390 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



men were sitting on the portico, of a most homelike ap- 

 pearance. One was Don Carlos Russell, the consul. 

 The face of the other was familiar to me ; and learn- 

 ing that we had come from Guatimala, he asked news 

 of me, which I was most happy to give him in person. 

 It was Captain Fensley, whose acquaintance I had 

 made in New- York when seeking information about 

 that country, and with whom I had spoken of sailing to 

 Campeachy ; but at the moment I did not recognise 

 him, and in my costume from the interior it was impos- 

 sible for him to recognise me. He was direct from 

 New- York, and gave the first information we had re- 

 ceived in a long time from that place, with budgets of 

 newspapers, burdened with suspension of specie pay- 

 ments and universal ruin. Some of my friends had 

 been playing strange antics ; but in the important mat- 

 ters of marriages and deaths I did not find anything to 

 give me either joy or sorrow. 



Don Carlos Russell, or Mr. Charles Russell, was a 

 native of Philadelphia, married to a Spanish lady of 

 large fortune, and, though long absent, received us 

 as one who had not forgotten his home. His house, 

 his table, all that he had, even his purse, were at our 

 service. Our first congratulations over, we sat down 

 to a dinner which rivalled that of our friend of Totonica- 

 pan. We could hardly believe ourselves the same mis- 

 erable beings who had been a few hours before tossing 

 on the lake, in dread alike of the bottom and of anoth- 

 er night on board the bungo. The reader must have 

 gone through what we had to form any idea of our en- 

 joyment. The negro who served us at table had been 

 waiter at the house of an acquaintance in Broadway ; 

 we seemed but a step from home, and at night we had 

 clean sheets furnished us by our host. 



