Life in Mexico : during a residence of two years in that country / by Madame Calderon de la Barca.

  • Frances Erskine Inglis
Date:
[1913]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Life in Mexico : during a residence of two years in that country / by Madame Calderon de la Barca. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    mourning signs amongst the passengers. Every one has tied up his head in an angry-looking silken bandana, drawn over his nose with a dogged air. Beards are unshaven, a black stubble covering the lemon-coloured countenance, which occasionally bears a look of sulky defiance, as if its owner were, like Juliet, “past hope, past cure, past help. 7th.—This morning the monotony of fine weather was relieved by a hearty squall, accompanied by torrents of rain, much thunder, and forked lightning. The ship reeled to and fro like a drunken man, and the passengers, as usual in such cases, performed various involuntary evolutions, cutting right angles, sliding, spinning round, and rolling over, as if Oberon’s magic horn were playing an occasional blast amidst the roaring winds; whilst the stewards alone, like Horace’s good man, walked serene amidst the wreck of crockery and the fall of plates. Driven from our stronghold on deck, indiscriminately crammed in below like figs in a drum; “weltering,” as Carlyle has it, “like an Egyptian pitcher of tamed vipers,” the cabin windows all shut in, we tried to take it coolly, in spite of the suffocating heat. There is a child on board who is certainly possessed, not by a witty malicious demon, a diahle boiteux, but by a teasing, stupid, wicked imp, which inspires him with the desire of tormenting everything human that comes within his reach. Should he escape being thrown overboard, it will show a wonderful degree of forbearance on the part of the passengers. 8th.—The weather is perfect, but the wind inexorable; and the passengers, with their heads tied up, look more gloomy than ever. Some sit dejected in corners, and some quarrel with their neighbours, thus finding a safety-valve by which their wrath may escape. 9th.—There is no change in the wind, yet the gentlemen have all brightened up, taken off their handkerchiefs and shaved, as if ashamed of their six days’ impatience, and making up their minds to a sea-life. This morning we saw land; a long, low ridge of hills on the island of Eleu- thera, where they make salt, and where there are many negroes. Neither salt nor negroes visible to the naked eye; nothing but the gray outline of the hills, melting into the sea and sky ; and having tacked about all day, we found ourselves in the evening precisely opposite to this same island. There are Job’s comforters on board, who
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