Travels in the United States, etc.,: during 1849 and 1850./ By the Lady Emmeline Stuart Wortley.

TRAVELS IN AMERICA.
for the first day's journey; but we had a delightful and most refreshing rest at Jalapa, which is a place of enchantment-a little
Cashmere of delights-a very kingdom of roses. The climate is
reckoned very good, and the poor Vera Cruzians fly there to take
refuge from their terrible vomito (the dreadful Vera Cruz fever).
I think this lovely Jalapa is unlike any town I have ever seen
any where: its houses and streets do not seem to take away the
country air of every thing belonging to it. In those garden-beautified, quiet, picturesque streets, you feel as far out of the hard, and
stale, and work-a-day world, as if you were in the midst of a vast
savanna, or the shadowy recesses of an untrodden forest. I can
hardly tell why it is so, but so it seemed to me. Diligences seem
to rattle there, and busy travelers to congregate in vain: all, still,
appears quiet, all peaceful, and holiday-like at Jalapa. It seems,
as it were, consecrated by its own beauty.
And Nature has so much to say there! Her flowery treasures
fill the streets and courts with their odoriferous delights. Her
glorious mnountains and hills look upon you there in a hundred
beauteous shapes.
We found a delightful hotel in that exquisite town-all galleries, and balconies, and arcades, and courts; and to breathe the
delicious air of balmy Jalapa alone, is a pleasure. Is the reader
aware, that the not delicious medicine, whose name closely resembles that of this fair town, is produced from a root, which grows
in great profusion near it? From this place it takes its name;
and as this association is not particularly charmring, I prefer spelling the word in the old way, "Xalapa." What a fall from roses
and floripundias, to tumble down to this nauseous drug! But I
believe the flower of this same plant, is a very beautiful convolvulus. Very usefuil it is, no doubt; and, in this utilitarian age perhaps, more to be thought of, than poor Flora's daffydowndilly
treasures, and roses and posies.
The dreaded first stage from Vera Cruz, I did not find so
dreary as I expected. Our escort met us at the gates of the town
and our eight mules went gallantly on, till the deep loose sand reduced the gallop to a trot, the trot to a walk, and the walk even
at times almost to a stand-still: some parts of the way we went
washing the wheels of the cumbrous diligencia actually in the sea.
There eemed to be no regular road, just there, or if there was,
the coachman evidently disregarded it, for it could not be supposed
it led through the sea.
Afterward we came to a very heavy part of the road; it seem
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