Justo Sierra was born January 26, 1848, at Campeche, the capital city of the State of the same name. The son of a man known in the world of letters, he early showed himself interested in literary pursuits. Determining to follow the career of law, he was licensed to practice at the age of twenty-three. Chosen a member of the Chamber of Deputies, he promptly gained a reputation as an orator. He became one of the justices of the Supreme Court. At present he is Sub-Secretary of Public Instruction and has been connected with all recent progress in Mexican education. For some years he was professor of general history in the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria (National Preparatory School). Among his works are Cuentos románticos (Romantic Tales), En Tierra Yankee (In Yankee Land), and México y su evolución social (Mexico and its Social Evolution). In style Sierra is poetical and highly fantastic, with a strain of humor rare in Mexicans. Our selection is a complete story from Cuentos románticos.
THE STORY OF STAREI: A LEGEND OF YELLOW FEVER.
Examining a volume, pretentiously styled Album de Viaje (Album of Travel), which lay amid the sympathetic dust, which time accumulates in a box of long-forgotten papers, I encountered what my kind readers are about to see.
We were in the diligencia coming from Vera Cruz, a German youth, Wilhelm S.—with flaxen hair and great, expressionless, blue eyes,—and myself. We had not well gained the summit of the Chiquihuite, when the storm burst upon us. The coach halted, in order not to expose itself to the dangers of the descent over slopes now converted into rivers. I neared