We responded by following the lead of the wan policeman (there was only one other, the rest had run away,) who opened a wicket leading within the cane enclosure of the custom-house, entered that building, and ascending a rough, narrow, and ricketty flight of stairs, we were ushered into what at home would be called a shocking bad garret, but which were the apartments of Her Britannic Majesty’s Consul General. A long table stood in the centre, and a couple of candles flared in the breeze that came in at the unglazed openings at either end of the apartment, giving a dim intermittent light, by means of which, however, we succeeded in discovering Mr. C——, the Consul General. He was reclining on a rude settee, and rose with difficulty to welcome us. He apologized for his rough quarters, betraying by his pronunciation that his youth at least had been passed among the haunted glens of Scotland. He had formerly been a member of Parliament, and had been nearly a year on this coast, in a service clearly little congenial to his feelings, and far from being in accordance with his notions of honor and justice. We found him intelligent and agreeable, and as free from prejudices as a Briton could be, without ceasing to be a Briton and a Scot. The evening passed pleasantly, (“barring” the mosquitos,) and though we were told of scorpions, which are often found when people turn down their blankets, and of numerous lizards, which insinuate themselves over night in one’s boots, we were too glad to get on shore to be much alarmed by the recital. Upon leaving, we were pressed to come every day to the consulate to dine; for we were assured, and with truth, that it was impossible to procure a reasonably decent meal elsewhere in the town. The Nicaraguans at the fort above, it was asserted, had bought up all the vegetables and edibles intended for San Juan, having determined to starve the hated English out, and there was not a foot of cultivated ground within fifty miles; consequently the market was poorly supplied, except with ship provisions, and of these we had had quite enough. This was far from being comfortable, for we had expected to find at San Juan a profusion of all the productions of the tropics, concerning which travellers had written so enthusiastically; to be put, therefore, on allowances of ship-biscuit and salt pork, was too much to permit any consideration of delicacy, so we accepted Mr. C——’s generous offer, returning on board to be phlebotomized by a horde of barbarous mosquitos, and to get up next morning feverish and unrefreshed, and only prevented from appealing to the medicine-chest by the happy consciousness that we were near the land. [Illustration: “OUR HOUSE” AT SAN JUAN.]