"Swinging him by the tail, say I."

The burlesque vigour of his illustrations sometimes ran to
anti-climax. One day, he talked of something (if I recollect right,
the electric telegraph), moving with the rapidity of a flash of
lightning, with a pair of spurs clapped into it.

In spite of all this ultra-national bluster, we found him to be a very
good sort of man, having nothing of the bear but the skin, and in the
test of the quarantine arrangements, the least selfish of the party.

Another passenger was an elderly Mexican senator, who was the essence
of politeness of the good old school. Every morning he stood smiling,
hat in hand, while he inquired how each of us had slept. I shall never
forget the cholera-like contortion of horror he displayed, when the
clerical militant (poking his fun at him), declared that Texas was
within the natural boundary of the State, and that some morning they
would make a breakfast of the whole question.

One day he passed from politics to religion. "I am fond of fun," said
he, "I think it is the sign of a clear conscience. My life has been
spent among sailors. I have begun with many a blue jacket
hail-fellow-well-met in my own rough way, and have ended in weaning
him from wicked courses. None of your gloomy religion for me. When I
see a man whose religion makes him melancholy, and averse from gaiety,
I tell him his god must be my devil."

The originality of this gentleman's intellect and manners, led me
subsequently to make further inquiry; and I find one of his sermons