she said, " if ever she were 

 plagued with one, would be free to possess half a dozen mistresses if he 

 liked it ; but," she added, while her dark eye flashed fire, and her beautiful 

 countenance was lighted up with a Medean expression of rage, " if he ex- 

 posed me to the ridicule of the public, I would kill him ! " and so I verily 

 believe she would, for her spirit was of the real Castilian breed. " But I 

 shall never marry, amigo." "And why not, Senhoritta?" " Casarme 

 carallero" she resumed in a tone of reproach, while her lip indignantly 



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