difficulty in purchasing credits on New York, or any important eastern or southern seaport. [11] It will be understood, of course, that in speaking of Mexico I refer only to the district where I visited. I had the good fortune _not_ to be able to make any satisfactory arrangement for a practical sugar-maker from Cuba. I was more fortunate than my friend Mr. A., in not having any friend there to look out for me. Thus I saved not only the cost of an expert's services, which, comparatively speaking, would have been a trifling item, but was held up in making the contemplated extensions and improvements until my sugar-fever had subsided and I had regained my normal senses, after which I was quite contented to conduct the place in its usual way with a few slight improvements here and there. I had not in so short a time become quite reconciled, however, to the idea that the place could not be run at a profit; but figured that it could be made to yield me a considerable revenue above expenses, and that it would afford a desirable quartering-place for my family on an occasional tropical visit in winter. After returning home later in the season I induced my family to return with me in the fall and spend a part of the following winter there; and although we experienced the novelty on Christmas-day of standing on our front porch and picking luscious ripe oranges from the trees,--one of which stands at each side of the steps,--I have never again been able to bring my persuasive powers to a point where I could induce them to set foot on Mexican soil. It is largely due to the abhorrence of smallpox, malaria, snakes, scorpions, tarantulas, _garrapatas_, fleas, and a few other minor pests and conditions to which they object. Mosquitoes, however, did not molest us at the ranch. Once while we were at the ranch my wife was told by one of the servants that there was a woman at the front door to see her. Upon going into the hall she found that the woman had stepped inside and taken a seat near the door. She arose timidly, with a bundle in her arms--which proved to be a babe--and spoke, but Mrs. Harper could not understand a word she said. The maid had entered the hall immediately behind my wife, and, as she spoke both Spanish and English, the woman explained through her that the baby was suffering with smallpox, and that she had heard that there was an American woman there who could cure it. The resultant confusion in the household beggars description. Every time I mention Mexico at home I get a graphic rehearsal of this scene. The poor woman had walked ten miles, carrying her babe, and thought she was doing no harm in bringing it in and sitting down to rest for a moment. She was put into a boat and taken down the river to Tuxpam by one of the men on the place who had already passed through the stages of this disease, and under the treatment of a Spanish physician whom I had met there the child recovered and was sent back home with its mother.