which produces the tuna grows to the height of thirty feet, and covers an area of twenty feet in circumference, with the leaves (if leaves they may be called) dropping over each other like the shingles of a house. These leaves are exactly like those of the prickly pear on our mountains, only larger, generally of twelve or eighteen inches in breadth. The fruit is about the size, and very much the shape, of a duck's egg. The combined flavors of a watermelon, a cucumber, and a lump of sugar candy, will give some idea of this delicious and refreshing fruit, as it melts in the mouth. The cherimoya is a large fruit, and is altogether delicious. The idea which occurs to every one on eating it for the first time is, that it is a vegetable custard. I scarcely ever offered it to an American who did not make that comparison, thinking that he had said an original and smart thing; but I had heard it before at least a hundred times. They have a fruit very much like what we call the "May-apple," which abounds, I believe, in every part of the United States. It is of the same size, and the flower has all the peculiarities of the passion-flower. The fruit itself is precisely the same, except that it has a yellow rind, not unlike that of a lemon. It does not grow on a vine running on the ground, like our May-apple, or Maycock, as it is sometimes called, but upon one more like a grape-vine.

I will close this somewhat heterogeneous melange of Mexican scientific and literary institutions, fruits, idle and ignorant leperos, &c., with a notice of a thing which struck. me very forcibly. I had not a servant during my resi dence in Mexico who did not read and write-neither very well, it is true, but quite as well, or better, than the same class in this country. I often observed the most ragged leperos, as they walked down the streets, reading the signs

over the store doors. How this happens, I know not, unless it be the effect of Lancasterian schools, which are established all over the country, chiefly, I think, through the instrumentality and exertions of General Tornel-a noble charity, which should of itself cover a multitude of sins much greater than those which even his enemies impute to him.

CHAPTER XVI.

Diplomatic Position upon entering Mexico-Fellow Travellers-Friendship with Englishmen-Aversion of Englishmen to General Jackson.

WHEN I first arrived in Mexico, it was very manifest that I was regarded with distrust and dislike. This was in some degree owing to the impression which existed not only with the government but the people generally, that my mission had a special reference to the American citizens who accompanied the Santa Fé expedition, and who were then confined in Mexico; but still more to the active part which I had taken as a member of Congress on the question of the recognition by our government of the independence of Texas. In a speech upon that question I made a good many disparaging allusions to Mexico, all of which were known there. I had also moved the resolutions two or three days before the adjournment of Congress on the 4th of March, 1837, which secured that recognition, at a most critical period of the affairs of Texas, as an amendment to the appropriation bill. I was of course regarded in Mexico as the enemy of the country, and the general

opinion was that I had been sent there for the purpose of causing a rupture between the two governments, to give us the right to enter into and terminate the war between Texas and Mexico. The next day after my arrival, a gentleman connected with the government inquired (evidently for a purpose) of an American in Mexico whether I had brought my family, and when told that I had not, he again asked when they were to come. I am satisfied that if my family had accompanied me, it would have indicated a purpose, and a confidence of remaining there for some time, which would have had an injurious effect. My predecessor had demanded the release of Mr. Kendall and three other Americans, who had accompanied the Sante Fé expedition about the middle of February, 1842, and had received a peremptory refusal; and thus matters stood until my arrival in Mexico. I landed at Vera Cruz on the 10th of April, and arrived in Mexico on the 16th. On the 14th of April, Mr. Ellis received a promise from the minister for foreign affairs, of the release of these prisoners. Although I had not at that time arrived in Mexico, I have no doubt that my arrival at Vera Cruz was known to the government. Couriers between the two places are constantly employed by the government, and so important an event as the arrival of a new minister from the United States, in the then existing state of our relations, would, as a matter of course, be reported at the earliest moment. And whilst I say in all candor, and it is no more than justice to say, that Mr. Ellis had done everything which in his situation I could have done; yet I have no doubt that Mr. Kendall and his companions owed their release neither to the efforts of Mr. Ellis nor myself, but to a certain prestige which I carried with me from the circumstances to which I have adverted. Indeed I was informed by a distinguished

member of the diplomatic corps that he knew that the Mexican cabinet were very apprehensive about the matter, and anxious for some honorable escape from the false position in which they had placed themselves. Mr. Kendall and three others were released to Mr. Ellis upon his application on his audience of leave. There were three others whose cases I thought were in all material respects the same, but Mr. Ellis thought differently-and could not conscientiously, and therefore did not, demand their release. Immediately, however, after my presentation, I brought the matter to the notice of the minister of foreign affairs, and he sent me an order for their release, without any discussion whatever of the merits of their cases. I have rarely seen three so happy men. The release of their companions and refusal to discharge them had, as may be supposed, deprived them of all hope, and their delight on being so unexpectedly relieved from such a state of despair cannot well be imagined.

I would mention here a circumstance which annoyed me not a little. A few days before my arrival at Puebla, two of the Texians who had been confined there made their escape, Major Howard and another whose name I have forgotten. They were secreted by an Englishwoman at great peril to herself; when one of her friends asked her why she had done so imprudent a thing, and added, they are not Englishmen, she replied, that she knew they were not, but that they had white skins and spoke the English language. The Mexican officers of all grades were everywhere on the lookout for the refugees. They very wisely determined not to take the route to Vera Cruz where they would be expected, but to go to Mexico, for nowhere is concealment so easy as in a large city. I had heard of the escape of two of the prisoners, and as soon as it was