ere were solemn pelicans, and such kind of
grotesque bird as use only one leg, it being long enough for two, and
never that to walk upon, so far as anybody had ever noticed. Such an old
fellow would outline himself against the yellow loneliness, like a lump
of pessimistic philosopher impaled on the end of his own hobbling
crutch. Tarpons and sharks and sword-fish, monstrous, sinister, moved
slothfully in the viscid waters. From scrubby growth on the banks a
hundred or a hundred thousand crows had much ado with rebuking the
invaders of their solitude.

Next, clusters of thatch roofs appeared, and in an hour the party from
the _Imperatrice Eugenie_ gained the wharf of the port. The sailors
managed to steer through a tangle of shipping and dugout scows, the
latter heaped high with fruits and flowers of many colors, or hides or
fish of many aromas. Before the small boat could touch the worm-eaten
quay, Jacqueline had poised herself on its edge, caught her skirts, and
hopped lightly over the stretch of water yet remaining. Then she gazed
curiously around on Mexico.

And Mexico was there in various forms to greet her, though in no form
animated. Sluggish creatures under peaked sombreros of muddied straw
seemed to be growing against the foreground of wharf and dingy
warehouses, and fastened to the background of sallow blazing streets and
sallow reflecting walls there were still the same human barnacles. But
no creature seemed ever to move. They all looked a part of the decay, of
putrefying vegetable and flesh and fish everywhere, which grew so rank
in life that in death their rotting could never keep pace.

A lazy town stretched up a lazy street. On a hill farther up the river a
fortress basked in peace, and had no desire to be disturbed. In the town
the buildings were of warped timber, and a few of stone. Parasitic
tumors, like loathsome black ulcers, swelled abundantly on the roofs.
They were the buzzards, the only form of life held sacred. To clean up
nature's and man's spendthrift killing was a blessed service in Tampico.
It saved exertion.

A strange region, by all odds! But at least one could walk thereon, and
Jacqueline thought it droll. An outlandish corner of the earth such as
this was something never experienced before. But as to that, the
outlandish corner might have said the same about Jacqueline. Men stared
like dazed sheep on the astounding apparition of a lady. Some among them
were entirely clothed, in sun-y