Page:Life in Mexico vol 2.djvu/433

Rh we made the most of our time, walking about the city, in which there is not much to see. There are many comfortable-looking large houses, generally built according to the customs of the country whereof the proprietor is a native. Were it not for the bar, which is a terrible obstacle, not only from the danger of crossing it, but from the detention that it causes, vessels having been stopped outside for months, Tampico would become a most flourishing port. Besides that the depth of water can permit vessels of burthen to anchor near the town, there is an interior navigation up the country, for upwards of forty leagues.

The banks of the river are described as being very beautiful, which we can easily believe from what we have already seen; but for its beauties after passing Tampico; its wooded shores dotted with white ranches, its large cattle-farms, and its picturesque, old Indian town of Panuco, we must trust to hearsay. The country in the vicinity is described as being a wilderness of rare trees, matted together with graceful and flowering creepers, the wild haunts of birds of bright and beautiful plumage; but our ardor to visit these tangled shrubberies was damped by the accounts of the myriads of xin-xins and garrapatos; little insects that bury themselves in the skin, producing irritation and fever; of the swarming mosquitoes—the horrid caimans that bask on the shore; and worse than all, the venomous snakes that glide amongst the rank vegetation. Parrots and butterflies and fragrant flowers will not compensate for these.