ied our pilot over the bar;
his wife was a widow the day after he brought our bark to the loading
berth. And the young man who commenced to deliver us the cargo was
himself measured the day after. His ship had come in!

Many stout men, and many, many women and children succumbed to the
scourge; yet it was our high privilege to come through the dark cloud
without losing a loved one, while thousands were cast down with
bereavements and grief. At one time it appeared that we were in the
centre of the cloud which zig-zagged its ugly body, serpent-like,
through districts, poisoning all that it touched, and leaving death in
its wake. This was indeed cholera in its most terrible form!

One poor fellow sat at the Widow Lacinas' hotel, bewildered.
"Forty-eight hours ago," said he, "I sat at my own hearth, with wife and
three children by my side. Now I am alone in the world! Even my poor
house, such as it was, is pulled down." This man, I say, had troubles;
surely was his "house pulled down!"

There was no escaping the poison or keeping it off, except by
disinfectants, and by keeping the system regular, for it soon spread
over all the land and the air was full of it. Remedies sold so high that
many must have perished without the test of medicinal aid to cure their
disease. A cry went up against unprincipled druggists who were
over-charging for their drugs, but nothing more was done to check their
greed. Camphor sold as high as four dollars a pound, and the druggist
with a few hundred drops of laudanum and as much chlorodyne could travel
through Europe afterward on the profits of his sales.

It was at Rosario, and at this time, that we buried our young friend,
Captain Speck, well loved of young and old. His friends did not ask
whether it was cholera or not that he died of, but performed the last
act of friendship as became men of heart and feeling. The minister could
not come that day, but Captain Speck's little friend, Garfield, said:
"The flags were set for the angels to come and take the Captain to
Heaven!" Need more be said?

And the flags blew out all day.

Then it became us to erect a memorial slab, and, hardest of all, to
write to the widow and orphans. This was done in a homely way, but with
sympathetic, aching hearts away off there in Santa Fe.

Our time at Rosario, after this, was spent in gloomy days that dragged
into weeks and months, and our thoughts often wandered from there to a
happy past. We preferred to d