14 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



but added, with great courtesy, that, if I wished it, he 

 would detain her a few days for my convenience. 

 Used to submitting to the despotic regulations of steam- 

 boat agents at home, this seemed a higher honour than 

 the invitation of his excellency ; but, not wishing to 

 push my fortune too far, I asked a delay of one day 

 only. 



The Government House stands in a handsome situ- 

 ation at the extreme end of the town, with a lawn ex- 

 tending to the water, and ornamented with cocoanut- 

 trees. Colonel M' Donald, a veteran six feet high, and 

 one of the most military-looking men I ever saw, re- 

 ceived me at the gate. In an hour the dory arrived 

 with our luggage, and at five o'clock we sat down to 

 dinner. We had at table Mr. Newport, chaplain, and 

 for fifteen years parish clergyman at Balize ; Mr. Walk- 

 er, secretary of the government, and holding, besides, 

 such a list of offices as would make the greatest plu- 

 ralist among us feel insignificant ; and several other 

 gentlemen of Balize, office-holders, civil and military, 

 in whose agreeable society we sat till eleven o'clock. 



The next day we had to make preparations for our 

 journey into the interior, besides which we had an 

 opportunity of seeing a little of Balize. The Hon- 

 duras Almanac, which assumes to be the chronicler of 

 this settlement, throws a romance around its early 

 history by ascribing its origin to a, Scotch bucanier 

 nanled Wallace. The fame of the wealth of the New 

 World, and the return of the Spanish galleons laden 

 with the riches of Mexico and Peru, brought upon 

 the coast of America hordes of adventurers — to call 

 them by no harsher name — from England and France, 

 of whom Wallace, one of the most noted and daring, 

 found refuge and security behind the keys and reefs 



