DAGUERREOTYPE PORTRAIT TAKING. 101 



art, and not for lucre, we held that we had a right 

 to select our subjects. Accordingly, we had but to 

 signify our wishes, and the next morning put our 

 house in order for the reception of our fair visiters. 

 We cleared everything out of the hammock, took 

 the washhand basin off the chair, and threw odds 

 and ends into one corner ; and as the sun was pour- 

 ing its rays warmly and brightly into our door, it 

 was farther lighted up by the entry of three young 

 ladies, with their respective papas and mammas. 

 We had great difficulty in finding them all seats, 

 and were obliged to put the two mammas into the 

 hammock together. The young ladies were dressed 

 in their prettiest costume, with earrings and chains, 

 and their hair adorned with flowers. All were pret- 

 ty, and one was much more than pretty; not in the 

 style of Spanish beauty, with dark eyes and hair, 

 but a delicate and dangerous blonde, simple, natural, 

 and unaffected, beautiful without knowing it, and 

 really because she could not help it. Her name, too, 

 was poetry itself. I am bound to single her out, for, 

 late on the evening of our departure from Merida, 

 she sent us a large cake, measuring about three 

 feet in circumference by six inches deep, which, 

 by-the-way, everything being packed up, I smother- 

 ed into a pair of saddle-bags, and spoiled some of my 

 scanty stock of wearing apparel. 



The ceremonies of the reception over, we made 

 immediate preparations to begin. Much form and 

 circumstance were necessary in settling prelimina- 



i 



