"I left in a French steamer, and she called in every blamed port they
have out there, for, as far as I could see, the sole purpose of landing
soldiers and custom-house officers. I watched the coast. Watching a
coast as it slips by the ship is like thinking about an enigma. There
it is before you--smiling, frowning, inviting, grand, mean, insipid, or
savage, and always mute with an air of whispering, 'Come and find out.'
This one was almost featureless, as if still in the making, with
an aspect of monotonous grimness. The edge of a colossal jungle, so
dark-green as to be almost black, fringed with white surf, ran straight,
like a ruled line, far, far away along a blue sea whose glitter was
blurred by a creeping mist. The sun was fierce, the land seemed to
glisten and drip with steam. Here and there greyish-whitish specks
showed up clustered inside the white surf, with a flag flying above
them perhaps. Settlements some centuries old, and still no bigger than
pinheads on the untouched expanse of their background. We pounded along,
stopped, landed soldiers; went on, landed custom-house clerks to levy
toll in what looked like a God-forsaken wilderness, with a tin shed
and a flag-pole lost in it; landed more soldiers--to take care of the
custom-house clerks, presumably.
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