round--not a tree, or shrub, or flower, or bird, except the horrid black
sopilote, or police-officer. All looks as if the prophet Jeremiah had
passed through the city denouncing woe to the dwellers thereof. Such a
melancholy, wholly deserted-looking burial-ground as we saw!

War and revolutions have no doubt done their work, yet I find difficulty in
believing those who speak of Vera Cruz as having been a gay and delightful
residence in former days, though even now, those who have resided here for
any length of time, even foreigners, almost invariably become attached to
it; and as for those born here, they are the truest of patriots, holding up
Vera Cruz as superior to all other parts of the world.

The city was founded by the Viceroy, Count de Monterey, at the end of the
seventeenth century, and ought not to be confounded, as it sometimes is,
with either of the two colonies founded by the first Spaniards. Built in
front of the island of San Juan de Ulua, it has one interesting
recollection attached to it, since on the same arid shores, Cortes
disembarked more than three centuries ago. Unlike the green and fertile
coast which gladdened the eyes of Columbus, the Spanish conqueror beheld a
bleak and burning desert, whose cheerless aspect might well have deterred a
feebler mind from going further in search of the paradise that existed
behind.

We returned to the house, and heard some ladies play upon a harp, so
called, a small, light instrument in that form, but without pedals, so
light, that they can lift it with one hand; and yet the music they bring
from it is surprising; one air after another, a little monotonously, but
with great ease and a certain execution, and with the additional merit of
being self-taught.