A PROJECTOR. 



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head of the street, in the centre of a grassy square. On 

 each side of the square were houses with the forest di- 

 rectly upon them ; and, being a little elevated in the 

 plaza, we were on a line with the tops of the trees. 

 The largest house on the square was deserted and in 

 ruins. There were a dozen other houses occupied by 

 white families, with whom, in the course of an hour's 

 stroll, I became acquainted. It was but to stop before 

 the door, and I received an invitation, " Pasen ade- 

 lante," "Walk in, captain," for which title I was in- 

 debted to the eagle on my hat. Each family had its 

 hacienda in . the neighbourhood, and in the course of an 

 hour I knew all that was going on in Palenque ; i., e., 

 I knew that nothing was going on. 



At the upper end of the square, commanding this 

 scene of quiet, was the house of an American named 

 William Brown ! It was a strange place for the abode 

 of an American, and Mr. Brown was a regular " go- 

 ahead" American. In the great lottery he had drawn 

 a Palenquian wife, which in that quiet place probably 

 saved him from dying of ennui. What first took him 

 to the country I do not know ; but he had an exclusive 

 privilege to navigate the Tobasco River by steam, and 

 would have made a fortune, but his steamboat founder- 

 ed on the second trip. He then took to cutting log- 

 wood on a new plan, and came very near making an- 

 other fortune, but something went wrong. At the time 

 of our visit he was engaged in canalling a short cut to 

 the sea, to connect two rivers near his hacienda. To 

 the astonishment of the Palenquians, he was always 

 busy, when he might live quietly on his hacienda in the 

 summer, and pass his winters in the village. Very 

 much to our regret, he was not then in the village. It 



