I cannot forget to introduce you to the pleasant gentleman we met on
the train. He is Mr. A. Baker, Her Britannic Majesty's Consul at Vera
Cruz. He speaks fluently fifteen different languages, and when I asked
him if he was not very proud of the fact, he replied: "Yes, until I met
a waiter in a restaurant who could speak eighteen." He is a widower,
and came here accompanied by his only son, while his three daughters
are at school in Europe. The common expression made of him here is,
that "he is good enough for an American." Now you can judge how
agreeable he is. He has been knighted three different times, and was
colonel in two different armies, yet he is still plain Mr. Baker. "Oh,
I had ancestors," he said, jokingly, as we were discussing people's
little vanities, "and they came over in the ship of the conquerors,
also. My forefather was a cook. One day the bread was exhausted, and
there was no way to procure more, so the cook made some pancakes, and
waited in terror while they were taken in to his majesty. At last he
got a summons to appear before him; trembling and expecting to be
beheaded, the poor fellow sank at his sovereign's feet, when, instead
of a sentence to be executed, he heard: 'Rise, Sir Baker.' Since then
that has been the family name."
Accompanied by Mr. Baker, we started north to see a waterfall, and to
take the train at the next station. We got in a car and went winding
in between the high mountains from which the black marble is quarried
until we reached a stretch of land, where we alighted and crossed the
fields until we came to that wonderful stream. The water is quite cold
and mineral, and as clear as crystal, one being able to see the bottom
at the depth of twenty feet as though there was no water intervening.
Down where the water was more shallow were several horses fishing for
the grass that grows in the bottom; they thrust in their heads until
their eyes were in the water, and then pulled out a mouthful of grass;
they made a beautiful picture. Baths are situated here, and trees grow
around just plentiful enough to be pretty. Foot logs span the stream,
and the cool, green, velvety plots invite a longer stay.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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