During their endless, creeping approach to this island, it had become obvious that it must have a sort of dog-bone shape, since there was a hill, covered with dark green vegetation, at each end, and the town spread across the saddle between. It was oriented roughly north-south and the terrorists’ boats were anchored toward the southern end of the harbor, where the rafts of conjoined fishing vessels petered out into grids of floating fish farms. As they crept southward, the town abruptly ceased to exist and was replaced by inhospitable terrain consisting of ancient, weathered brown sedimentary rock sloping up out of the water to be colonized by olive-drab succulents on the lower slopes and a scruffy mat of green-black tropical vegetation higher up. Csongor remarked on the fact, which to him seemed odd, that in China some places were unbelievably crowded and others were totally uninhabited but there was no in between. Marlon thought it curious that anyone should find this remarkable. If a place was going to be inhabited, then it should be used as intensively as possible, and if it was a wild place, all sane persons would avoid it.