PUEBLO VIEJO. 



37 



1 have a bad memory, but I recollect that such a thing 

 as change for a dollar was never required ; indeed, it 

 was as much as you could do to get it for a doubloon. 

 I recollect we paid eight Spanish dollars for a ham ; and 

 that to shoe a horse, required three dollars a shoe, and 

 a dollar to a man to hold the animal's nose : though all our 

 steeds were patient as sheep, expostulation was vain — 

 such was the custom. 



The heat grew more and more oppressive daily, the 

 moschetoes more bloodthirsty at evening, and more 

 knowing in their attacks upon the faulty corners of our 

 moscheto nets during the watches of the night. The 

 nights were splendid, with a glorious round moon beam- 

 ing on the river and on the lakes, by the light of which 

 the wild dogs on the opposite shore held most uproar- 

 ious festivals, to the utter destruction of our rest— the 

 more so, as the numerous dogs of the town never ceased 

 to yell in concert. 



The 24th of February the heat was almost unbearable ; 

 but in the afternoon a film w 7 as drawn over the sky and 

 across the sun, and before midnight we were all shiver- 

 ing in a norte. However, we had sent our horses over 

 the river to Pueblo Viejo the preceding day, and deter- 

 mined to proceed. We left our prison about 10 a.m., 

 crossing the boiling surface of the river with our bag- 

 gage, not without danger ; after a thousand detentions, 

 finally got to horse, and on the approach of the evening, 

 in spite of the lowering sky, advanced two leagues on 

 our route inland to Tampico Alta, once, at the time of 

 the conquest, if historians lie not, a town with seventy 

 thousand inhabitants, now a village of two dozen poor 

 huts, and a small rudely built church. It is situated on a 

 high commanding bluff, within view of the gulf, and 

 rising over an upland and undulating country, carpeted 

 with magnificent shrubberies of low trees and bushes. 

 Over the general level of the vegetation, here and there 

 a gigantic banian spread its hundred arms, the resort of 

 numberless parrots ; or the high white pyramidal clus- 

 ter of flowers of the Spanish palmetto rose conspicuous- 

 ly above the bushes. 



D 



