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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Ambition has been dead in him. If he 

 has had a little patch of ground in which 

 to raise his corn and beans, and a pig or 

 two running about, he has been content. 

 To have more has in the past been a chal- 

 lenge to fate. A pauper might escape the 

 attentions of bandits or patriotas, but a 

 well-to-do Indian, living in a good house, 

 with horses and cattle and burros, as- 

 suredly would not. 



Likewise, the country has been about 

 as thoroughly developed as is possible 

 without the aid of foreign capital. Irri- 

 gation works on a grand scale cannot be 

 put in except through governmental or 

 banking aid, and capitalists have been 

 sheering away until Mexico's disposition 

 to play fair with the investor has been 

 demonstrated. 



MAZATXAN, THE CITY OF PARROTS 



It was at Mazatlan — heavily accented 

 on the final syllable — that we were 

 abashed by a parrot. 



There were parrots everywhere, of 

 course, from mere flashes of color to 

 middle-sized birds that talk, and on to 

 huge creatures that not only squawk, but 

 have a hideous intelligence. 



Indian men and women go about the 

 streets with them for sale in cages. It is 

 difficult to understand who buys them, 

 for the potential customers are poor as 

 poor, but the parrots sell. None of the 

 other street venders wear more contented 

 faces than those who deal in birds. 



During the rainy season at Mazatlan 

 the streets become torpid rivulets of mud. 

 As the pack-horses pick their slow way 

 over the uneven cobbles, the foul liquid 

 spurts from beneath their hoofs and 

 splashes waist-high on the house walls. 



As some measure of protection against 

 this mud bombardment, the pavements 

 have been elevated two feet or more 

 above the level of the street. The gallant 

 gives the wall to the fair or to the 

 stranger he wishes to honor. One crosses 

 the streets by stepping-stones. 



Marching along the pavement, one 

 meets the eyes of parrots roosting on the 

 swinging doors of the bar-rooms that dot 

 the main street. They make sounds like 

 corks popping. 



Our parrot was a fat, high-shouldered, 

 depraved bird who never spoke. He 



watched Mazatlan pass along the pave- 

 ment with a sour and cynical eye, but 

 when he saw us lie fluffed up his feathers 



and gave way to a fit of helpless laughter. 

 His body shook, his mean old eves half 

 closed, and his senile head laid on one 

 side, precisely as a vicious old man might 

 indulge in cruel laughter. 



At first we enjoyed it, hut later we be- 

 came self-conscious and angry. 



Not even the ten-foot snake that 

 served as rat-catcher in our hotel could 

 rival the parrot's fascination, though we 

 admired the snake for his business acu- 

 men. When he set up in business he dis- 

 posed of competition by first swallowing 

 the hotel's cats (see page 489). 



In the Indian tongue, Mazatlan is the 

 Place Where the Deer Come Down to 

 Drink, but it might well have been called 

 the Place of the Girls. 



Nor can pretty girls have a more dainty 

 setting. The residential district of the 

 town is set along the half -moon of the 

 Bay of Olas Altas, or High Waves, in 

 which the rollers from China come to 

 break upon the beach. 



Out in the bay is set a needle of rock, 

 just big enough to support a light, and 

 the crescent is edged and barricaded by 

 superb cliffs, along which a fine road has 

 been built from the abandoned fort at 

 one end to the shrine that tops a hill with 

 its cross at the other (see page 485). 



Culiacan had been of a dusty white, 

 save for the azure cathedral, but here the 

 houses are colored in blues and pinks and 

 browns that might almost be of Bologna. 

 These are no glaring colors, but washed 

 and faded out to a demure background 

 for the brilliance of the feminine display. 



The sex here is cheerfully inconsistent, 

 too. The grown-ups do not flirt, but the 

 very little ones on their way to school 

 withdraw very little powder puffs from 

 little vanity bags and tone down the high 

 lights on their little noses. 



MAZATLAN A PORT OP FUTURE 

 IMPORTANCE 



This will be an important Pacific port 

 when the works now in contemplation 

 are completed. Then large ships can 

 come in through the island portals that 

 protect the entrance. 



