Page:Life in Mexico vol 2.djvu/429

Rh sands, so that the pilots are chiefly guided by the surf.

Perched upon a sand bank was a regiment of enormous white pelicans, of thoughtful and sage-like physiognomy, ranged in a row, as if to watch how we passed the bar. Over many a drowning crew they have screamed their wild sea-dirge, and flapped their great white wings. But we crossed in safety, and in a few minutes more the sea and the bar were behind us, and we were rowing up the wide and placid river Panuco—an agreeable change. We stopped at the house of the comandante, a large, tall individual, who marched out and addressed us in English, and proved to be a native of the United States.

We stopped at a collection of huts, to let our sailors breakfast, where there is the house of a celebrated character, Don Leonardo Mata, a colossal old pilot, but who was from home at present. We amused ourselves by wandering along the beach of the river and making a collection of beautiful shells, which we left at the old pilot's house, to be kept there till our return. A sort of garden, attached to the house, is appropriately ornamented with the figure-head and anchor from a wreck. We got into our boat again and glided along the shores, on one side low and marshy, with great trees lying in the water; on the other also low, but thickly wooded and with valuable timber, such as logwood and ebony, together with cedars, India-rubber trees, limes, lemons, &c. On the bare trunk of a great tree, half buried in the water, sat an amiable-looking alligator,