LETTER THE FOURTH


Distant View of Vera Cruz--Pilots--Boat from the City--Mutual
Salutes--Approach to Vera Cruz--Crowd on the Wharf--House of Dionisio
V---o--Guard of Honour--German Piano--Supper--Madonna--Aspect of the
City--_Sopilotes_--Deliberations--General Guadalupe Victoria--Two-headed
Eagle--Dilapidated Saint--Harp--Theatre--Donna Inocencia
Martinez--Invitation from General Santa Anna.


VERA CRUZ, 18th.


This morning, the sanguine hoped, and the desponding feared, for the wind,
though inclined to _la brisa_, seemed unlikely to prove sufficiently strong
to enable us to reach Vera Cruz--this being the twenty-fifth day since we
left Havana; a voyage that, with a steamer, might be performed in three
days, and with a sailing-vessel and a fair wind, is made in six or seven.
About noon, the aspect of things became more favourable. The breeze grew
stronger, and with it our hopes.

At last appeared in view, faintly, certain spires beside the low sandy
land, which for some time we had anxiously watched, and at length we could
distinguish houses and churches, and the fort of San Juan de Ulua, of
warlike memory. By slow but sure degrees, we neared the shore, until Vera
Cruz, in all its ugliness, became visible to our much-wearied eyes. We had