Of course he will run away when he gets a chance; and, though he will be no great loss to the service, he will add his mite to the feeling of hatred that has been growing up for these so many years among the brown Indians against the whites and the half-cast Mexicans.

But more of this hereafter.
One step outside the gate, and we are among the sand-hills that stretch for miles and miles round Vera Cruz.

They are mere shifting sand-mounds; and, though some of them are fifty feet high, the fierce north wind moves them about bodily.

The Texans know these winds well, and call them "northers." They come from Hudson's Bay to the Gulf of Mexico, right down the Continent of North America, over a level plain with hardly a hill to obstruct their course, the Rocky Mountains and the Alleghanies forming a sort of trough for them.

When the "norte" blows fiercely you can hardly keep your feet in the streets of Vera Cruz, and vessels drag their anchors or break from their moorings in the ill-protected harbour, and are blown out to sea--lucky if they escape the ugly coral-reefs and sand-banks that fringe the coast.