XI 

 A BIDE FKOM THE PACIFIC TO MEXICO CITY 



1885 



TTEKY early one morning in February last the ss. Granada, 

 V belonging to the Pacific Mail Company, cast anchor in the 

 Bay of Acapulco, in Mexico. She had brought us, my com- 

 panion and me, from Champerico, Guatemala, in fifty-nine hours, 

 steaming slowly in order to enter the narrow harbour by daylight. 

 "We had consulted several people as to the best road from the 

 Pacific coast to the capital of Mexico, and all the various routes 

 from St. Bias, Manzanillo, and Mazatlan had their advocates. 

 Partly to gain time, partly to save money for the steamboat 

 fares between the various ports, thanks to the monopoly which 

 the Pacific Mail Company here enjoys, are outrageously high 

 we at last settled to make our start from Acapulco and had no 

 reason to regret the choice. We were soon landed and installed 

 at the Hotel Louisiana, where the hostess, a lady from New 

 Orleans, and her daughters, did everything to make us com- 

 fortable. An agreeable surprise was in store for us here ; our 

 expectations were completely negatived. Instead of Acapulco 

 being the dirty, unhealthy, fever- stricken spot which in our 

 imagination it had been, we found it quite the reverse ; it wore 

 a very cheerful aspect, the streets were most carefully kept with 

 no heaps of refuse left about, its white-washed houses were 

 dazzling in their brightness, and the hotels, especially as to 

 bedrooms and food, left nothing to be desired. Indeed, the 

 contrast between the hotel Louisiana and the very many inns 

 in Guatemala we had lately visited was very marked, and not 

 at all in favour of the latter. And how prettily the little 



town is situated on the beautiful, almost land-locked harbour, 



120 



