Soon we came in sight of the black-looking foothills of the Mexican coast. As we slowly sailed into the tropics, they lost their bareness, and became clothed with a rich vegetation, and then fringed with bananas and cocoanut-palms. Gradually rising higher, the hills grew into mountainous masses broken by volcanic peaks, and from one lofty cone a wreath of smoke drifted languidly on the breeze.
As the temperature of air and water grew warmer the sea became alive with flying-fish, and shoals of dolphins, four or five hundred together, played round our bows or dashed across our course, leaping and throwing up the water in fountains of spray. Large turtles floated past lying asleep on the surface of the water, their shining backs catching the sunlight and reflecting it like mirrors. The sea-birds regarded them as convenient resting-places, and almost every sleeping turtle carried on his back a dozing bird which flapped lazily away, apparently shocked at the behaviour of the turtle when the approach of our ship caused him to take a sudden dive below.
All day the sea and its inhabitants yielded us endless amusement; the evenings were gorgeous with tropical sunsets and the nights revealed a brilliancy and glory in moon and stars that surpassed all my imaginings. We sat up late watching the north star sinking lower and lower, and marking the rise of strange constellations towards the south.
It must be remembered that I am a very bad sailor, that my experience of sea voyages had been confined to many rough and wintry passages across the North Atlantic, and that all the softness and colour and beauty of a tropical ocean broke on me like a revelation.
Our first port was San Blas, on the Mexican side of the Gulf of California. It boasts no harbour, so that we dropped anchor in the open roadstead, and lay as near shore as safety permitted, rocked by the big rollers of the restless Pacific as they passed to break on the sandy beaches and rugged cliffs of the coast. A few thatched cottages were clustered round the Custom House, and others were dotted along the beach half-hidden amongst cocoanut-palms and bananas and a tangle of tropical vegetation, whilst behind them rose a fine mass of mountains clothed in the softest imaginable shades of green with lovely blue distances stretching for miles into the interior. Big picturesque boats, rowed by Mexicans in huge broad hats and clean white shirts and trousers, came to deliver and take back cargo, and to supply us with fruits and vegetables. With our glasses we watched the great dexterity with which the boats were handled and guided safely through the heavy surf.