keel grated on the sand. A narrow but
perfectly well defined strip of palpable strand appeared before them;
they could faintly discern the moving lower limbs of figures whose
bodies were still hidden in the mist; then they were lifted from the
boats; the first few steps on dry land carried them out of the fog that
seemed to rise like a sloping roof from the water's edge, leaving them
under its canopy in the full light of actual torches held by a group of
picturesquely dressed people before the vista of a faintly lit, narrow,
ascending street. The dim twilight of the closing day lingered under
this roof of fog, which seemed to hang scarcely a hundred feet above
them, and showed a wall or rampart of brown adobe on their right that
extended nearly to the water; to the left, at the distance of a few
hundred yards, another low brown wall appeared; above it rose a fringe
of foliage, and, more distant and indistinct, two white towers, that
were lost in the nebulous gray.

One of the figures dressed in green jackets, who seemed to be in
authority, now advanced, and, after a moment's parley with Senor Perkins
while the Excelsior's passengers were being collected from the different
boats, courteously led the way along the wall of the fortification.
Presently a low opening or gateway appeared, followed by the challenge
of a green-jacketed sentry, and the sentence, "Dios y Libertad" It
was repeated in the interior of a dusky courtyard, surrounded by a
low corridor, where a dozen green-jacketed men of aboriginal type and
complexion, carrying antique flintlocks, were drawn up as a guard of
honor.

"The Comandante," said Senor Perkins, "directs me to extend his
apologies to the Senor Capitano Bunker for withholding the salute which
is due alike to his country, himself, and his fair company; but fifty
years of uninterrupted peace and fog have left his cannon inadequate to
polite emergencies, and firmly fixed the tampion of his saluting gun.
But he places the Presidio at your disposition; you will be pleased to
make its acquaintance while it is still light; and he will await you in
the guard-room."

Left to themselves, the party dispersed like dismissed school-children
through the courtyard and corridors, and in the enjoyment of their
release from a month's confinement on shipboard stretched their cramped
limbs over the ditches, walls, and parapets, to the edge of the glacis.

Everywhere a ruin that was picturesque, a decay that wa