In Shanghai it was against the law to pack cotton at night but it was done, one night, in a big go-down, a lot of Chinese on a platform ten feet above the floor were running round a capstan as if getting up anchor, only their thing works downwards, around, around to their eternal chant of ha ho, ha, hao o ha. Two fell over the edge. Now there were pigs of lead piled up below and their skulls cracked like eggs. The other fellows did not seem to care much and in the morning carried the bodies off in their ropes and probably threw them in the weeds a little way outside town. On the Bubbling Well road (so called because there is a well that always has a bubble coming up from the bottom), it used to be horrible sometimes in one's early morning ride. They are rather an awful people, and there are razor-backed hogs that roam around.

Acapulco is a queer little place, mostly heat, blacks, shell work, sharks, etc. There are immense sharks (about sixteen feet). They won't look at pork with or without a hook in it. What do they eat. Must be mostly the stuff thrown from ships. Some say that they run up into the surf and catch the little darkies by the legs. Anyway they are big and fat and there are lots of them.

A war with the French is about to begin and the ships are expected but have not come; so we can't land some French officers who are here to join their ships—not good for them ashore just now.

We were round, look, see business, and there was a fuss, and a fellow shot and missed; but the bullet got my leg. Curious it did not sting but was more like a blow; did not break anything though. The native imitations of flowers (shell work) are very pretty and there is lots of coral, etc. Only a small place and not much clothing. An old fort at the entrance with mouldy cannon, harbor to get into which one goes up a passage that is parallel to the coast. You can't see anyway in when you are out, or out when you are in, is like a big pond with a grove of cocoanuts on the far side from the village but no other trees except a palm or two, the colors of the mountains are fine, and the young fry dive any distance after money thrown to them, as they do at all these places, carry it in their mouths, their only pocket. Principal industries, when there is no ship to coal, lying in (and out of) the sun and drinking; as some one said: "Customs beastly manners none."