We finally arrived at Tuxpam in the morning at nine o'clock. As I reflected upon the experiences of the past two weeks I shuddered at the very thought of returning. It is doubtful if all the riches in this tropical land could have tempted me again to undergo the tortures and anxiety of body and mind that fell to my portion on that journey. It was an epoch long to be remembered.[6] [6] After a lapse of twelve years I can recall the incidents and sensations of the journey from Tampico to Tuxpam as connectedly and vividly as though it had been but a week ago. Tuxpam is a pleasant sanitary town of perhaps five thousand inhabitants situated on the banks of the beautiful Tuxpam River a few miles inland from the coast. The town is built on both sides of the river, which carries off all the refuse and drainage to the ocean below. This being a narrative of experiences rather than a history of towns and villages, I have purposely refrained from long-drawn-out topographical descriptions. The reader is doubtless familiar with the general details of the crude architecture that characterizes all Mexican villages and cities, and a detailed recital of this would be a needless repetition of well-known facts, for there is a monotonous sameness in the appearance of all Mexican towns and villages. For the purpose of this narrative it matters little to the reader whether the people of Tuxpam are all Aztecs, Spaniards, French or Indians, though in point of fact they consist of a sprinkling of all of these. Tuxpam itself is simply a characteristic Mexican town, but it should be here permanently recorded that it has within its precincts one of the most adorable women to whom the Lord ever gave the breath of life: Mrs. Messick, the widow of the former American consul, is a native Mexican of ebony hue, but with a heart as large and charitable and true as ever beat in a human breast. She is far from prepossessing in appearance, and yet to look upon her amiable features and to converse with her in her broken English is a treat long to be remembered. Her commodious home is a veritable haven for every orphan, cripple, blind or otherwise infirm person that comes within her range of vision, and her retinue of servants, with herself at their head, are constantly engaged in cooking, washing and otherwise caring for the comforts and alleviating the sufferings of those unfortunates who are her special charges. She furnishes an illustrious example of the spirit of a saint inhabiting a bodily form, and it is almost worth the trip to Mexico to find that the native race can boast a character of such noble instincts.