The signal gun is fired at 11, and we go off to the steamer in
small boats.

In our boat is an inebriated United States official, who flings his
spectacles overboard, and sings a flippant and absurd song about
his grandmother's spotted calf, with his ri-fol-lol-tiddery-i-do.
After which he crumbles, in an incomprehensible manner, into the
bottom of the boat, and howls dismally.

We reach Manzanillo, another coast place, twenty-four hours after
leaving Acapulco. Manzanillo is a little Mexican village, and
looked very wretched indeed, sweltering away there on the hot
sands. But it is a port of some importance, nevertheless, because
a great deal of merchandise finds its way to the interior from
there. The white and green flag of Mexico floats from a red
steam-tug (the navy of Mexico, by the way, consists of two tugs,
a disabled raft, and a basswood life-preserver), and the Captain
of the Port comes off to us in his small boat, climbs up the side
of the St. Louis, and folds the healthy form of Captain Hudson to
his breast. There is no wharf here, and we have to anchor off
the town.

There was a wharf, but the enterprising Mexican peasantry, who
subsist by poling merchandise ashore in dug-outs, indignantly tore
it up. We take on here some young Mexicans, from Colima, who are
going to California. They are of the better class, and one young
man (who was educated in Madrid) speaks English rather better than
I write it. Be careful not to admire any article of an educated
Mexican's dress, because if you do he will take it right off and
give it to you, and sometimes this might be awkward.