330 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



whole stock of merchandise was worth perhaps twenty 

 or thirty dollars ; but Don Santiago was entirely a differ- 

 ent style of man from one in such small business in this 

 country or Europe ; courteous in manners, and intelli- 

 gent for that country ; he was dressed in white panta- 

 loons and red slippers, a clean shirt with an embroider- 

 ed bosom, and suspenders, which probably cost more 

 than all the rest of his habiliments, and were not to be 

 hidden under coat and waistcoat. In this place, which 

 had before seemed to me so much out of the world, I 

 was brought more directly in contact with home than 

 at any other I visited. The chair on which I sat came 

 from New- York ; also a small looking-glass, two pieces 

 of American " cottons," and the remnant of a box of 

 vermicelli, of the existence of which in the place I was 

 not before advised. The most intimate foreign relations 

 of the inhabitants were with New- York, through the 

 port of Tobasco. They knew a man related to a family 

 in the village who had actually been at New- York, and 

 a barrel of New- York flour, the bare mention of which 

 created a yearning, had once reached the place. In 

 fact, New- York was more familiar to them than any 

 other part of the world except the capital. Don San- 

 tiago had a copy of Zavala's tour in the United States, 

 which, except a few volumes of the lives of saints, was 

 his library, and which he knew almost by heart ; and 

 they had kept up with our political history so well as to 

 know that General Washington was not president, but 

 General Jackson. 



The padre of Tumbala, he of two hundred and forty 

 pounds' weight, was somewhat of an exquisite in dress 

 for that country, and had brought with him his violin. 

 He was curious to know the state of musical science in 

 my country, and whether the government supported 



