ments could permit us to devote to New Spain, and that from circumstances hereafter to be explained, one third of this time was swallowed up on the very threshold of the country. My next shall introduce you to the Fonda de la Bolzn, as our melancholy place of sojourn at Tampico.
LETTER II.
It was well that our minds, on landing, were really disposed to contentment, and that we were inclined to overlook minor grievances in our escape from far greater, otherwise, there were circumstances attending our first debut in this land of delights, teeming, as we supposed, with gold and silver, and the richest fruits of the earth, which were certainly far from agreeable, setting aside the causes of trial at which I hinted at the close of my last letter.
The first thing we experienced, which considerably surprised us on placing foot in the town, was the great difficulty of finding a shelter: and we were in the end fain to put up, all three, with a small room in the second story of a square, ill-built, open, wood barrack, the ground floor of which served as a billiard room and gambling house to the piebald population of Tampico de las Tamaulipas.
The second thing which quite horrified us, was the difficulty of procuring food wherewith to satisfy the appetites of three able-bodied gentlemen just from sea. Eggs we found were rare, meat was rarer, bread the rarest of all: and, except at certain hours of the day when it was doled forth in most apologetic morsels, could not be had for love and money.
The third thing in my list, which nearly petrified us, was the cold. Lying under the tropic of Cancer, we
