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The British naval officer George Francis Lyon (1795–1832) survived extremes of African heat and Arctic cold during his colourful career. Remembered chiefly for the engaging journals he kept, and for his watercolours of the Arctic, he was fascinated by the indigenous peoples of the lands he explored, notably being tattooed by Inuit and eating raw caribou and seal meat with them. In 1826 he sailed to Mexico, then recovering from its war of independence, to serve as a commissioner for an English mining company. His vivid and often entertaining two-volume account of his experiences was published in 1828. In Volume 2, Lyon encounters notorious bandits outside Guadalajara, ponders the potential navigation of rivers for commercial shipping, and writes of a visit to the Guadalajara theatre: 'had it not been for the universal smoking, and the silence and good manners of the audience, I might have almost fancied myself in England'.
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