loop-holes and slit with turrets, and crowned with a tower, projecting into the sidewalk, and well adjusted to hurl grenades and shoot rifles at assailants below.
The open court, into which the entrance instantly leads, is often full of armed men and horses, called to accompany their leader on his official excursions. The rattling of spurs on its pavement, and clinking of the ornaments of the horsemen and their horses, are familiar sounds. The patio is European and antique; an elegant stairway to the upper story begins opposite the entrance; a balcony runs around that story, well faced with exquisite flowers of every tropical delight, and rooms open from it, spacious and elegant. Everywhere wealth and refinement prevail. The luxurious air of Mexico is about us, and the old times are yet more around us. How did we get here, and why? Thereby hangs a tale. Let the city walks and rides rest a while, as we unfold the panorama of this our first excursion into the country. That, as every thing else here, is attended with danger.
"Dangers stand thick through all the ground,"
we have to constantly sing, and not only sing it, but "sense" it, as the backwoods thinker strongly puts it. One must look sharp, or he will be in the condition of the lepers in Samaria, who were in danger of perishing whether they staid in the city or went without the walls. There seems to be about an equal danger of being robbed, kidnaped, and otherwise abused, whether you remain in the city or go into the country.
For instance, right opposite my hotel, a gentleman of a rich family was kidnaped a few months ago, as he was returning from the opera at an early hour of the night, not later than ten, and confined in a room not far from the Grand Plaza for nine days, being put in a hole in the ground, and knives so placed that any movement of his body would thrust them into him. So it is not without peril even to remain in the hotel, or, rather, to go to the opera, a possibility also elsewhere, but of another sort. He was discovered by the tell-tale of a woman, who had the sweet revenge of seeing
