CHAPTER V 



WATER's-EDGE in HAITI 



I had dived deep beneath the waters of Haiti; I 

 had climbed her mountains, horseback and afoot, 

 but I had not stopped halfway and looked with 

 any attention at the shore. I doubt if there is 

 really any more dramatic place in the world than 

 'tween tides. We usually pass it by with a com- 

 ment on high or low water, but if we will lie flat 

 on our backs just above high tide (because of our 

 unamphibian infirmity) we may see miracles. 



I picked out a clump of trees above a white beach 

 half a mile from the schooner and rowed thither. 

 They were my old friends the mangroves — the 

 red kind, Avicennia — whose roots by the thousand 

 kept saying "thumbs up." Back of a sandy strip 

 of beach I found an old boat sinking into the 

 elements of all boats, and climbing in I waited. 

 In five seconds a great cuckoo fell into my lap, 

 thrashed out again, leaving two tail feathers, and 

 flopped up into the branches overhead. Over all 

 the world cuckoos are remarkable for two things — 

 the astounding quality and diversity of their food 

 and the difficulty they have in making their wings 

 and tails behave. This was the great lizard-eating 



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