ADVENTURING DOWN THE WEST COAST OF MEXICO 



501 



pelican would juggle the fish about so 

 that it would be headed south when he 

 opened his bill. Then he would cant his 

 head back over his shoulders and open 

 his bill, so that it would drop into his 

 pouch. 



Then the waiting gull would take the 

 fish and fly away. 



The pelican would sit on the water in a 

 half -dazed condition for a time. Then he 

 would set about the business of getting 

 another fish. It seemed to me that most 

 pelicans acted as though they were dis- 

 contented. 



Ducks are not delicacies at Mazatlan. 

 They are merely ducks. The Indians put 

 nets on the water during the night and 

 reap the birds when their feet are caught. 

 One buys one's duck alive in the market, 

 just as one does other feathered foods. 



There is no standard rating in the 

 markets on fish. One simply gathers up 

 what fish one wishes, puts down a few 

 copper coins, and moves on. 



MAKING THE ACQUAINTANCE OF "A GAME 

 LITTLE CODGER" 



After an arduous and adventurous trip 

 to the convict colony on Las Tres Marias 

 (see illustrations on pages 494, 495, and 

 497), in the Sin N ombre, a small Mexican 

 coastwise boat, one dawn found us in the 

 Bay of Miramar, a half -moon on the 

 coast of Nayarit. It was a perfect trop- 

 ical morning. To the left a white-pillared 

 house gleamed against the green back- 

 ground of the banana bush. White-clad 

 figures moved about it and a boat or two 

 was being run through the well-behaved 

 little breakers and a bell tolled. 



To the right the darker tones of the 

 foliage told of a jungle as yet untouched. 

 Parrots screamed overhead in a gossipy 

 flight from one horn of the crescent to 

 the other. On the beach a great crane 

 stood on one leg, waiting for his break- 

 fast to come to him, and grave pelicans, 

 their heads cocked back in absurd hau- 

 teur, flapped heavily along the green sur- 

 face of the inshore water as it sparkled 

 in the early sun. 



Xow and then a fish hawk of sorts 

 dropped like a thrown knife. He cut so 

 clean that hardly a drop was thrown in 

 the air, although he invariably sank his 

 tail feathers in his dive. Xor did he ever 

 come up without a fish. 



Porpoises dived and dived and dived, 

 until one tired of watching. A whale 

 spouted in the entrance to the bay, fish 

 leaped diamond-bright in the air, and 

 sharks' fins slipped by. 



Overside a little Indian w 7 atched me 

 courteously from a dugout canoe. He 

 lifted his hat when I caught his eye, and 

 expressed a pious wish that God would 

 guard me. That little Indian fascinated 

 me. He proved to be such a game little 

 codger. 



He and his two brothers were on hand 

 to lighter off bananas, for the water is 

 so shallow that even a piepan like the Sin 

 X ombre could not go within a quarter 

 of a mile of the shore. 



The dugout was a beauty. Its sides 

 had been fined down to the average thick- 

 ness of an inch, from one massive log, 

 and its lines could not have been bettered 

 by a Herreshoff. 



After the morning tortilla and coffee, 

 we broiled on the engine-house roof until 

 it appeared that banana lightering might 

 take hours ; then we went ashore. 



The gem-like manor-house proved to 

 be a German possession, and the war was 

 far from over at Miramar ; and so we 

 pushed on to the small inland village of 

 Santa Cruz. 



Pigs were asleep in the sun. The prat- 

 tle of children's voices came to us through 

 the interstices of the pole wall of the 

 school. A great sow, two lesser porkers, 

 and four dogs grunted and twitched and 

 fought fleas convulsively in the mild 

 draft of the school doorway. There were 

 wattled houses with high conical roofs, a 

 few tethered fighting cocks, some Indians 

 asleep, dust shoetop deep, and a swelter- 

 ing heat that was not relieved by even 

 the faintest breath of air, for Santa Cruz 

 is walled about by the jungle. 

 So we returned to the boat. 



INDIAN BOYS AS BANANA STEVEDORES 



As the sun rose the small Indian boy 

 had deleted his apparel, bit by bit, until 

 now he worked mother naked in the sun. 

 His job was to stand shoulder deep in 

 the water and hold the bow of the dugout 

 from floating out to sea while his elders 

 put the banana bunches aboard. Xow 

 and then he varied this by toting bananas. 



He always pulled a sturdy oar in the 

 journeys to and from the Sin X ombre, 



