off her forehead, and fixed at the back with a large gilded comb; she wears large gold earrings, and if she is prosperous two or three coloured bead and golden necklaces round her neck.
It always seems to me as if all the sorrows of the race had sunk into the Mestizas' eyes; even when the face breaks into a smile it is a sad smile, and in the dance it is the men who grow active and excited and echo the passionate dancing of Spain, whilst the women are graceful but slow in movement, with downcast eyes, as though to mark the Indian side of the mixed blood. Of course there is a drinking-shop attached to the dancing-room; but it is pleasanter outside in the roadway, where the old women have lit their lamps under the trees and set up their supper-tables and stalls of food and fruit, and where the light does not fall too strongly one hears a low murmur of voices and occasionally a little cry of protest. And now my friends the sea-captains are in their element they keep the barmen hard at work opening numberless bottles of lager beer; they lead out the prettiest of the dancing girls, not always to the satisfaction of their duskier partners, and feast them to their heart's content on all the dainties which the old women's stalls afford, whilst they keep up a conversation in the most wonderful jargon of broken Spanish and scraps of every other language under the sun.
For the first three days Laguna was amusing enough it was not a highly moral atmosphere, but the surroundings were quaint and often picturesque, and my sailor friends were full of good stories and strange experiences: but before the end of a week I fled at the sight of a sea-captain, so as to avoid the inevitable drink which followed a meeting, and in spite of the heat of the afternoon sun I explored every road leading out of the town. Uninteresting enough they all proved to be, for after passing the suburbs which began with the white-washed adobe walls and thatched roofs of the houses of the Mestizos and ended in wattle huts bowered in shady trees and cocoanut-palms, I was always brought to a stop by the surrounding swamp. At last I settled down to a daily walk to the lighthouse on the point and a long stretch over the sandy beach, which was pleasant enough when the breeze was blowing and kept off the swarms of sand-flies but sometimes the wind dropped, and then I wished myself back even in the stifling sun-baked streets of Laguna.
During the last part of the two weary weeks I had to pass in the town, much of my time was passed in the Custom House. Orders had come from Mexico to pass all my stores free of duty; but this did not prevent the Custom House officers opening every case and weighing the contents, and making out endless lists with gross and net weight and much unnecessary
