dumb lips would hail us and ask who were these strangers that vexed the
quiet waters of their bay. But two small fishing-boats lay at anchor,
and these Booden said reminded him of Christopher Columbus or Noah's
Ark, they were so clumsy and antique in build.

We hauled our boat up alongside, and all hands got in and went ashore.
As we landed, a little shudder seemed to go through the sleepy old
place, as if it had been rudely disturbed from its comfortable nap, and
a sudden sob of sea air swept through the quiet streets as though the
insensate houses had actually breathed the weary sigh of awaking. The
buildings were low and white, with dark-skinned children basking in the
doors, and grass hammocks swinging beneath open verandas. There were no
stores, no sign of business, and no sound of vehicles or labor; all was
as decorous and quiet, to use the skipper's description, "as if the
people had slicked up their door-yards, whitewashed their houses, and
gone to bed." It was just like a New England Sabbath in a Mexican
village.

And this fancy was further colored by a strange procession which now
met us as we went up from the narrow beach, having first made fast our
boat. A lean Mexican priest, with an enormous shovel hat and
particularly shabby cassock, came toward us, followed by a motley crowd
of Mexicans, prominent among whom was a pompous old man clad in a seedy
Mexican uniform and wearing a trailing rapier at his side. The rest of
the procession was brought up with a crowd of shy women, dark-eyed and
tawny and all poorly clad, though otherwise comfortable enough in
condition. These hung back and wonderingly looked at the strange faces,
as though they had never seen the like before. The old padre lifted his
skinny hands, and said something in Spanish which I did not understand.

"Why, the old mummy is slinging his popish blessings at us!" This was
Lanky's interpretation of the kindly priest's paternal salutation. And,
sure enough, he was welcoming us to the shore of San Ildefonso with
holy fervor and religious phrase.

"I say," said Booden, a little testily, "what did you say was the name
of this place, and where away does it lay from 'Frisco?" In very choice
Castilian, as Lanky declared, the priest rejoined that he did not
understand the language in which Booden was speaking. "Then bring on
somebody that does," rejoined that irreverent mariner, when due
interpretation had been made. The padre protested that no one in