Page:Into Mexico with General Scott (1920).djvu/64

 the sand would be covered up. Neither man nor beast could face a norther, there in the open where the sand drifted like snow.

And the vomito, or yellow fever! Ay de mi! That was worse. It came in the spring as soon as the northers ceased and stayed all summer. Some days and nights it appeared like a yellow mist, rising from the lagoons of the coast and spreading toward the city; men and women and children died by the hundreds, even in the city streets, so that the buzzards feasted on the bodies. The City of the Dead: this was the name for Vera Cruz during the vomito season. Everyone who was able fled to the higher country inland, and stayed there above the vomito fog.

Until ten o'clock this night the American boats landed the American soldiers; by token of the twinkling lights and the distant shouts the beach was occupied for a mile of length, and the bivouacs extended back into the dunes.