84 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



vous of all Strangers in Merida, and a few days after 

 our arrival there w^as an unprecedented gathering. 

 There v^^ere Mr. Auchincloss and his son, Mr. Tred- 

 weW, Mr. Northrop, Mr. Gleason, and Mr. Robinson, 

 formerly United States consul at Tampico, v^ho had 

 come out passengers by the Lucinda, all citizens of 

 the United States ; and, besides these, the arrival 

 of the schooner of w^ar San Antonio, from Texas, 

 brought among us a citizen of the w^orld, or, at least, 

 of a great part of it. Mr. George Fisher, as appeared 

 by his various papers of naturahzation, W3.s " natu- 

 ral de la ciudad y fortaleza de Belgrada en la pro- 

 vincia de Servia del Imperio Ottomano," or a "native 

 of the city and fortress of Belgrade, in the province 

 of Servia, in the Ottoman Empire." His Sclavonic 

 name w^as Ribar, w^hich in the German language 

 means a Fischer, and at school in Austria it vv^as so 

 translated, from which in the United States it be- 

 came modified to Fisher. At seventeen he embark- 

 ed in a revolution to throw off the yoke of the sul- 

 tan, but the attempt was crushed, and forty thous- 

 and Sclavonians, men, women, and children, were 

 driven across the Danube, and took refuge in the 

 Austrian territory. The Austrian government, not 

 liking the presence of so many revolutionists with- 

 in its borders, authorized the organizing of a Scla- 

 vonic legion. Mr. Fisher entered it, made a cam- 

 paign in Italy, and, at the end of the year, in the 

 interior of the country, where there was no danger 

 of their disseminating revolutionary notions, the le- 



