232 



PORTO BELLO. 



[1826. 



redeem my promise by sending you a brief sketch of my * voyages and 

 travels' to this interesting section of the globe. But if you find it, as I 

 fear you will, totally barren of interest, you must rest contented with 

 the assurance that it was well intended. 



"I sailed from New-York on the twenty-first of March, in the 

 schooner Selina ; not indeed as commander, but still with the privi- 

 lege of the quarter-deck, and in poetical language any vessel is a ship, be 

 her rig what it may. The object of my voyage is not important to ' the 

 subject of my story ;' still your curiosity maybe gratified on that score 

 by calling at 4 our house' (meaning the counting-room before men- 

 tioned). My motives for accepting a commission so seriously inter- 

 fering with my interests and feelings, and so repugnant to the wishes 

 of my family, were briefly these : — I wished to convince my friends 

 (who were alarmed for my welfare, in consequence of my having made 

 a few successful essays as a tragedian), that their fears were ground- 

 less, that I could still attend to business, and that I had no thoughts 

 of abandoning the commercial pursuits to which, from early youth, I 

 had been so assiduously devoted. I presume I have convinced them ; 

 but not without a serious sacrifice on my part. Various engagements, 

 the least of which would probably have filled my pockets, were before 

 me soliciting acceptance, when I agreed to embark on this mission. 



"I shall say nothing of my excessive sea-sickness, our narrow 

 escapes from pirates, the tremendous storms we encountered, and such- 

 like hair-breadth escapes ; but bring you to Porto Bello at once, which 

 we made on the twentieth day of our passage. It rained very vio- 

 lently just before I landed ; and during the shower I saw a negro in a 

 state of nudity, seated on a rock, with his apology for a garment care- 

 fully placed beneath him to screen it from the wet. When the shower 

 was over, and his ebony skin dried in the sun, he then resumed his dry 

 clothes. This I believe is a universal practice here, it being danger- 

 ous at this season to wear a damp, much less a saturated garment, to 

 check the perspiration. The first thing that attracted my attention on 

 landing was the squalid filthiness of the place. On the apex of each 

 house or hovel, which have thatched pyramidical roofs, was perched a 

 carrion bird, with wings out-spread, drying in the sun. 



" I lost no time in paying my respects to the governor, for whom I 

 had divers presents. Not being au fait to the etiquette, I felt a little 

 palpitation lest I should omit some ceremonial. With my merchant — 

 the only one I believe in the place — I wended my way to his excel- 

 lency's mansion. It was one of an extensive block of buildings, uni- 

 form in their architecture (if architecture it may be called), each with 

 a court in the centre, surrounded by balconies or piazzas. We passed 

 through an open entrance or court, penetrating the building, and abun- 

 dantly filthy. On this score a New- York livery-stable is a palace to 

 it. A flight of stairs which mop or broom had apparently never vio- 

 lated, landed us in a tolerably capacious hall, whence we emerged into 

 a sort of anteroom, without carpet, or any ornament to relieve or 

 heighten the want of order and cleanliness so manifest. A hammock 

 was slung nearly in the centre, in which lay the son of his excellency ; 

 and a lady, in complexion like the queen of spades, received my inter- 



