Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-07-12

o-war's man was .I s,.,, No., - No. r;,,
gone. 1t was tropic B...o
sun, come again. that
gave me the dream.
But wasn't the tropic sun that gave me the taste
had, the tonsils that had, and the parched palate
of me. figured sitting there, that extraneous
and foreign substance must have got into the mes
cal. 1t must have been that Whatever it was, l
have yearned for amphora of mescal since
/ sat up and rubbed my burning wicks on that first
morning the Acapulco beach Mescal is too
punitive. Once with mescal is more than a-plenty.
SITTING there then, with that memorable left
~ over. and gazing out blankly the heaving
sea- saw something that interested me. 1t was the
Mexican navy. lying at anchor. The Mexican navy
consisted of the nice little white yachthke hooker
called the Zaragossa. There she was, the Mexican
navy entire and complete. My man-o'-wars man
had pointed her out to the Mexican navy on
the previous evening. He had told me additionally
that the ZaragOsSa commanded by former
British naval officer, who, besides being high
browed, heavy weather son of galley cook, was a
relig ous person-so religious that he insisted
that there should be religious services board the
Zaragossa every morning before the Greaser sailor
men turned to.
so | sat and gazed at the Mexican navy. She
was anchored only about eight ships lengths from
where sat 1t was very soon after sun-up. saw
the sleepy little Greaser bueJacket hands assembling
on the Zaragossas main deck. Then the toy blasts
of teenchy ships trumpet sounded over the dane
ing waveets, and l saw the Zaragossa's buejackets
lining up in position on the main deck and stan ling
at attention. Then the commander OF the Mexican
navy, red bearded person obviously British
stalked out of his cabin with prayer book, or
missal, or brevary, something, in his hand. He
began to read from it, He hadn't read more than
half minute before heard din of awful squeaks
and gatherings and chipperings that seemed to
from the Zaragossa. The commander OF the
Mexican navy stopped reading from his book and
looked annoyed. The squeaking, which sounded
like Jungle debate between seven million parrots,
continued. The commander of the Mexican navy
looked still more annoyed He shut his book with
a bang and exploded. l couldn't hear what he was
saying; but it sounded like lot.
PRESENTLY the Zaragossa's little steam cutter
was lowered away from the davits No sooner
had the steam cutter reached the water than a
dozen bluejackets began to pile whole stack of
boxlike looking things into her stern sheets.
heap of noise from those bOX1ke looking
things they were being stacked up in the stern
sheets of the steam cutter. The steam cutters load
omplete after about fifteen minutes, and then
the cockson of the steam cutter climbed in took
tie wheel and headed her for little wooden landing
built into the water close to where / was sitting,
rubbing my mesca lid.
water, the squeaking and shrling grew louder.
When she drew alongside the little landing under
stood Each of the little boxhke contraptions-
and there were nearly two hundred of them-was
a wood and wicker cage containing busy and
profane parrakeet of emerald hue.
The cockson of the Zaragossa S steam cutter
himself former British man-o' wars / caught
him mumbing things in his beard about green bleed
and the like When the steam cutter tied up at
the landing and the Greaser blue jackets began to
stack the piles of cages the dock, l bulged over
to the cussng cockson and asked him about it
The howlin squallin, bloody sons O swabs!'