Our business and sightseeing concluded, we made inquiry as to the way to get to Tuxpam,[2] a small coast town in the State of Vera Cruz, about a hundred miles further south. We inquired of a number of persons and learned of nearly as many undesirable or impossible ways of getting there. There were coastwise steamers from Tuxpam up to Tampico, but none down the coast from Tampico to Tuxpam. After spending a whole day in fruitless endeavor to find a means of transportation we were returning to the hotel late in the afternoon, when a native came running up behind us and asked if we were the Americans who wanted to go to Tuxpam. He said that he had a good sailboat and was to sail for Tuxpam _mañana_ via the _laguna_,--a chain of lakes extending along near the coast from Tampico to Tuxpam, connected by channels ranging in length from a hundred yards to several miles, which in places are very shallow, or totally dry, most of the time. We went back with him to his boat, which we found to be a sturdy-looking craft about thirty feet long, with perhaps a five-foot beam. It was constructed of two large cedar logs hewn out and mortised together. The boatman said he had good accommodations aboard and would guarantee to land us at Tuxpam in seven days. He wanted two hundred dollars (Mexican money, of course) to take our party of four. This was more than the whole outfit was worth, with his wages for three weeks thrown in. We went aboard, and were looking over the boat, rather to gratify our curiosity than with any intention of accepting his monstrous offer, when one of the party discovered a Mexican lying in the bottom of the boat with a shawl loosely thrown over him. Our interpreter inquired if anyone was sick aboard, and was told by the owner that the man was a friend of his who was ill with the smallpox, and that he was taking him to his family in Tuxpam. We stampeded in great confusion and on our way to the hotel procured a supply of sulphur, carbolic acid, chlorine, and all the disinfectants we could think of. Hurrying to one of our rooms in the hotel, we barred the door and discussed what we should do to ward off the terrible disease. Some one suggested that perhaps the boatman was only joking, and that after all the man didn't have smallpox. It didn't seem plausible that he would ask us to embark for a seven days' voyage in company with a victim of an infectious disease. But who would venture back to ascertain the facts? Of course this task fell upon the interpreter, as he was the only one who could speak the language. While he was gone we began preparing for the worst, and after taking account of our stock of disinfectants the question was which to use and how to apply it. Each one recommended a different formula. One of the party found some sort of a tin vessel, and putting half a pound of sulphur into it, set it afire and put it under the bed. We then took alternate sniffs of the several disinfectants, and debated as to whether we