h the
more vivid realities of the scene, favored this illusion. The fortunate
owner of this paradise was a certain Pedro Rica, who, for something like
fourteen years, had been a resident of Columbia. A widower, with an
only child, then an infant of scarce a year old, he had arrived in that
country, seeking, as he said, by new scenes and new associations, to
erase, so far as might be, the painful memory of his late bereavement.

While he gave it to be understood that he was a Spaniard by birth, some
averred that he was a Mexican; others, that he was a Texan; and one or
two alleged that he was an American of the States,--an assumption that
the ease and fluency of his English went far to corroborate. Of whatever
nation he came, certain it is that a mystery hung over both his native
land and his history; and as he showed little disposition to enlighten
the world on these subjects, as is usual in such cases, his neighbors
took their revenge by inventing a hundred stories about him, each one
only worse than the other. At one time it was said that his wealth was
acquired by piracy; at another, that he absconded from a Texan city,
with a large sum belonging to the government; forgery, breach of trust,
were among the commonest allegations; and the most charitable only
averred that he made his money in the slave-trade.

It is but fair to say that the sole foundation for these various rumors
lay in the stern distance of his manner, and the cold, almost repulsive,
austerity with which he declined all acquaintance with the neighborhood.
These traits, added to the voluptuous splendor of a retinue and a style
of living infinitely above all around, gradually estranged from him
the few who attempted to form an intimacy, and left him to live--as
it seemed he preferred--a life of solitary magnificence; an object of
affected pity to many, but of real envy to all.

As his daughter grew up, he was accustomed to visit the sea-coast each
summer for some weeks, and from these absences he now usually returned
with one or two acquaintances, for the most part officers of the
Columbian navy, with whom he had formed an intimacy at the seaside. Such
acquaintanceship seemed to increase from year to year, till at last
each autumn saw the "Villa de las Noches Entretenidas," "of the pleasant
nights" crowded with guests, whose wild orgies were in strange contrast
to the former stillness and quietude within those walls.

A more motley and discordant ass