but he was not; and, besides, martyrdom is not near so fashionable as it was during the time of the Roman emperors, when one saint insisted upon being crucified heels uppermost; and another, who was very comfortably broiling on a gridiron, sung out to be turned, when he thought he was cooked enough on one side. _Our_ clergy are a grave, serious, set of men, who scorn such mad pranks; they have no idea of suffering martyrdom, or any thing else, if they can help it. I believe there have been no martyrs since the commencement of the nineteenth century, except Mr. Wolff, who was bastinadoed by the Pacha of Egypt, for interfering with what did not concern him, and some ten or a dozen missionaries, that would not do something the Cochin-Chinese bid them, and were, in consequence, made shorter by the head. The good priest interposed his good offices, and influence, in Isabella's behalf, and gave her instructions in such branches of education as he thought were suited to her sex. But, in about a year after her mother's death, Don Gaspar received his appointment, as military commander of St. Blas, which, as I have already observed, was then a royal depot and arsenal; and, though but seldom visited by Spanish men-of-war, because there were but very few, besides guarda-costas, in the Pacific, was a place of considerable importance. Isabella cheerfully accompanied him to America; for, though neither giddy, nor thoughtless, all places were alike to her, provided she could be always surrounded with her uncle's family, with whom she enjoyed quiet happiness. In the priests of Mexico, she saw nothing but ignorance, sensuality, bigotry, and indolence, nothing calculated to shake her faith as a Protestant, or cause her to forget her mother's first injunction; while the foppishness, frivolity, insolence, ignorance, and pride, of the men, by whom she was surrounded, most effectually protected her from the remotest thought of disobeying the second. The men, on the other hand, regarded her with the coolest indifference; accustomed to admire the black eyes, and hair, and colorless complexions of the Spanish and native, or Creole, women, varying from a sort of dirty cream color, to a deep and beautiful copper, Isabella's rather lightish brown hair, blue eyes, fair complexion, and cheeks rosy with health and cheerfulness, had no charms for them; and, while her cousins had lovers, or danglers, by the dozen, Isabella found herself, to her infinite satisfaction, completely deserted and neglected, by all the starched and pompous fools that visited her uncle, during a stay of some months in the city of Mexico.