tion, and entered into the Mexican confederation as one of the
states of that republic. Ever since she had been suffering from this
unhappy connexion, and, a short time before our former visit, a
revolution broke out all over the country; in the successful progress
of which, during that visit, the last Mexican garrison was driven out
of Yucatan. The state assumed the rights of sovereignty, asserting its
independent powers, at the same time not disconnecting itself entirely
from Mexico, but declaring itself still a component part of that
republic upon certain conditions. The declaration of its independence
was still a moot question. The assembly had passed a bill to that
effect, but the senate had not yet acted upon it, and its fate in that
body was considered doubtful. In the mean time, a commissioner had been
sent to Texas, and two days after our arrival at Merida the Texan
schooner of war San Antonio arrived at Sisal, bringing a proposition
for Yucatan to pay $8000 per month toward the support of the Texan
navy, and for the Texan vessels to remain upon the coast of Yucatan and
protect it against invasion by Mexico. This proposition was accepted
immediately, and negotiations were pending for farther co-operation in
procuring a recognition of their mutual independence. Thus, while
shrinking from an open declaration of independence, Yucatan was
widening the breach, and committing an offence which Mexico could never
forgive, by an alliance with a people whom that government, or rather
Santa Ana, regarded as the worst of rebels, and whom he was bent upon
exerting the whole power of the country in an effort to reconquer. Such
was the disjointed and false position in which Yucatan stood at the
time of our presentation to the governor.

Our visit to him was made at his private residence, which was one
befitting his station as a private gentleman, and not unworthy of his
public character. His reception-room was in the sala or parlour of his
house, in the centre of which, after the fashion of Merida, three or
four large chairs covered with morocco were placed facing each other.

Don Santiago Mendez was about fifty years of age, tall and thin, with a
fine intellectual face, and of very gentlemanly appearance and
deportment. Free from internal wars, and saved by her geographical
position from the sanguinary conflicts common in the other Mexican
states, Yucatan has had no school for soldiers; there are no military
chieftains and