on the shore. They were queer craft, dug
out from the trunks of trees, with small decks in bow and stern, and
with a low roof of palmetto leaves amidships. By the time we had reached
the end of the row we had collected all our effects. Our own boatman
stowed them in his craft.

Thereupon, our minds at rest, we returned to the landing to enjoy the
scene. The second ship's boat had beached, and the row was going on,
worse than before. In the seething, cursing, shouting mass we caught
sight of Yank's tall figure leaning imperturbably on his rifle muzzle.
We made our way to him.

"Got your boat yet?" Talbot shouted at him.

"Got nothin' yet but a headache in the ears," said Yank.

"Come with us then. Where's your plunder?"

Yank stooped and swung to his shoulder a small bundle tied with ropes.

"She's all thar," said he.

These matters settled, we turned with considerable curiosity to the
little village itself. It was all exotic, strange. Everything was
different, and we saw it through the eyes of youth and romance as
epitomizing the storied tropics.

There were perhaps a couple of hundred of the cane huts arranged roughly
along streets in which survived the remains of crude paving. All else
was a morass. Single palm trees shot up straight, to burst like rockets
in a falling star of fronds. Men and women, clad in a single cotton
shift reaching to the knees, lounged in the doorways or against the
frail walls, smoking cigars. Pot-bellied children, stark naked, played
everywhere, but principally in the mudholes and on the offal dumps.
Innumerable small, hairless dogs were everywhere about, a great
curiosity to us, who had never even heard of such things. We looked into
some of the interiors, but saw nothing in the way of decent furniture.
The cooking appeared to be done between two stones. A grand tropical
smell hung low in the air. On the thresholds of the doors, inside the
houses, in the middle of the streets, anywhere, everywhere, were old
fish, the heads of cattle, drying hides, all sorts of carrion, most of
it well decomposed. Back of the town was a low, rank jungle of green,
and a stagnant lake. The latter had a delicate border of greasy blue
mud.

Johnny and I wandered about completely fascinated. Talbot and Yank did
not seem so impressed. Finally Talbot called a halt.

"This is all very well; if you kids like to look at yellow fever,
blackjack, and corruption, all right," said he. "But we've got to start