It was in the boat of this latter line that we finally awoke one morning to find her anchored in the harbor of Puerto Cortez. The harbor is a very large one and a very safe one. It is encircled by mountains on the sea-side, and by almost impenetrable swamps and jungles on the other. Close around the waters of the bay are bunches and rows of the cocoanut palm, and a village of mud huts covered with thatch. There is also a tin custom-house, which includes the railroad-office and a comandancia, and this and the jail or barracks of rotting whitewashed boards, and the half-dozen houses of one story belonging to consuls and shipping agents, are the only other frame buildings in the place save one. That is a large mansion with broad verandas, painted in colors, and set in a carefully designed garden of rare plants and manaca palms. Two poles are planted in the garden, one flying the blue-and-white flag of Honduras, the other with the stripes and stars of the United States. This is the home of the exiled lottery. It is the most pretentious building and the cleanest in the whole republic of Honduras, from the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific slope. I confess that I was foolish enough to regard this house of magnificent exterior, as I viewed it from the wharf, as seriously as a general observes the ramparts and defences of the enemy before making his advance. I had taken a nine days’ journey with the single purpose of seeing and getting at the truth concerning this particular building, and whether I was now to be viewed with suspicion and treated as an intruder, whether my object would be guessed at once and I should be forced to wait on the beach for the next steamer, or whether I would be received with kindness which came from ignorance of my intentions, I could not tell. And while I considered, a black Jamaica negro decided my movements for me. There was a hotel, he answered, doubtfully, but he thought it would be better, if Mr. Barross would let me in, to try for a room in the Lottery Building. “Mr. Barross sometimes takes boarders,” he said, “and the Lottery Building is a fine house, sir--finest house this side Mexico city.” He added, encouragingly, that he spoke English “very good,” and that he had been in London.